On Tuesday, the auditor general of Nova Scotia, Kim Adair, released a report on how well children are cared for when they’re at their most vulnerable: when they’re taken into temporary emergency arrangements or child and youth care homes. How does this happen? The provincial Children and Family Services Act determines when and how children at risk of harm or neglect can be placed in the custody of the minister of community services. The Children and Family Services Act is reviewed every four years, with 2024 being a review year. The law enables the minister of community services, currently Brendan Maguire, to intervene on behalf of children who are at risk to arrange for a safer situation, “to be used after other options [are] exhausted or the needs of the child cannot be met elsewhere,” says Tuesday’s audit.
Such placements include temporary emergency arrangements–meant to last four days–foster care and child and youth care homes.
Temporary emergency arrangements–or TEAs–and child and youth care homes are “only to be used after other options [are] exhausted or the needs of the child cannot be met elsewhere,” says Tuesday’s audit.
However, Adair concludes that based on her audit, “the Department of Community Services is not adequately overseeing child and youth care homes or adequately assessing and managing risks related to temporary emergency arrangements,” both of which conclusions can potentially put “already vulnerable children at greater risk of not receiving proper care.”
So, what are temporary emergency arrangements–or TEAs? First, they’re not licensed or inspected by the province, unlike child and youth care homes. TEAs are described in the audit as “two-on-one care for children that is intended to be used for a short period of time while the department works to find foster care or a child and youth care home for the child.” By definition, they’re not meant to be long-term solutions. However, between the audit period of Apr. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2023, 227 children were placed in TEAs, with an average stay of 252 days, or over eight months.
Three types of TEAs are listed in the audit, along with their usage during the audit’s period:
- A family member or other person with an established relationship to the child (33 children were placed in this type of emergency care between Apr. 1, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2023)
- A community-based program, not licensed by the department, such as a transition house, emergency housing shelter or a detox centre (the audit doesn’t list any numbers for these types of stays, saying these are no longer used by the department of community services)
- A contracted service provider (227 children were placed in this type of emergency care between Apr. 1, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2023)
“Contracted service providers deliver temporary emergency arrangements, including caregivers, to look after one child 24 hours per day, seven days per week,” says the audit. As of October 2023, the audit lists the four contracted service providers of TEAs for the department: Arden Professional Client Care, Specialized Support Service of Nova Scotia, Alternative Programs for Youth and Families and Colchester Community Respite Services. However, because “these homes are not licensed by the department, [they] are not inspected like child and youth care homes.”
Arden Professional Client Care, a private, third-party service provider, was responsible for 83% of children in TEAs during the audit’s period. Service providers say the number of TEAs is declining and that, as of Apr. 2, 2024, there were only 35 TEAs being used, with six new arrangements made in the first three months of 2024. However, their usage has trended upward over the past five years. From 2017-18 to 2022-23, the number of TEAs approved by the department of community services increased from 36 to 138, or roughly 283%, while the cost of these services to the department rose from $4.6 million to $27.9 million, or more than 500%, over the same period.
“Temporary emergency arrangements are necessary in some situations, but our audit work shows the province’s growing reliance on these interim measures,” says Adair in her audit. “Their use is becoming more frequent, and children are not staying in these for short periods of time, at a significant cost to the department.”
What is causing this uptick? TEA service providers listed the following reasons, to Adair:
- fewer foster parents, resulting in more children in both TEAs and child and youth care homes.
- More children with complex needs and behaviours that exceed the level of care provided in a foster home or a child and youth care home.
- Child and youth care homes not accepting placements or making unplanned discharges, creating the need for a TEA until a placement can be found.
- More TEAs were needed to safely house children in response to COVID-19 outbreaks.
Adair says that, “as the number of temporary emergency arrangements increase and children remain there for long periods, there is a risk they are no longer a temporary solution for the child until a licensed placement option can be found. Since temporary emergency arrangements are not licensed and regularly inspected by the department, there could be additional risks to the health and safety of children.” One additional risk is that social workers were not having enough contact with children in TEAs as per the department’s standards, says the audit.
“Social workers need to have regular contact with children in temporary emergency arrangements…to thoroughly assess the well-being of the child and plan for their care,” says Adair in her audit. “The gaps in contact with both the child and the service provider, combined with incomplete unannounced visits to temporary emergency arrangements, may make it difficult for social workers to be fully aware of the condition of the home and the child and the quality of care the child is receiving.
The department of community services says they agree with all five recommendations from Adair related to TEAs and that they’ll address each one by September 2025.
However, the issues identified in the audit around inadequate social worker check-ins are present in both TEAs and child and youth care homes across the province.
Along with auditing TEAs, Adair looked at the care provided to vulnerable children in child and youth care homes across the province during the same period. There are 150 spaces of this kind across Nova Scotia. These include both government-run and third-party licensed care providers, with care being split between government and private service providers roughly 50/50. As opposed to TEAs, these homes are all licensed and inspected at least twice per year.
During the audit period from Apr. 1, 2021 to Mar. 31, 2023, 271 children were placed in child and youth care homes, “with many of these children moving between different homes,” Adair says. Children in these homes ranged from 3 to 18 years old, with the average age being 14 years old. The average length of stay in these homes was 240 days.
Of the audit’s 15 recommendations regarding the functioning and monitoring of children in child and youth care homes, the department of community services agrees with all 15 and says they’ll address all by September 2025.
Minister Maguire issued a statement in response to Adair’s audit, saying “the report highlights what we already know–we need to be better at documenting our work and our actions. The nature of the work can mean things are changing quickly and that can result in work that is considered normal practice–like checking in with a child in care on the phone or via text–not being documented.
“To all families and young people in care, your well-being is my utmost concern. I want to assure you that I am deeply committed to addressing the issues outlined in this report, and you have my unwavering support,” says Maguire. “Being a former child in care myself, I empathize with your experiences and pledge to tirelessly advocate for you.”
In a press conference Tuesday, The Coast asked Maguire if his department tracked whether certain communities were over-represented in terms of children in his care. Maguire says that keeping this type of data is “extremely important–we need to make sure that decisions we make are data driven so we’re sensitive to all the different groups of individuals and cultures and genders.”
The audit includes the following table which breaks down how children in care identify:
Mi’kmaw Family and Children’s Services works with children in the community across Mi’kma’ki Nova Scotia. Adair’s audit did not include these children in her report, however did include children who identified as Mi’kmaw and Indigenous living outside of the community.
Overall, as of May 4, 2024, the department of community services reports that 821 children are in either the care of the minister, through foster care, TEAs or child and youth homes, or are in the care of Mi’kmaw Family and Children Services. Of those 821, the minister’s office says 130 identify as Indigenous, and 114 identify as being of African descent.
According to these numbers, nearly 16% of children in care identify as Indigenous and nearly 14% identify as being of African descent.
Does this mean that Indigenous children and children of African descent are over-represented in temporary emergency arrangements and child and youth care homes? There’s not enough data to reach a conclusion, however in the 2021 population census, people living in Nova Scotia who identified as African–including African Caribbean, African Nova Scotian, African Canadian, African American and African–made up a total of 2.1% of the population. People living in Nova Scotia who identified as either First Nations, Mi’kmaw, Cree or Qalipu Mi’kmaq made up 3.7% of the population.
In response to both Adair’s audit and minister Maguire’s response, the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers–or NSCSW–issued a statement, calling attention to “significant gaps” in the report in terms of the auditor’s understanding of the realities of social workers and the needs of children in care, and how these both translate into reporting challenges.
“The inadequate grasp of child welfare services by the Auditor General’s office has resulted in recommendations that reinforce existing challenges, such as increasing administration, standardization, and management,” reads the statement. “Most of these suggestions are likely to result in social workers spending more time at their desks or in transit, and less time engaging with families and children.”
Instead of the report’s recommendations, the NSCSW asks that the province use its Social Policy Framework guide to address the challenges in TEAs.
Key recommendations from the Social Policy Framework include “immediate poverty alleviation efforts, prioritization of family and community connections, cultural caregiving practices, quality child care, mental health services provision…professionalization and support for workers in places of safety, expanding the roles of not-for-profit organizations in providing care, implementing strategic investments in public and non-profit sectors, and stringent accountability and transparency measures.”
The province’s Public Accounts Committee will meet on Wednesday, May 15, to discuss the report’s findings with the deputy minister of community services, Craig Beaton.
Related Stories
NS auditor general applauds government progress on past recommendations
This article appears in May 1-31, 2024.
I am just wondering where the missing social workers will be found. In my 44 years as a social worker, I have never before seen so many vacancies for social workers. I think we can attribute this to untenable working conditions. For example, the report should examine how many cases social workers carry of children in care OVER the recommended maximum standard. Add to this time for meetings, increased paperwork that is mandatory and may be legal in nature such as placing a child in the care of the Minister, travel time to and from homes, arrangement for particular payments specific to the child, foster parent or agency. This is a job where you know you do not have enough foster homes for the children who need one and you know you cannot possibly meet the standards of visitations to all the children on your caseload.in care. But if something happens to a child in care on your caseload, you also know you could be charged with criminal negligence if you did not meet the impossible standard. Working conditions must change before social workers in child protection can do their actual job. Further thought (with changes) needs to happen.