Child and Family Services set for 'transformation'
Health and Social Services unveils action plan after scathing Auditor General Report
Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 20, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Department of Health and Social Services is overhauling Child and Family Services after the Auditor General of Canada released a scathing report on the program in March.
Andy Langford, executive director of territorial social programs, unveils an extensive action plan to transform Child and Family Services on Oct. 16. The plan includes increased accountability practices, a different model for delivering child protection services and a $3 million dollar revamped information management system. - Randi Beers/NNSL photo |
The department hopes to make improvements with a revamped $3 million information management system, the implementation of quarterly reports and annual audits, supervisor training and a different approach to the assessment of new cases.
The action plan is based on more than 100 recommendations made by the Auditor General of Canada and two legislative assembly standing committees - some of which go back five years.
In 2009, the Standing Committee of Social Programs made 73 recommendations to Child and Family Services, including 13 that were directed toward amending the Child and Family Services Act.
The legislative assembly is currently drafting amendments to the act, which it anticipates will be tabled by June 2015.
Andy Langford, executive director of territorial social programs, addressed this stagnancy as he introduced the action plan at a press conference on Thursday.
After initially retiring from public service in 2007, Langford accepted an invitation to come back in 2012.
Upon his return, he said he was "struck by one thing - the fact that fundamental issues had not changed."
He then unveiled the program's approach to transforming child and family services.
One of the fundamental changes will be a new model for child protection workers to use to assess new cases.
The new approach will differentiate between neglect and abuse, with cases of abuse resulting in an investigation and cases of neglect resulting in assessment and offers of support for the household.
"Of all the 12 initiatives contained in this plan, the one that is going to lead to the greatest proactive change on the ground is this new methodology for risk management and response," said Langford.
"Investigation and assessment set a different tone for what happens next."
Langford also announced Child and Family Services has gotten approval to spend $3 million over the next three years to build a new information management system. He said the current system is 15-years old and technically "way out of date."
According to the Child and Family Services Action Plan, the department issued a request for proposals to develop a new system in May, but "the sole proponent to the initial (request for proposal) did not fully meet the required qualification" so the request has been re-issued.
Child and Family Services is also committing to quarterly reports, an annual compliance audit and an updated mandatory supervisor training program.
Langford said he doesn't expect any of these changes - outside the updated information management system - to cost the department any extra money.
"In my view, we are positioned to actually succeed in making substantive changes and I can't see us having been this well positioned in my entire career in public service, which spans 30 years," he said.
Child and Family Services will be implementing these initiatives over the next three to five years.
There are currently 142 children within the NWT foster care system.
