Failure to ensure child-welfare workers meet standards a safety risk, professional regulator warns By: Carol Sanders Posted: 5:47 PM CST Friday, Feb. 9, 2024 Last Modified: 7:52 PM CST Friday, Feb. 9, 2024 Updates

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More than 10 years after the Phoenix Sinclair report recommended child-welfare workers be licensed and registered, many are not, raising concerns about the safety of kids in care.

“As social workers, we have contact with some of the most vulnerable people and we need to be accountable,” said Manitoba College of Social Workers registrar Barbara Temmerman. “And we need to be accountable to the public — not just to individual organizations that may or may not have standards that are recognized in our profession across Canada.”

The public expects that physicians, occupational therapists and other professionals have standards to meet and a college or licensing body making sure they’re upheld, she said.

Under the Social Work Profession Act that took effect in 2015, only social workers registered with the Manitoba College of Social Workers are allowed to represent themselves as social workers. It follows the 2013 Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry report that recommended mandatory registration for social workers in child welfare.

The $14-million inquiry examined Manitoba’s child-welfare system and the circumstances surrounding the 2005 death of five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair. The child, who was in and out of care during her short life, had been physically and verbally abused by her mother and her mother’s boyfriend in the period leading to her death.

The inquiry found social workers failed to keep tabs on Phoenix’s well-being and whereabouts, and often closed her file without seeing her. Inquiry commissioner Ted Hughes made 62 recommendations, including mandatory registration of social workers in child welfare as “an important tool for promoting accountability of social workers and delivery of services according to best practice.”

Hughes also recommended that the Social Work Profession Act be amended to require anyone who practises social work in Manitoba, under whatever title, be required to be registered with the Manitoba College of Social Workers.

Other government departments such as Health and Education are fully compliant with the Social Work Profession Act, with social workers required to be registered in order to practise in regulated settings, registration is still not a requirement for child-welfare agencies, said Temmerman.

“I think the government needs to make it a priority,” the registrar said.

“The public needs to know who they’re dealing with —if they’re being provided service by a licensed professional, if this person has a degree in social work, or a diploma in social services that may also be appropriate. Maybe they have no degree and are providing a different type of service. The public is not aware of that. That is our concern — there’s not transparency for the public right now,” said Temmerman.

“In my view, the government is acting in the interests of themselves as an employer more than they are acting in the interests of the public.”

Temmerman said she is “optimistic” that a new government will see the Families Department make the necessary changes to ensure registration of qualified social work staff “in order to increase accountability and transparency in the interests of the public.”

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine was not available for an interview Friday but in a statement, press secretary Hannah Drudge said, “The safety of children is our government’s top priority and we are committed to continued work with our partners to ensure children in care have reliable, professional support systems available to meet their needs.”

In December, the child-welfare agency worker who appeared at a bail hearing on behalf of a 14-year-old girl in care who, a day later, was stabbed to death in downtown Winnipeg, was not registered as a social worker, according to the college registry.

The teen’s case worker told a provincial court judge reviewing the girl’s release that she required a specialized placement but none was available.

Temmerman couldn’t say if having a licensed social worker in the troubled teen’s corner could’ve resulted in a different outcome.

“What I can say is that social workers, based on our code of ethics, do have an obligation to challenge and improve workplace policies, procedures and practices,” she said. “We do have a responsibility to endeavour to effect change if we do see policies and procedures are not meeting the best interest of clients.”

Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth Sherry Gott, a registered social worker who investigates child deaths — including the stabbed teen — said government needs to do more to prevent them from winding up in the child welfare system.

“Licensing may offer some benefits, but it still doesn’t address root issues connected to providing specialized placements for children and youth in Manitoba,” Gott said Friday.

Court heard that the Indigenous girl struggled with an addiction, was on a wait list for a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder assessment, frequently went missing from her previous foster home, and that without a safe, appropriate foster home she’d be released to an emergency placement.

“We’ve said many times we’re concerned about the lack of specialized placement for children in Manitoba and have shared these concerns with government on an ongoing basis,” Gott said, adding children have been sent out of province “on an ongoing basis” but she couldn’t say how many or for how long.

“I think we need to shift from a reactive state to a more proactive state and be more prevention focused….We need to look at inter-generational trauma, housing shortages the lack of addiction and mental-health supports for our children.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca