A newly-released report that looked at how many children and youth in care were placed in hotels during one 12-month period surely underlines the need for a major overhaul of the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
The report, done by both the ministry and the Representative for Children and Youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, reveals that 117 children and youth in care in B.C. were placed in hotels from November 2014 to October 2014.
The tragic death of Alex Gervais, who fell to his death on Sept. 18 during a 49-day stay at an Abbotsford Hotel, triggered the review. But concerns about youth at risk who were being placed in hotels, were not new ones.
Turpel-Lafond had raised the issue before and had been told that it was rarely done, and only with knowledge and consent of senior care staffers or bosses. Apparently that was untrue.
Not only was the use of hotels twice what Turpel-Lafond thought it was, but the ministry is still defending the use of hotels.
This all begs the question of why the government even bothered to have Bob Plecas deliver a detailed report on the state of the ministry late last year.
Plecas called for a dramatic increase in funding for the ministry, more staff training, better communications and at least an 11-per cent raise in pay for front-line child protection workers.
The government’s reaction at the time? They’ll have to look it over and take some time to figure out how they would implement Plecas’s recommendations.
No promises.
The report was surely no surprise to Christy Clark or the minister in charge of the ministry. These are not new problems.
Not only has the government not increased funding to the ministry or made significant changes to it since it was elected – it has actually cut funding and avoided any plans to solve the problems. Stalling, sidestepping and sweeping things under the carpet, seems to be the strategy for dealing with problems in the ministry.
If it weren’t for Turpel-Lafond, we’d probably never find out what’s going on.
Now we could be wrong in assuming that the government’s past behaviour is any indication of its future behaviour.
Perhaps it will take Plecas’s report to heart and unveil a thorough and fully-funded four-year-plan to remake the ministry into a truly “families first” model.
It could happen. The odds just aren’t high.
