HERE'S how child welfare will change in the next three years if Manitoba Children's Advocate Billie Schibler gets her way.
It will have more staff, lower caseloads, more supports for social workers and lower rates of burnout. Above all, it will shift from apprehending kids to preventing families from getting into a crisis in the first place.
Schibler has directed the province to establish a new model of care, based on a program in Alberta known as differential response. In layman's terms, that means going in to help families before they end up with so many problems the kids have to be taken away.
"If practice on the front end of child protection was all modelled after preservation and reunification, if all of it looked like that, we would be doing child welfare hugely different," said Schibler. "You would be available for those families, you would be able to emphasize and focus intensely your work on trying to build a healthier family unit."
In Manitoba, social workers aren't doing the jobs they were trained to do. Instead of working with families, they are overloaded just trying to keep track of all their cases and they never get to know their families well enough to figure out the best way to help them.
When families don't get the help they need, more kids end up in care.
Schibler also said the system needs help from the public.
"In some of these situations in these child deaths people did know and people did suspect (something was wrong) and everybody ran forward after the death and said this was happening," she said. "It shouldn't only be on the shoulders of the child welfare system in the end. Where is the response from the community at large?"
Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh said work has already begun on introducing the Alberta process and will be tested in some parts of the province early next year.
"Last year there were 7,200 children in care," said Mackintosh. "That's the population of one of Manitoba's cities. It's an extraordinary number and it speaks to the need for a different approach."
He said Minnesota and Alberta, both of which have similar prevention-based programs, have "shown demonstrably that it is reducing the number of kids in care."
A report on the Minnesota program showed families that were dealt with using the new approach were far less likely to have repeat reports of abuse or neglect and fewer of the families had their children placed in foster care.
It also saved money. Families that went through the new program had an average cost of $3,688 while families who didn't cost an average of $4,967.
Both the Alberta and Minnesota models are based on changing how families are assessed when they first come into contact with the system. Laura Alcock, director of the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act in Alberta, said when families are first contacted there is a rigorous safety assessment as well as an assessment of what strengths the family has.
Then a service plan is developed to help families where they need it most, whether that be parenting classes, a budgeting workshop or help planning meals.
In Manitoba, one of Schibler's biggest criticisms has been the lack of risk assessments done for kids, including all of those who died between 2003 and 2006. She has also been critical that service planning for families isn't done.
Alcock said between 1993 and 2001, the number of child welfare cases in Alberta more than doubled from 7,600 to 15,700. The Alberta Response Model was initiated in 2001, and by December 2004, the number of child welfare cases had dropped to 12,600.
Schibler said she is hopeful the changes will happen here, but said the key is going to be ensuring the province puts in place the resources to do it, including hiring more social workers.
"It's not complicated," she said.
Mackintosh has pledged $15 million over three years to implement the prevention model and there is additional money to hire more social workers.
The system is also getting a new computer system to better track cases and make it easier for social workers to complete their paperwork.
Elsie Flette, CEO of the Southern First Nations Child and Family Services Authority, said most kids and families, if given the right help, can stay together.
According to a national study on child welfare, one-third of the kids in care are there for reasons of neglect, not abuse, and almost a quarter are there because there is domestic violence in the home. Those are the families who can be helped, said Flette.
She also said the system can't be built around the extreme cases like Phoenix Sinclair because she isn't the norm and they make workers afraid to do their jobs.
"No one wants to see a child die," said Flette. "But there is a reality in child welfare. At some point you just have factors you can't control."
She said there is no way to safeguard against all mistakes because the system is run by people and they have to make difficult decisions and balance risk every single day.
Twenty-five-year veteran foster parent Cathy Wiebe said this isn't the first time people have talked about moving towards more prevention and changing how the system works.
But she is hopeful this time there actually may be some change because there have been improvements already in the last year.
Foster rates were increased for the first time in years --10 per cent in 2007 and another 10 per cent on Jan. 1, 2008 -- and the government implemented a new policy not to keep kids in hotels unless absolutely necessary.
"I get the really strong impression government is listening," said Wiebe. "I'm probably more hopeful now than I have been in a long time. It's not happening as fast as we want it to but we know fast doesn't always mean it's done well."
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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