Reflections on Child And Youth In Care Day
years ago the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed legislation that made every May 14th Children and Youth in Care Day. May 14th was selected to honour the landmark youth written report on life in care, My Real Lifebook” (https://ocaarchives.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ylc_report_eng.pdf) that was released on that date.
The hundreds of youth in and from care who contributed to the report wanted, demanded, a day set aside each year where those in and from care were acknowledged. They hoped that such acknowledgement would force the Province to recommit annually to changing an often unforgiving system that fails them.
Over 10 years the day has become one to “celebrate” children in care. There is no doubt that anyone with knowledge about how the child protection system works understands the strength, and courage of those living within it. Strength, courage and so much more are required of children in order to survive our attempts as a Province to protect and care for them.
There is something perverse , however, about those responsible for the very system that causes harm (more than 60% exit the child protection system with Post Traumatic Stress ) “celebrating” the children they serve for their “resilience” in surviving the harm that has been caused.
This would be ok, perhaps, if the “fundamental change”, My Real Lifebook called for was underway. This is not the case.
The report was divided into seven themes;
We are vulnerable
We are isolated
We are left out of our own lives
No one is really there for us
Care is unpredictable
Care ends, we struggle
And First Nations young people added;
We keep losing who we are
Let this sit with you. This is a description of the experience of children we all as a Province, through a Children’s Aid Society,(CAS) intervene in the life of a child, remove them from their families for their own safety and promise them love and hope.
It is absolutely true that there has been change over 10 years, hard fought and won by young people, change developed by concerned well meaning policy makers in bureaucracy and CAS staff in the field. It is also true that the old adage “the more things change the more they stay the same” holds firm. The seven themes describing life in care remain.
The Ontario government has been “redesigning” the child protection system for 6 years. 6 years!
The first step of this redesign was the elimination of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services (MCYS) . The very Ministry that should have been given more power to coordinate, convene and if necessary force other Ministries touching the life of a child in Ontario to work together to ensure every child has what they need when they need it in order to thrive.
The second step was to shutter the Office of the Ontario Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth. An attempt to silence the voices of children in Ontario most marginalized from their rights.
Redesign was then postulated under the premise that “life in care is no place for a child”. Rather than work towards fundamental change the government chose to present child protection workers with a hobson choice – bring children into a system which harms them or leave them in their families where there is absolutely no family support system. Child protection is not and can not be a family support system. Look no further than the situation of Mia. A suffering 16 year old girl who went to her local CAS asking to be brought into care, begging to be placed in a foster home. She was not heard. She was sent to a shelter. Having no where to turn Mia took her own life. https://www.ombudsman.
Today it would be fair to say that another theme could be added to My Real Lifebook by children encountering the child protection system. “We live in chaos”
Families are having to relinquish custody and care of their children in order to find them mental health support.
CAS is deciding to apprehend children with complex special needs because there are no community based supports to allow the parents to care for their child at home.
136 children connected to the child protection system died in 2022 – 2023 as reported by the Ombudsman of Ontario and the Coroner of Ontario. Reported with little or no description of the circumstances of the deaths nor any recommendations to prevent further deaths. 136 children dead ( a record number in one year) 132 voices silenced.
Reported by CUPE Ontario a combined deficit of over $50 million dollars and growing in the budgets of Children’s Aid Societies with some agencies having to meet payroll using lines of credit.
Agencies increasingly using unlicensed placements including hotels, Air BnBs, hospital rooms, even offices as “placements” for children as young as 3 years old. Told to us by determined front line workers in the system. A crisis growing while reports from the Ontario Coroner “Safe With Intervention” and the now defunct MCYS “Because Children Matter” in addition to the report from the former Office of the Child Advocate “Searching For Home” all providing solutions to avoid the crisis have sat gathering dust for over 6 years.
There is more. Much more.
This is the “data” that the Minister’s Office so enamored with evidence based practice has to consider.
This can not go on.
While we celebrate the strength of children in care, and well we should, this is the moment to recommit to them.
The government must immediately establish a more robust, stronger Ministry of Children and Youth to deal with the chaos they have created.
The government must immediately establish a Standing Committee of the Legislature on Children and Youth that would in part require bi-annually the Ombudsman of Ontario, the Coroner of Ontario and the Deputy Minister of Children and Youth Services to report on the death of children connected to child protection and the well being of all children in the Province
The government must support a process of creating a vision of services arrayed to ensure all children in Ontario find the support and belonging they need when they need it and all families, however constituted, find what they need when they need it to do right by their children. It is this task I will devote myself to. I invite you to join me.