Study looks at child welfare spending

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/02/2019 (2559 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Taxpayers will spend ballooning amounts for First Nations child welfare if Ottawa doesn’t enable Indigenous people to create a more holistic system, according to a recent study.

“It’s effectively saying: you spend now, or you spend later,” said Helaina Gaspard, who led a study published this month by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy.

The report projects that in three years, Ottawa will be spending an extra $40 million to $140 million on top of the existing $1.3-billion annual cost for foster care on reserves, if the federal Liberals don’t find ways to prevent so many kids from ending up apprehended in the first place.

The research takes a deep dive at problems in how Ottawa structures funding on reserves across the country, including in Manitoba, which has the highest rate of kids in care. The report has multiple suggestions that could influence a looming federal reform of child and family services (CFS).

“There’s a mismatch between what communities, what agencies, want to see for their children and for their futures, and the way the child-welfare system’s currently funded.”

The IFSD is a respected economics think-tank at the University of Ottawa, overseen by Kevin Page, the former Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The Assembly of First Nations contracted the group to analyze CFS spending, as part of a decade-long human-rights tribunal case that has found Ottawa has racially discriminated against First Nations children.

The 375-page report constantly cites the role of poverty on reserves as part of the reasons children get apprehended, with reserve job prospects hampered by boil-water advisories and a lack of Internet access.

“Without a focus on creating greater equality within communities, the child welfare system will continue to support one-off interventions that do not address the root causes of poor outcomes for children,” the report concludes.

The report notes that bringing First Nations households up to their province’s poverty line would cost at least $205 million, while raising them to median household income levels would cost $2.6 billion.

It also gives a thorough look at how CFS agencies often operate on reserves.

Unlike regular towns, reserves operate under federal jurisdiction, meaning that Ottawa helps staff nursing stations and schools, but there are often fewer points of contact than the services that provinces offer. That leaves CFS agencies often serving as a one-stop-shop for families with any variety of social issue.

In addition to a comparative lack of funding, on-reserve agencies have scant volunteers, compared to those operating in the general public.

The current funding structure has case workers paid below provincial levels, transcribing hand-written notes on outdated computers, in buildings that are too small to run preventive programing — because funding is largely based on taking kids and placing them elsewhere.

Upgrading those buildings across Canada would require a one-time investment of $116 to $175 million. Meanwhile, brining computers and other IT tools up to standard would cost between $65 to $78 million per year.

Gaspard said not having adequate technology not only wastes workers’ time, but it prevents agencies from better planning their services.

She gave the example of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation near Thompson, which documents how many families have sought food or snowsuits, so the band can help supply items that locals may need, and the CFS agency can better plan its prevention programming.

The band council also controls all housing on the reserve, and has a rule where parents mistreating children are kicked out of their homes, letting relatives or CFS workers live in the house instead of displacing the child. Data suggest that has brought down the number of kids under CFS care.

Federal and provincial parties of all stripes have acknowledged a perverse incentive in how CFS agencies are funded, where most cash only kicks in when they apprehend a child. Many say it echoes Canada’s legacy of residential schools.

IFSD’s assessment calls for block transfers, which is when funding is allocated in lump sums instead of solely based on how many children are in care. The Pallister government announced last week it will move to something resembling that model — though it only funds children living off-reserve.

The report’s title, Enabling First Nations Children to Thrive, highlights First Nations’ call for a rethink in assessing CFS cases, moving away from current benchmarks on how well they’re protected, towards desired outcomes such as health and educational status. The idea is that agencies can set targets using those metrics, and channel funding into meet those targets.

To do that, the report suggests Ottawa create an arm’s-length secretariat to appraise CFS operations and needs, and carve out a designated funding pool for CFS within its budget allocations for Indigenous Services Canada (ISC).

That budget change would lock in an amount of cash that could be used allocated to prevention programs, instead of going untapped when the number of apprehensions is lower than expected. ISC responded last week that it is still going over the research and recommendations. The Liberals will table their next budget March 19.

Ottawa has pledged an overhaul of CFS with the goal of giving Indigenous people autonomy over those systems, but that legislation has been delayed among criticism from First Nations groups who believe they’ll still be beholden to provincial power.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has long pushed for First Nations to take full autonomy over CFS, arguing a bill it has drafted would fully devolve the system.

A year ago, Ottawa loosened its rules around CFS funding, enabling organizations to use their funding for things like prevention, building repairs and legal fees.

The AFN commissioned the report using funding from ISC, given after a 2016 human-rights tribunal ruling which deemed Ottawa was racially discriminating against First Nations children. That’s because for at least a decade, those kids were given less funding than what provinces offer off-reserve.

Ottawa filled that funding gap two years after that ruling, but the tribunal says the federal Liberals have more to do, issuing a seventh non-compliance order last week.

The research gathered feedback between last May and late 2018, and was published this month. It included all but two of Manitoba’s 15 federally funded CFS agencies. Gaspard will visit Winnipeg in late March to discuss her research with local CFS workers.

Ottawa has promise to improve the scant data on numerous aspects of CFS. For example, the last federal study on why children actually enter foster care was published a decade ago.

A separate costing report assembled by Manitoba’s First Nations CFS agencies, which the Free Press obtained last year, revealed an estimated $104-million annual shortfall in funding, split almost equally between Ottawa and the province. That funding gap amounts to $12,800 for each First Nations child.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Enabling First Nations Children to Thrive