Thank you, Mr. Chair. We agree with the Auditor General that all the foster homes must be appropriately screened, assessed, and reviewed, and also supporting documentation be placed in the files to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children in foster care. We do take a responsibility to ensure that we are placing children with properly approved, trained, and nurturing foster parents very seriously; however, compliance with the standards that would assess those various things as the Members have indicated was very low. The ongoing quality review process we've implemented will better monitor compliance to the standards that ensure proper assessments are completed prior to children being placed in a foster home, and allow for timely feedback to the front line staff.
New tools, Mr. Chair, are in place, Matrix NWT, which includes checklists, reminders, and approval processes. This will support improvements to the screening and monitoring of foster homes. Improvements to the staff and the caseload, as well as training for both staff and foster parents, will ensure supports are available for prospective and future foster parents.
Mr. Chair, the authority is taking a broader approach than improving the gaps found by the OAG in their screening reviews for foster homes, for example, the 37 files that have been raised previously. All open foster homes in the Northwest Territories are being reviewed in regard to addressing any gaps to ensure that children are being placed in homes with appropriate documentation and screening. The authority completed their first quality review for foster care service, which covered a three-month period. The authority is working with each region, the TCSA, and Hay River to develop and implement strategies to continue to make improvements and improve on compliance.
Mr. Chair, this recommendation, in my mind, also speaks to guardianship agreements and orders, and we accept that there was confusion and a lack of clarity in our standards around the role of child protection workers in supporting guardianship applications in the court. This one really is about helping keep Indigenous families together. This is something that I know the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh and I heard loud and clear when we travelled throughout the Northwest Territories on our initial review of child and family services.
To ensure due diligence in transferring guardianship from the director to a prospective guardian, a new standard has been developed that requires proper assessment to be completed in order to ensure the safety and well-being of childcare. The standard identified processes for assessing prospective guardians, financial support through voluntary support service agreements, requirements for ensuring guardians understand their roles, and for situations in which guardians return children to the care of their parents. With guardianship, it is the parents who are the key decision-makers in allowing their children to be placed with guardians.
We did seek legal advice on whether child and family services can screen new guardians, where permanent custody orders have been withdrawn and the guardianship order has been granted. For the cases identified in the Auditor General's review, the department cannot retrospectively screen guardians once a guardianship has been assigned through a legal agreement. Once the director is no longer the legal custodian of a child, Child and Family Services has no legal right to be involved with the family, unless there is a new child protection concern. This standard that we have developed is to make sure that we are doing our work on the front end, rather than having to come back at a later time.
We agree with the recommendation in principle. We look forward to making progress in this area. As it is a recommendation to government, Cabinet will be abstaining. Thank you, Mr. Chair.