Seven months after a Morinville toddler was killed while under the care of foster parents, the province has adopted 10 recommendations aimed at better serving at-risk children, youth and families in the province’s Child Intervention System.
The Ministry of Children and Youth Services ordered the review in July 2009 after a 21-month-old girl died while in foster care. Her foster mother was later charged with second-degree murder.
Some of the recommendations brought forward by a panel of specialists from across Canada include increased transparency and accountability, as well as the creation of a Child and Family Service Quality Council to assess service quality and make its findings available to the public.
“As we move forward, changes will be made using a thoughtful, planned and measured approach,” Yvonne Fritz, Minister of Children and Youth Services, said in a statement last week.
“We will continue to engage our stakeholders and our aboriginal community to ensure we are taking the right steps, at the right time, to provide better outcomes for our vulnerable children and youth and their families.”
A number of the recommendations address the inequity faced by aboriginal children and youth who make up two-thirds of those in the system.
Donald Langford, executive director of the MĂ©tis Child and Family Services Society, said that rather than working with families to provide support, too many aboriginal children are being removed from their homes.
“I think they fail right at the very beginning. They fail by apprehending too many children, and when they apprehend they don’t work with the families to change the system,” said Langford.
“We do have some successes but a lot of times it’s the systems itself because they’re not addressing the family needs. Once the child is apprehended, the parents are pretty well forgotten and nobody really makes an effort.”
In Alberta, intervention services are offered through one of two programs — the Family Enhancement Program (FEP) or Child Protective Services.
FEP encourages parents and families to work directly with program workers and community resources to address the issues that first brought them to the attention of Child and Family Services. Protective Services are needed when a parent cannot adequately protect a child from abuse and neglect and when a child’s safety and development is at risk.
“Family Enhancement was made to keep children in the families and to help families through these difficult times. Unfortunately, what’s happening is that rather than doing the family enhancement side, they prefer to apprehend and put the kids in foster care,” Langford said.
“They don’t appear to make the effort to work with the families to get their lives back together again, and I think that’s what’s missing.”
According to the Edmonton and Area Child and Family Service Authority’s (CFSA) 2008-09 annual general report for Region 6, which includes St. Albert, there has been a significant drop in the number of times Family Enhancement is being used. At the same time, the agency has seen a significant rise in the number of assessments being completed.
There has also been a noticeable increase in the prevalence of family violence, according to CFSA staff.
Langford said very little has improved during the 12 years he’s worked in the system.
He said he would like to see a certain ratio of aboriginal workers in contrast to the number of aboriginal children in the agency. He also recommends aboriginal awareness training for non-aboriginal workers in the system.
In its response to the inquiry, the government vowed to enhance capacity and cultural competency of the system to serve aboriginal children and communities and to establish a process to collaboratively address First Nations people in the child intervention system.
In addition, the government said it would like to improve the ability of aboriginal-led agencies to provide services for aboriginal people in off-reserve communities.
Region 6 is currently experiencing the fastest growth in the urban aboriginal population in all of Canada.
