This Election, Think About Our Families
If our province is prospering...
Why are so many Saskatchewan families being left behind?
Keeping families and vulnerable children safe and healthy should be a top priority for any government. And when a province is experiencing unprecedented economic prosperity, there's no excuse for leaving at-risk children and families behind.
So why do we continue to have a child welfare crisis in Saskatchewan?
Staff cuts in the face of growing need
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children coming into the care of the Ministry, as well as in the seriousness of the problems they face, but no corresponding increase in staff and resources.
At the same time, jobs are being lost as a result of the provincial government's plan to cut the public service by 15 per cent. In the last two provincial budgets, 74.7 positions have been eliminated from the Ministry of Social Services.
Foster care crisis
There just aren’t enough foster homes, so social workers struggle to find a safe place for children in crisis. Sometimes they have to drive kids to homes two or three hours away – taking up a huge portion of an average work day - and making it virtually impossible to keep up regular visits.
Without more staff and resources, vulnerable children will not get the care and attention they deserve.
Prevention programs cut
The elimination of a range of prevention programs has intensified the crisis.
In recent years the Ministry has done away with the Family Builders, Family Preservation, and Family Reunification programs. These services allowed staff to work intensively with families to help prevent the kind of crises that result in the removal of children from the home.
- Cut: Saskatoon Family Support Centre — offered a range of formal and informal family support programs, such as parent education, children’s services, nutrition programs, and group parenting sessions.
- Cut: Teen and Young Parent Program — provided advocacy, counseling, crisis intervention and adoption options counseling as well as a variety of other supports to help prevent crisis in families.
- Cut: Domestic Abuse Outreach Program — helped women and children in crisis. Over the years, it offered a unique range of services, from frontline advocacy to counseling and peer support.
- Cut: Sexual Abuse Treatment Centre — Regina-based program that offered counseling, assessments, group work, and services for children.
Government cut its own prevention programs with the goal of outsourcing that support work to community agencies. But, for the most part, community resources have not been able to fill the gap. The result is that children and families are put at risk.
Income Assistance services contracted out
Social services are human services. But increasingly, income assistance staff are being forced to contract out social work services to miscellaneous groups. That means workers can't build meaningful relationships with clients, or monitor their progress. For example, intake assessments for people with disabilities are being contracted out to a third party group.
Ministry of Social Services staff are educated, experienced and qualified professionals. Making it more difficult for them to work face-to-face with clients undermines their ability to make a difference in someone's life.
We need to stop taking the social work out of social services, and start supporting the workers who are trained and committed to helping vulnerable people.