Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Services for Children in Temporary and Permanent Care

Transferring Guardianship of Children in the Care of the Director

The OAG found that in 22 cases CPWs, without the knowledge of senior staff in the authorities or the department, "worked with [children's] biological parents to transfer guardianship... to a family member or other person, who then were given full parental rights and responsibility." Significantly, when a guardianship agreement is completed, CFS cedes its right to act on behalf of (or for) the child in question.

At the time of the OAG's review, there was no related legislation or formal policies, standards, rules, or advice to guide CPWs in the matter of guardianship. Further, in the 22 cases reviewed by the OAG, only eight guardians had been screened, and one of the unscreened guardians later assaulted the child in their care. During the public hearing, the department also advised that half of these agreements have since broken down, meaning that CFS failed to achieve permanency for those children. Staff were also unable to identify how many of these guardians had been screened or otherwise followed up with since the audit was concluded.

Responding to these findings, the department stated that staff had "acted with good intentions." Similarly, during the public hearing, staff emphasized to Members that the agreements had been reviewed by legal counsel. Such responses appear to focus on legal liability rather than practical responsibility. That front-line staff considered such use of guardianship agreements to be part of their regular suite of tools, with senior staff unaware, suggests a considerable breakdown in communications.

Foster Care

Screening and Annual Reviews of Foster Homes

During the public hearing, the committee also considered authorities' failure to properly screen and review foster homes. Since 2014, "serious deficiencies in the screening and ongoing monitoring of foster homes [have] persisted": two-thirds of reviewed foster care files revealed that the home had not received an initial screening, including criminal record and reference checks, and that most files contained only incomplete annual reviews, largely because children were not interviewed.

Again, departmental staff were unable to identify how many of these foster homes had been appropriately screened and/or reviewed since the audit was concluded.

Persistent Deficiencies in Foster Care Monitoring and Support

The department must act to address severe gaps in permanency planning for children in care. Quoting from the OAG's report:

"In particular, HSSAs did not maintain the required regular contact with many of the children they had removed from homes and placed in foster care or other out-of-home placements. As a result, they had no way of knowing whether these children were receiving the care they needed. They also did not develop permanency plans for most of these children. In some cases, this contributed to children moving between foster care homes multiple times. Such frequent moves make it difficult to provide children with stability and support."

An "Early Warning System" for Children in Care

During the public hearing, the department told the committee that its new information system, MATRIX NT (which is new and was not part of the OAG's audit), would enable staff to quickly and effectively "track children who make multiple [moves], which will trigger a quality review."

This type of "early warning" mechanism for children in care is necessary not only to track the movement of children in care, but system-wide. The department must be able to identify common "pinch points" in the CFS system, then intervene before children themselves are harmed. The committee hopes that new tools, including MATRIX NT and SDM, will prove useful. We also counsel the department to provide regular adequate training, including refresher training, to staff and to ensure that "boots on the ground" action accompanies all "tabletop" data analysis.

The System for Delivering Child and Family Services

Assessment of Required Financial and Human Resources

The OAG "found that the department had still not determined the financial and human resources required to deliver child and family services and had only started to assess what was needed toward the end of the audit period." The OAG also found that authorities' CFS funding was "based on historical amounts dating back to 1998" and that the daily rate paid to foster parents has only recently been increased for the first time in 10 years. The OAG also noted that, outside Yellowknife, authorities still did not employ family preservation workers.

None of these issues are new. The recommendation that the department do this work has been made and reiterated for the past 18 years. That it remains unaddressed has significant continuing implications. Without a clear understanding of what is needed, the department cannot assess the value or impact of staff vacancies, make appropriate budget proposals, identify the positions and skillsets needed, or implement initiatives to resolve longstanding issues. Such a needs assessment would also need to account for the unique challenges presently facing the system, for example, the demographics of system users, or the OAG's finding that 80 percent of children's files identified alcohol or drug misuse as a factor, while 50 percent identified domestic violence, which itself is more likely to negatively affect women. Appropriately resourcing the department's ambitious two-year quality improvement plan will be key to its success.

At the public hearing, departmental staff told the committee that an assessment of resource needs would be presented as part of the 2019-2020 budget. This assessment has yet to be considered and assessed. However, the committee is troubled that it appears that increases to CFS will be partially funded through reductions to other health and social services functions, including a reduction of homecare. Without a detailed resource needs assessment, money alone will not solve the problems facing CFS, and certainly not money reallocated from other departmental priority areas.

Recommendation 11

The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services incorporate into its quality improvement plan for child and family services a clear commitment to complete the assessment of financial and human resources required to deliver child and family services, as recommended by the Auditor General of Canada;

That this assessment incorporate gender-based analysis, e.g., via the Gender-based Analysis Plus tool;

That the department share with the committee its project plan for this work, developing subsequent timelines in discussion with the committee; and

That the quality improvement plan for child and family services be revised and re-released to reflect this assessment upon its completion.

Mr. Speaker, I pass this back on to the Member for Kam Lake. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.