Families minister receives initial report on Link services

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This article was published 06/04/2023 (1222 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government has received an interim report concerning service delivery and financial accountability at one of the province’s largest child welfare service providers.

On Thursday, Families Minister Rochelle Squires said Deloitte has filed an interim report from its review of the Link (formerly Macdonald Youth Services).

The minister said during question period she is reviewing it.

The province hired a third party to look into the provincially-funded agency that helps youth and families in crisis, after employees raised allegations against the executive and board at the taxpayer-supported agency.

According to the Manitoba government’s families department, the review is limited to “services, management and financial practices… (It) will not investigate individual claims of employee harm or wrong-doing.”

With the report’s limited scope, questions are being raised about how much good it will do.

“It’s completely cutting out all the most important questions,” Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, who has addressed the issue in the Manitoba legislature several times, said after question period Thursday.

The report will likely fail to address some of the most serious concerns raised, Lamont said.

“Those auditors have their hands tied because they’re not going to be able to look at the things that matter,” he told reporters. “How many times do things have to go wrong in CFS in Manitoba for the government to take it seriously?”

The Manitoba advocate for children and youth is also looking into concerns about the Link first raised by a group of employees in January in a letter to Squires.

Three workers who later spoke to the Free Press claimed there is a crisis at the Link impacting the quality of service.

The group said it wants the agency’s executives to be replaced by Indigenous-led leadership, given about 80 per cent of its clients are Indigenous.

The group also demanded an independent investigation and financial audit.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca