Systemic Reform The Need for Centralization of Children’s Aid Societies Haiat Iman Systemic Reform 3 mins read August 1, 2018 / News / Systemic Reform / The Need for Centralization of Children’s Aid Societies The stories of 7-year-old Katelynn Sampson and 5-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin are heartbreaking. Both children died while in the care of Children’s Aid Societies (CASs) in Ontario. Katelynn Sampson’s body was found in 2008 by paramedics, having died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries at the hands of her guardians. Jeffrey Baldwin died of septic shock, caused by starvation, due to the negligence of his so-called caregivers, weighing only 21 pounds when he died in 2002. Poor communication and limited oversight of CASs are partly to blame for the deaths of Katelynn and Jeffrey. In the case of Katelynn, at least a half-dozen calls had been made to various CASs concerning her well-being, but Katelynn’s file was lost between two different CAS agencies; she died before a child protection worker ever made contact with her. For Jeffrey, CAS’s failure to check their own records led to the then toddler being placed with grandparents who had a lengthy criminal history of abusing their own children. In both cases, CASs were not aware of their errors until after the children were found dead. The deaths of these young children led to two separate inquests that resulted in the release of hundreds of recommendations to improve child protection services in Ontario. Some of these recommendations were incorporated into the new Child, Youth and Family Services Act (CYFSA), which came into effect on April 30, 2018. But were the changes enough? A commitment of the new bill was to improve information-sharing and communication between CASs. The government believes that its existing strategy of implementing the Child Protection Information Network (CPIN), an information tracking and sharing system for CASs, will be enough to mitigate several of the issues identified in the Sampson and Baldwin inquests. Enhancing information-sharing abilities between CASs should only be considered a starting point, however. The fundamental problems within the child welfare system go far beyond poor communication. The issues arising in Katelynn and Jeffrey’s cases are, to a great extent, merely symptoms of a system that is severely decentralized. Dissimilar to many other provinces across Canada, Ontario’s child welfare operational model is distinctively fragmented. Each of Ontario’s 49 CASs is run independently, similar to a franchise-model, with no standardized system of program delivery, siloed day-to-day operations, and unmanageable case-load numbers, which exacerbate communication and oversight challenges. If the government truly wants to make significant changes to the child welfare system, it should begin by reassessing the current operational structure of CASs. Exploring the feasibility of amalgamating all CASs into one provincial agency was a recommendation of both the Sampson and Baldwin inquests, which the government rejected. Without a centralized system with consistently-applied standards of care and coordinated service provision, children like Katelynn and Jeffrey will continue to fall through the cracks of a faltering system. The system as it stands is too fragmented – even when new legislation or policy directives are introduced, each organization has the power to interpret mandates differently, making barriers to oversight intractable. We cannot allow the passing of this bill to slow down momentum or advocacy efforts on behalf of the province’s most vulnerable children. The potential consequences of complacency and inaction are far too dire. By continuing to allow CASs to operate independently, the government abdicates its duty to care for the province’s most vulnerable children and youth and remains complicit in reinforcing the existing problems within the system. We need to demand that the government enact meaningful, systemic change. We can start by calling for deeper centralization of children’s aid societies. Share This Article
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