On Wednesday May 15, the Public Accounts Committee met to discuss the auditor general’s recent report released May 7, called the Health, Safety and Well-Being of Children Placed in Temporary Emergency Arrangements and Child and Youth Care Homes.
Members of the opposition, the Liberals and the NDP, were given the morning to ask questions stemming from the report, to the Department of Community Services–or DCS. The deputy minister of DCS, Craig Beaton, the executive director of child and family wellbeing for the DCS, Tracy Embrett and the executive director of service delivery for the DCS, Shelley Bent James were there to represent the department in answering questions at the committee meeting.
Key takeaways from the committee hearing were:
- There is no timeline on when the The Independent Office for Children and Youth Act will be formed, as an extension of the yet-to-be proclaimed Financial Measures Act from March 2024. This was a Progressive Conservative campaign promise that has not been realized since being elected into power in July 2021.
- There is a lack of accurate data keeping on social worker caseload presented in the audit as given from the DCS. There is no way of knowing how close Nova Scotia social workers are to meeting the agreed upon standardized caseload management from the American Child Welfare League, which is still waiting to be implemented in Nova Scotia.
- There is only one Level 4 home available for children and youth–Woodstreet– that is designated by the DCS to provide care for children and youth with complex needs that aren’t able to have their care needs met in either temporary emergency arrangements–TEAS–and child and youth care homes. The only solution for these children and youth, other than stays at Woodstreet, is foster homes with families specifically able to meet complex needs of these children and youth.
- There is a pilot project in place to create paraprofessionals, or assistants, to help ease caseload management from a paperwork perspective
- TEAs ballooned during the audit period, however this number has come down significantly, by nearly 250 arrangements, since Jan. 1, 2024. The DCS says there are now 32 TEAs being used today, however there is no change in the amount of child and youth care home placements from the audit period up until today.
- Social workers in Nova Scotia are among the lowest paid across the country for the first few years, however that changes to being among the highest after they reach 5-10 years.
- When children and youth are placed in TEAs, leave their TEAs, then return to TEAs, that counts in the audit as two TEAs being used. Rather than counting the number of children who are placed into TEAs, this audit counts that child or youth’s situation twice.
At the end of the Public Accounts Committee session, a motion was made to review the DCS’ implementations of the audit’s recommendations before the standard six months from today. That motion was struck down.
This article appears in May 1-31, 2024.
