IN January, Sally Oxford left her job as an intake worker with Winnipeg Child and Family Services.
She still hasn't been replaced.
Oxford (not her real name) is a 19-year veteran of the system. She was so committed to the care of children that, even after a heart attack brought on by the stress of her job, she was determined to return to the trenches.
In child welfare, no one dares say R-word
Defence of devolution
Her longtime work partner talked her out of it.
Cameron McCorrie says most child welfare workers are absolutely strained to their limits.
Oxford feels compelled to peel back the veil of secrecy that shrouds the child welfare system. She requested anonymity only because she has an adult daughter working in the same field.
She's afraid her child will be fired due to her honesty.
"It's very short-staffed," she says glumly, sitting at her kitchen table. "There are supposed to be six intake workers in each of the four units. I know Central (unit) only has two workers. Two left. They were seconded (to aboriginal agencies) and haven't been replaced."
She says short-staffing and poor training are harming children in care.
"It's chaos. It's total chaos. We're going down. Children are going to die."
Devolution, she thinks, was the worst thing that could have happened to the system.
"It's too political. You're supposed to avoid apprehending children at all costs. You're told to find family, find friends, find neighbours. We all said, 'children are going to die.'
"No one's checking the neighbours. We're just asking if they'll take the kids. We ask the grandmother to take the kids. She lives in Berens River. Is anyone actually checking the home?"
Oxford concedes that many of the problems in the system aren't new.
"We used to say that children weren't really missing. They were missing temporarily. I'd be told a child was in a hotel and they wouldn't be there. They'd be at an emergency shelter instead."
She frowns when asked whether the system can be fixed.
"It just scares me that they just continue to go on without the staff to do the job," she says.
MIKE McKenzie is also a veteran of Child and Family Services. He started his career as an intake worker in 1980 and moved up the ladder. When he retired three years ago, he was the director of the residential care licensing program for the province.
The former hockey player has little good to say about the state of child welfare in Manitoba.
"The biggest single problem to me is how it developed along racial lines," he says. "It should be about the kids. My belief is in the protection of child whether they're black, red, white. I think children are being returned to risk because of race."
He, too, says the system was flawed the entire 23 years he was employed.
"Devolution was well underway when I left," he says. "But I'd already witnessed a lot of things that weren't working well in my time."
McKenzie believes the province rushed pell-mell into devolution without ensuring staff were trained properly, that there were enough staff in place and that standards would be enforced uniformly.
"Some kids went from stable foster homes to places where they simply weren't safe. This was supposed to protect them from cultural genocide. Instead, some of these kids were horribly abused," he insists.
"The risk assessment skills for workers are critical and many people just don't have them. They haven't been properly trained."
In an hour-long interview, McKenzie ticks off the perceived flaws of the system.
People can be hired as social workers without proper training, he says. Standards for foster parents fluctuate madly, he claims.
"If you're upright and walking that seems to be enough," he scoffs.
But McKenzie saves his harshest criticism for those who abuse children.
"I've seen the marks on children," says this bear of a man. "I've seen the sexual abuse of kids 12, 13 months old. I've seen situations of horrendous abuse. These are the children we need to protect."
CAMERON McCorrie finally couldn't face any more of those damaged children. He quit CFS in 2004, leaving his post as an after-hours emergency services intake worker.
He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after spending 10 years as a social worker. He still weeps and stammers when he talks about his former job.
"The way the system is set up, children will still get hurt. They will still die. They will still get physically abused or sexually abused. We aren't doing enough."
He says most child welfare workers are good people who are absolutely strained to their limits.
"I never ever met the standards (of client management) set out by the province. There was never enough time. You're supposed to meet with a child in care once a month. That was completely impossible."
When he was still a CFS worker in the Beausejour area, he was juggling 35 cases and travelling from place to place.
McCorrie admits he lied and broke rules while in the employ of CFS. He says it was all to help children.
"There are special rates for foster parents," he says. "I would make things up. I would make a child seem worse than he was so I could get a better rate for the family. Otherwise, they couldn't give the kids what they really needed."
McCorrie says what finally did him in was the abuse of children.
"I seen too many kids getting hurt," he says. "People drive down Main Street and they lock their doors. They don't know what's going on. They don't see that kids are living in Third World conditions. I just couldn't take it anymore."
lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca
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