Rebecca Ataya: Agencies that serve, push for adequate long-term funding for the vulnerable
By Rebecca Ataya
Most British Columbians would say they care about children.
Not just their own. We’ve agreed, as a society, that when children and youth need help, and their families can’t provide it, it’s up to us.
Sadly, we’re not doing a good enough job. This election campaign is an important chance to press all candidates and parties for specific commitments on services for children and youth.
The good news is that we know what needs to be done to help families and children through tough times. We know effective, timely supports can change lives—and avoid the huge future costs that come when problems are ignored.
But, we haven’t acted on that knowledge. This has been tragic for some children, families and communities; particularly when families are struggling to provide safe, appropriate care for their children, and the state steps in to protect and support those families.
Some families need help developing better parenting skills. Some have to face addiction problems. Children might need counselling, or treatment for behavioural issues. Many are struggling with the impacts of living in poverty, or parenting with a chronic health condition. The range of needed services is enormous.
The children’s ministry receives more than 30,000 “protection reports” a year—warnings that a child might be at risk of abuse or neglect. In the most extreme cases, children are taken into government care. Some 8,000 children are in care today.
Oftentimes ministry involvement is focused on linking families with help and support so they can be successful. And that support is provided by community social service agencies across the province.
Quick access to services can help families overcome problems, the ministry report notes, and “prevent families’ challenges from becoming entrenched.”
Those of us who work in the community social services sector are only too aware of the problems undermining that approach.
For many families, quick access to services is impossible. Funding for agencies has been frozen or cut, while demand for services has increased dramatically. Waiting lists have grown. Problems become more serious while desperate families can’t get the help they need.
That’s wrong. And it’s wasteful. As a society, we will pay far more in future because we aren’t providing needed support to children and families today.
We are failing in other ways. Parents know, for example, that their children need continued support as they grow into adulthood—help with school costs, a safe home, support, and encouragement.
Yet youth in government care are denied that support. On their 19th birthdays, they are basically left to fend for themselves.
The results are predictable. The Ministry of Children and Family Development released a report this month that found almost half of youth who “aged out” of care were on income assistance within six months.
That’s a grim life, with an income of $610 to $906 a month. (The higher rate is for people with disabilities; a majority of youth leaving care qualify.)
Attending school, finding work and a place to live, staying healthy—they are all difficult, perhaps impossible, for an unsupported 19-year-old.
The ministry recognizes the problem, and is looking for ways to extend support. But it lacks a clear mandate and the needed resources.
We know that small supports can encourage those youths to stay in school, help them find safe housing, provide life skills, and prevent bad decisions.
So far, we haven’t acted.
Part of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding. People tend to think government, especially the children’s ministry, delivers the needed services. And government does play a large role, particularly in areas like child protection.
However, community-based agencies and foster parents deliver many of these government-funded services.
People facing these kinds of problems tend not to be effective advocates. Their focus is on getting through the crisis. And there remains a stigma around the whole issue of struggling to provide adequate care for your children.
So it’s up to the rest of us. Ask your local candidates to commit to adequate long-term funding for these vital services. Push the parties for specific answers about what they will do to ensure services for family and youth are available when and where they are needed.
It’s easy to say we care about children. But what’s needed today is action, not more words.
Comments
6 Comments
DeceitinDrugs
May 3, 2013 at 3:55pm
It is beyond comprehension, how, the people entrusted
to care for the most vulnerable children are O.K. with
passing these children from foster home to foster home.
Instability is the last thing, neglected children need
and they just want to belong and be loved and cared for.
It is, also, hard to understand how people will sign up for foster care...it should be a long term commitment..and not bail out, when things get tough..we are talking about children.
The entire ministry of children and families needs a major overhaul.
M. Jones
May 3, 2013 at 9:07pm
If the Ministry of Child and Family "Development" only takes children in "extreme" cases, WHY have they taken Ayn Van Dyk when they have admitted that her father - Derek Hoare - is a good father, and WHY did they take the Bayne children when their own lawyer advised against them taking the children into "care" (what an abused word that is, since so many children in "care" end up on the street, committing suicide, abused, killed, etc.).
What MCFD needs to do is to butt out and leave families alone, or help them, but stop taking kids from families just because the family has an autistic child or has the audacity to go to the doctor with an undiagnosed illness. What people need to realize is MCFD has way too much power, and - as always - it is corrupted by that power.
Quit sales pitching, and tell the truth. MCFD is tearing apart far too many good families, and not really interested in saving ones that really need help.
Batiar48
May 3, 2013 at 9:26pm
You must be kidding, lady. MCFD annual budget is $1.355 BILLION. REPEAT, BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR. It's 35.5% more than what the BC Liberal Party government sold BC Rail for. Don't you see that MCFD is a stinky political failure trying to justify its existence? I'll tell you more. "Only" $350 million per year is needed to keep all the Ministry up and running and over ONE BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR goes to outsiders, mostly courts, lawyers, foster and group homes, adoption agencies, different "shrinks" and pharmaceutical companies by drugging removed children with huge doses of antipsychotic and psychotropic drugs, just to name those few things. MCFD destroys those young lives without suffering any serious consequences. It's time to dismantle the present system and establish a new one ruled by full transparency, mandatory video and audio recording of all interactions between MCFD employees, parents, children and law enforcement agencies as well as with healthcare professionals and lawyers.
M
May 3, 2013 at 9:37pm
I agree , Parents need help to take care of thier own children instead of foster care. Foster care has becoem a racket in which children are taken from good parents who jsut need a little mpore help. It is immoral to take children and put them in foster care when the paretns are good paretns and jsut need support
Breanne Locke
May 4, 2013 at 12:35am
I would have to agree with "M" as stated above. Instead of removing children from loving parent(s) that might only need short term help or might be having a mid life hiccup it would serve society better if the money that now goes to children in care when into family preservation. Over time you would see poverty come down, crime from creating future criminals from foster homes down, and increase percentage of over all graduates. Rather than the present systemic years on year increase of children in care over the past 20 years like never before. Stop and think why now what in society has changed so bad in the past 20 years to justify this up swing in child removals and are they try justifiable. In the very least I would not allow the very ministry that removes children to also adopt them that smells to much like collusion. Especially when if you dig a little you find that the Ministry of Child and Family Development actually profit from adopting children in care and who gets that money general revenue or the Ministry itself?. That in itself leaves one to ponder. I would add one final thought if you go into any MCFD office you will notice that 75% of the unionized workers do not even have professional social worker designations they are exempt from joining and they are un married women between 26 and 34 years of age with little empathy of what real life in like. Take it for what it is or is not your choice if you say or do nothing.
j
May 4, 2013 at 7:23pm
Agreed with evryone else here, MCFD take children with little to no investigation.they constantly tear families apart and alienate parents from their children taking away all rights and provide very little visitation access. MCFD wont even let you have access to your childs information because they claim that the child isnt in your custody and there for you have no rights to their personal information. MCFD needs to be shut down, corruption at its best. disgusting what they do to families. DISGUSTING!