What Now For Child Welfare?

One of the problems with a news cycle that thrives on the issues of the day is that while attention can quickly be focused on an important issue, that attention is rarely sustained past a few days. For some issues that may be ok, but there are things that are so important that they demand follow-up even after the cameras are gone and the attention has faded.

The state of the child welfare system in Manitoba is certainly one of those issues that continues to deserve attention. In early June, it came under intensive scrutiny when an internal report by the provincial Child’s Advocate was leaked. The report indicated that under the NDP government the child welfare system was in a state of “chaos”.

That rightfully drew a great deal of attention to the system. After all, the number of children who are in care in the province has grown in the past five years from 6,600 to 8,600. Those who work in the child welfare system often note that they are overworked in a highly stressful environment leading to fatigue and burnout.

The tragic deaths of both Phoenix Sinclair and Gage Guimond, who were supposed to be under the care of child welfare and who the system failed, are horrific reminders of what can happen when a child welfare system is not responding in the best interests of children.

Foster parents have expressed concern about how children in their care are handled and about the lack of communication around placement of children. For these reasons Manitoba Progressive Conservatives asked that there be a freeze put in place on moving children out of stable and secure foster homes until the child welfare system itself was stabilized.

While the NDP government bowed to opposition pressure and called the Child’s Advocate before a committee of the legislature to discuss her report and the child welfare system in the province, they have not indicated how it is they are going to address the chaos in the system. They have not provided any response to the concerns raised in the report or indicated what steps will be taken to address the problems.

In fact, the NDP have handled this problem the way they have handled so many others. They have simply defended the status quo and hoped that the public attention would soon fade away. While that may be the NDP’s preferred political strategy when dealing with issues of child protection, it certainly does nothing to improve a system which seems to be getting worse and not better. Just because the immediate attention is off, doesn’t mean the NDP should be content to do nothing to improve a system which is vital to protect vulnerable children.