Children and Youth — Issue No. 29 — Monday, September 26, 2016 (HTML)

Present: Jane Thornthwaite, MLA (Chair); Melanie Mark, MLA (Deputy Chair); Marc Dalton, MLA; Carole James, MLA; Maurine Karagianis, MLA; John Martin, MLA; Dr. Darryl Plecas, MLA; Linda Reimer, MLA

2. Resolved, that Melanie Mark, MLA be elected Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. (Carole James, MLA)

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions regarding the Joint Special Report of Office of the Representative for Children and Youth and Ministry of Children and Family Development: The Placement of Children and Youth in Care in Hotels in British Columbia (January 2016)

5. Resolved, that the Committee approve and adopt its Annual Report as presented today and further, that the Committee authorize the Chair and Deputy Chair to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes to complete the supporting text. (Carole James, MLA)

6. Resolved, that the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth deposit a copy of the Annual Report with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; and further, that upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or at the next following session, the Chair shall present the Report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity. (Dr. Darryl Plecas, MLA)

7. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to consider the appointment of an Acting Representative for Children and Youth, pursuant to section 5 of the Representative for Children and Youth Act. (Linda Reimer, MLA)

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Deputy Chair	671
Joint Report: The Placement of Children and Youth in Care in Hotels in British Columbia	671
A. Scheiber
D. Padmore
Committee Report to the House	679
Committee Workplan	680

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Good morning, everyone. I’m Jane Thornthwaite, the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.

We have a new member today. I wanted to throw the mike over to our friend Carole.

C. James: I’d like to introduce on to the committee, for the first time, Melanie Mark, but I’d also like to nominate her as Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Is there anybody else that wants to put their name forward? No? Okay.

Joint Report: The Placement of
Children and Youth in Care
in Hotels in British Columbia

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): We have one major item to consider for our guests today, the consideration of the joint special report of the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth and the Ministry of Children and Family Development, The Placement of Children and Youth in Care in Hotels in British Columbia. We will have our witnesses from the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Alex Scheiber, deputy director of child welfare, and Dennis Padmore, executive director, provincial placement review.

Just as a reminder, we did have the representative, Mary Ellen, to present her report at a previous committee. Now we are looking forward to seeing what the ministry folks have, because they had an update since that meeting.

Welcome. Should we do introductions just so that everybody that’s here knows…? Maybe start with Maurine.

M. Karagianis: Good morning. I’m Maurine Karagianis. I’m the MLA for Esquimalt–Royal Roads and have served on this committee, I believe, since its very inception. Very happy to have you here.

M. Mark (Deputy Chair): Good morning. Melanie Mark, MLA for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good morning. Kate Ryan-Lloyd, Clerk to the committee.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I know that Marc Dalton is coming. He’ll be a little bit late. Linda Reimer had a conflict till 9:40, so she’ll be coming in.

A. Scheiber: Good morning, everyone. As Jane said, I’m Alex Scheiber, deputy director of child welfare for the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Dennis and I are going to give a joint presentation this morning on the hotel placement report that was a joint special report conducted between the Representative for Children and Youth and the ministry.

I’m happy to say that this was a very successful joint report. It’s the first one, that I’m aware of, that we conducted together. We were all a little bit nervous when we started this endeavour in the fall of 2015. But it turned out to be, I think, a very productive joint project and culminated in a report that was released in January 2016.

What we’re going to go over today is just a little bit of the history, the background, of placements of children in care in hotels in British Columbia, and some of the
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work that we’ve done in response to the recommendations from the joint special report.

Historically, in British Columbia, the ministry and delegated aboriginal agencies have used hotels as kind of emergency placements when there have been no existing foster homes. This practice has probably gone back to at least the mid-90s and has continued on over the years.

One of the issues was that because hotel placements were never considered to be official placements — they weren’t considered to be foster homes or residential placements of any kind — we didn’t actually have a way of tracking them or monitoring them.

In around 2014 we required that executive directors of service approve all placements in hotels. But until this year, until after the release of the joint special report, we didn’t actually have a way of accurately tracking the numbers of placements of children in hotels and how long they were placed. We didn’t really have much detail at all on the data.

In 2014-15, the senior ministry approved placements of children in hotels, and then, as I said, in the fall of 2015, we went through a process with the RCY to research and develop a report on placements of children in hotels. The conclusions of the report were that…. There were a number of findings.

One is that we didn’t have any policy in the ministry. Again, because these weren’t considered to be official placements, social workers had nowhere to go to look at what criteria had to be met in order to place children in hotels.

There was a lack of oversight and tracking of hotels. Historically, social workers didn’t have to get approval from anyone senior to place in hotels, and they didn’t really have to use…. There was no mechanism. Our child welfare databases at the time had no way of entering in a hotel placement.

There was no public reporting on hotels. Again, what originally piqued our interest, in the ministry, was actually another province. Manitoba had an issue historically and developed their own investigation report on a large number of placements that they had in that province.

In 2014, we became quite interested in this area and started to do some informal tracking, just to try to get a handle on the numbers. At that point and until recently, there had been no public reporting on hotel placements.

One of the things that the hotel report also found was that there’s a lack of residential resource capacity, and there’s poor coordination of the existing capacity. I had the dubious pleasure of having to receive many calls in the middle of the night in 2014 and ’15 because at that time we began to require that executive directors approve hotel placements. I can tell you that one of the issues that was often in these situations was just a lack of coordination between daytime staff and evening staff.

Many of these placements happened on the weekends, in the evenings. There may have been existing capacity, there may have been foster homes available, but because the evening staff, after hours staff, didn’t actually have accurate data on where the placement capacity was, they would sometimes in an emergency use hotels and place either social workers or child care workers in the hotels during the evenings or weekends. And then Monday would come along, and a placement would be found.

That told us that there were two issues. One of them, again, was lack of capacity. Sometimes social workers knew that there were foster placements, but there was just not a good match between the child and the foster placement. Another one, as I say, was just not knowing where the existing capacity was. Originally, historically, most of the problem was in the Lower Mainland, between South Fraser and North Fraser. Those were the big historic users of hotel placements.

The hotel report came up with three actions. The first one was that the ministry needed to develop and release a practice directive. In January of 2016, along with the release of the hotel report, we released a practice directive to ministry staff. The practice directive covered not only approval. It made it clear who has to approve placement of a child in hotels and that staff must complete a form to indicate, obviously, the name of the child or sibling group, what the plan is, why the child is being placed, what the plan for support is, and it has to be tracked and monitored.

Since January of this year we’ve required that social workers go through those steps. We also made it clear in the practice directive what an actual hotel placement is, because people have sometimes placed in bed-and-breakfasts and other types of temporary lodging. We said it covers everything. Any time a child is placed in a temporary lodging that’s commercially based, that’s considered to be a hotel for the purposes of the practice directive.

We released that January 2016, and that’s been in place since then and has required, as I say, approval, tracking and monitoring, and support. The practice directive also says that if a child is placed in a hotel for more than three days, we have to notify the Representative for Children and Youth, and we do that as well.

The second action in the report was to do with improving coordination and communication with residential resources. Dennis is going to talk about this in more detail, but one of the things I can say is that we have greatly improved our system, particularly in the Lower Mainland, for communication between daytime and after-hours staff around the existing resources. After-hours staff now always have an up-to-date list on the system — our child welfare system — and they know where the existing capacity is and where placements are available.

The proof that that is working is in our release of our data in June of this year, showing where the placements
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were. That has shown us…. I would characterize it as a dramatic reduction in the number of placements in those two big SDAs — service delivery areas — North and South Fraser. They’ve managed to turn the ship around 180 degrees and use hotel placements very infrequently.

The third action in the report was the public reporting piece. That, again, requires that the ministry report out regularly on the placements of children in care in hotels. Our first public report was in June of this year, and it provides a fair bit of detail. It’s on line. It breaks down the number of placements by service delivery area, and it also contains information about the types of kids that we’re placing — their ages, whether they’re aboriginal or non-aboriginal, their length of stay.

It also contains a fair bit of information about the reasons for hotel placements. There could be a fire in a resource that causes children to be moved in an emergency to hotels. Sometimes it’s a lack of capacity, and there’s just not a resource available. Sometimes it’s a high-risk youth whose placement has broken down. All of the reasons are laid out in the public report that we’ve released.

Those were the three actions. In summary, two of the actions have been completed, and we are going to be providing ongoing public reporting. We’ll be reporting every six months — so in June and December. Those are when we release our data on fatalities and all of our quality assurance data as well. Our audits and case reviews get posted at that time. So the hotel reports will be posted every six months.

As I said, hotel placements have to be approved by an executive director of service. The executive director of service has to notify the provincial director of child welfare within 24 hours of the placement, and the provincial director of child welfare tracks, monitors and oversees the placement, including the duration of the stay.

When we get these forms in, we have a look at them. We, being the provincial director of child welfare, will make contact with the field and get more information, and we’ll monitor that placement to ensure that the child is moved out as quickly as possible in a safe way. As I said, if the stay is over three days — most of them aren’t — we immediately report that to the Representative for Children and Youth.

I think I’ve covered the public reporting piece. There were 24 children in care placed in hotels from January 13, 2016, to April 30 of this year. That is a decrease in the number of hotels historically. Although I don’t have the confirmed numbers, I can say with some confidence that we’re seeing further declines in the number of placements in hotels since our public report went out in June.

We’ve still got more work to do, but we’re on the right track. We’re seeing the numbers decline, and we want to get them down to zero.

Seventy percent of the hotel stays during this reporting period were sibling groups, and the average length of stay was four nights. These numbers reflect a 25 percent decrease in hotel placements as placements compare to the numbers in the joint report. Again, not dramatic at this point, but it’s going in the right direction. The next hotel reporting will be included in our performance management report due to be released in October.

A provincial joint…. This is Dennis’s piece, so Dennis is going to talk about the provincial bed management system. I mentioned before that some of the work that’s being done within SDA is to improve communication. What Dennis is going to talk about is the overall picture and what we’re doing provincially to try to increase capacity and better utilize our existing capacity.

D. Padmore: I’m the lead on this initiative. Up until taking this on back in June, I was the former executive director of service for Vancouver-Richmond and, at one point, after hours. So I’m well versed on the subject of hotel placements and efforts that have been made to address the issue. What we thought is that it would be good for me to give a bit of background on the provincial placement review as it relates to hotel placements.

What we are doing…. As I mentioned, I’m the lead. I have a committee of managers from service delivery, finance, practice and procurement. Really, the committee was put in place to address some of the causes that are moving us away from placement with foster families and family and relying heavily on contracted agencies.

We have been looking at all of the proposals for placements that have been coming in, and as you’re, I’m sure, aware, the foster parent system is declining. We have fewer people doing the work. There are many reasons for that. Largely, we have an aging demographic across North America that were previous foster parents who are now in retirement age.

We haven’t kept pace. That’s due to many issues, such as the cost of living — high cost of living in Vancouver-Richmond, for example. It’s extraordinarily expensive for people to be able to take a child into their home. One of the things we’re doing is addressing that by coming up with specific recruitment strategies to increase our supply of foster families.

The committee, as well, has several initiatives underway, including reviewing all the proposals, as I said, and developing an inventory of current residential services and, where gaps exist, making recommendations to address those gaps.

As Alex mentioned, we’re looking at creating a provincewide bed management system — which I’ll talk about in a bit — and also to develop an accurate way of managing our vacancies. Then, develop training tools for our resource workers to help them do their work. Finally, look at, as I mentioned, a target recruitment campaign, looking at professionals that are in social services to do this work of caring for really difficult kids.

Our bed management system and vacancy reporting. In reviewing the hotel placements from the original re-
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port, it was evident, as Alex said, that there was capacity in the system; it just wasn’t tracked very well. So you would have after hours not knowing where placements were and, in fact, sometimes even daytime staff not knowing where placements may have been available for kids. Our intent is to develop a system where everything is collated in one place and there’s central management with it.

Currently the system Alex talked about is a kind of a manual system where people call in from the different areas of the province, and they report whether they have vacancies or don’t have vacancies. It’s a good system now, and I think it has really cut down on the number of hotel placements, but I think it just needs some refinement.

Every area in the province has a different way of managing this information. We did a cross-province scan and found that people had different ways of recording information around vacancies. Some had the old whiteboard system where it would be in their office — in their residential resources office — and they would cross off whether there was a vacancy or not a vacancy. But nobody had an overall picture. Nobody could really tell you what the capacity was within the system.

The committee has looked at all the systems, and I think we’re very close to being able to make recommendations about a database system that would be updateable on a weekly basis. After hours would know what the vacancies were. The field would know. No matter where you were in the province, you’d know where vacancies were that kids could access or that workers could access for their kids.

The central management of that system will be not just for maintaining vacancies but also will be looking at where targeted recruitment needs to happen, where you need to increase services to families, where there may be some shifts in budget needed — those kinds of things. An example of that is where we’re looking at areas where there’s a higher use of contracted services, we might want to look to see what the capacity is for providing support services to either foster families or to biological families so that we don’t…. In some cases, we may not need to place, bring kids into care.

The current vacancy reporting relies on the manual reporting to keep it up to date. Hotel placements can be avoided with accurate and up-to-date identification of vacancies, and a database inventory system allows for increased detail of the resources continuum. Data can be updated weekly and reports generated when required.

While we’re waiting for changes to ICM — they’re coming in the next couple of years — we need to work on solutions now. This database, although it won’t solve all the problems, will be available to staff to help their work and make better placement decisions and ultimately provide better outcomes for our children and youth.

A. Scheiber: In summary, we’ve made some progress in response to the hotel report that was delivered approximately nine months ago. We’ve so far completed two of the actions. We now have policy in place that really tells social workers that hotel placements should only be considered as a last resort when nothing else is available and it’s an emergency. It talks about monitoring, tracking and supporting the child when they’re in that placement and, as well, reporting to the RCY.

We now have a system for tracking and publicly reporting when children need to be placed in hotels, and we’ve made some good inroads into not only communication between daytime and after-hours staff but also getting a better handle on our existing capacity. I can tell you, having worked in Health, where we also had an issue with specialized neonatal intensive care beds, that knowing where your existing capacity is and managing your existing capacity with specialized beds is really, really important.

I think the work that Dennis is doing to develop a provincial system where social workers can, at the click of a button, see where the existing capacity is, what the experience and level of the existing foster homes is so that we can make at least educated decisions on where to place children when we have these unexpected removals or breakdowns in placements….

M. Karagianis: Thank you for your presentation. I do have a couple of questions. I am interested particularly in, I guess, the discrepancy between foster placement beds, as you’re now calling them, and how you are going to provide those spaces. We have known for a long time that we have diminishing interest in fostering, and the number of foster families has decreased dramatically.

Do you have sort of a quantifiable view of how many foster families are needed versus how many we have — what the loss has been? Is it 15 percent? Is it 35 percent? I’d be interested in what your recruitment campaign might look like.

Also, what’s the timeline now for trying to produce an accurate inventory? If it’s reliant on ICM, which is still, perhaps, some time away, it seems to me that there’s going to be a big gap as you, obviously, try and achieve a goal of zero hotel stays. There seems to be a large gap in the ability to track that information, know how many foster families are available and how successful you might be in recruiting foster families. It’s been an ongoing crisis for a number of years. It’s been talked about.

I’d be interested to hear what some of the solutions are that you see to that, and what you see in this huge gap in the meantime between being able to develop an adequate, accurate inventory, recruit people and fill the gaps in between. It seems to me that hotels may be something that
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we’re stuck with for some time, given the realities of the ICM system and the numbers of fostering families.

D. Padmore: Maybe I’ll start with just talking about the…. I won’t say we will never use a hotel, but we are down to a place right now where there is mostly the capacity that we know about in the system, that we’re able to place in. I’m not going to say that it’s never going to happen again. I know that, certainly in the Lower Mainland, we’ve developed a number of emergency resources for kids. We’ve increased capacity with current foster homes that we have.

I spoke to the EDS in the north. The northwest was an area of the province that had used a fair bit of hotels, and they’re in the process of opening another emergency resource up there. As it relates to the hotel stays, I think we are in a much better place than we were, and I think it’s getting better.

There is going to be a general recruitment campaign that’s coming out in October, around the same time as Foster Family Month. There are also many areas in the province that have some specific strategies for finding people that can work with the high-needs kids especially.

I’m hoping that the general fostering will get people that are willing to come in at the beginning stages, at the early stages. But I think that really what we need is the targeted campaign or strategy within each of the areas where there are hotel placement needs and where we have this overdependence on agencies to provide care for those kids. There are areas that have been successful, and I think it’s just a matter of spreading those strategies to other areas.

D. Padmore: I’m optimistic. What I’m understanding from the various systems is that the information is there. It’s a question of pulling it together. We’ve been talking with our data people about how to do that, and they’re telling me that they can do something within the next couple of months that will be an interim measure before ICM.

There’s information right now on the RAP system, on the Oracle system and on another one that I’m not familiar with, which can bring all the current information. Then it’s just a matter of working on keeping it updated. We have a plan for that, for developing some strategy within the existing service delivery areas to develop people who can input the data to keep it fresh and current.

D. Plecas: Alex and Dennis, thank you very much for your very helpful presentation. My question is, really, virtually identical to that of my friend Maurine, who wanted to know specifically about the gap. I know that she asked the question. If you could quantify that…. I guess I would just ask again if you could give us an exacting sense of just how many more families are needed as foster parents and how many youths are in need of foster parent placements. What is that gap there?

It seems to me that if you’re going to move forward to have a campaign and do all of those things, it would be so helpful to know exactly what those numbers are, especially since, in part, this is at the root of the capacity issue. Maybe that’s not possible.

D. Padmore: Well, we’ll know more once we’ve completed a full inventory of what we have. I have to tell you that at this point, we don’t know what we have. We don’t know where we could increase capacity, for example, with caregivers that have the skill. If they had additional supports, maybe they could take another child.

We’re really looking at it in a holistic way. It’s not just the numbers of beds and homes that we need but what those support services are. What are those things we need in communities that actually keep kids at home, as opposed to bringing them into care? I believe that if we had more support services targeted towards families, our need wouldn’t be as great.

A. Scheiber: I would also just add to that that it’s not just a matter of the number of beds. We’re probably operating on somewhere around 95 percent of our capacity right now. The trick is that it’s a matter of having the capacity where you need it. We can have all the foster homes in the world, but if they’re not able to look after high-needs, complex children, then they’re not going to be particularly useful.

It’s a matter, as Dennis said, of not only coming up with an inventory but also going beyond that and creating a blueprint. We need to know…. There are differences between SDAs around their existing capacity versus the needs of the kids. Dennis mentioned the northwest. They’ve continued to struggle over the last few months with placements, not because they don’t have enough foster homes in their service delivery area but because they cover a large geographic area. You can’t move kids hundreds of miles away.

It’s a matter of looking at where your existing needs are and what the needs of the children are and trying to come up with a blueprint that somehow dovetails those two. It’s tricky. It’s not just about the total number of beds.

C. James: Thank you for your report. I express frustration — not at you, not at the presentation — just at the years we’ve been raising the issues about additional beds needing to be put in place, particularly for high-risk youth, and that not occurring. I’m glad this work is being done now. I’m glad we’re at this place, but I express frustration.

Certainly, when I was critic, there were at least three years that we asked questions about additional beds, par-
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ticularly for high-risk youth. I think you’ve identified it. I mean, that really is the biggest challenge — our finding those placements.

I want to follow up on the theme of the questions that we’ve had. One of the areas that I know shifted in policy a whole number of years ago was the issue of paying for beds that weren’t being used — in other words, reserving a spot so that someone was there and available if needed. I recognize the financial challenges around that, but I also recognize that in some cases, that’s exactly what has to happen in order to keep a very specialized foster home open. It doesn’t happen unless people are told: “You know, we’re going to pay you for being available 24 hours a day for high-risk youth.”

I just wondered, I guess, specifically, whether any additional beds have been opened since this issue occurred and since you’ve started looking at your inventory. Have you seen any additional beds added?

The second question is: is that policy being looked at? Is the ministry taking a look at reversing or going back to providing support for homes to be able to maintain a bed in case it’s needed?

D. Padmore: I can say that that’s part of the recommendation. This committee work is to be wrapped up by the end of November. We recognize that fully — that we need to have capacity in order to be able to place kids. Back in the day, when I was the resources contract manager, we felt that a 15 percent vacancy rate was important, that you had to have about 15 percent. Then, over the years, yes, of course, it was less and less.

There were policies that came in to restrict that. Yes, you lose your capacity. It definitely will be a recommendation to look at the way we pay for beds, particularly with foster care givers, those specialized foster care givers, to ensure that they can count on this as part of their livelihood.

A. Scheiber: I would just add that you’re talking about bed-specific contracts. They are expensive. Also, I think that since the joint report, there is an awareness that it’s also very expensive emotionally to place children in hotels. It’s not acceptable to do that.

I know that South Fraser has opened up a significant resource there. I can’t tell you the number of beds today, but I can get back to you with that information. There are a number of emergency beds that have been opened.

I think that’s partly what has accounted for the significant drop in hotel placements in the Frasers. To be honest, it’s also a cultural shift in the ministry. Social workers, historically…. It’s been too easy to go to hotels. It has not necessarily been considered to be a bad thing. Now the message is out there that it’s not acceptable and that there has to be a higher level of approval. So that cultural shift, I think, has also been a significant change in the reduction.

We know we have a ways to go in increasing, particularly on the emergency capacity side.

C. James: If you could do a follow-up on that information, that would be great. Thank you. I appreciate that.

The last two years I’ve been adjusting into my new role, so getting back to speed on where things are at with the ministry is helpful. I want to echo my colleague’s remarks around frustration. The representative’s office released reports reviewing residential care years ago and talked about the importance of having specialized beds and resources.

I just wanted to point to the presentation that you made. Point 2 says: “Improved coordination and communication with residential resources.” The report says that the recommendation is that the ministry will increase the number of residential resources to address the gap.

My questions are related to my colleague’s — like the how. What is the strategy on how to increase? We know budgets are fixed. Are there extra staff that are going to be devoted to coordinating a recruitment strategy, a training strategy, getting the inventory on the number of beds, actually creating those beds? I don’t necessarily hear a strategy. I hear that there are gaps. But how does that all come together so that you fill those gaps? The report really talks about….

I’ll highlight one of the points: “Many of those interviewed reported that these emergency beds are often already full because of lack of capacity elsewhere in the system.” This is a message that we hear time and time again — that there isn’t capacity.

Other questions that I had related to…. The report shows that there were 111 young people in these hotel beds. Now there are 24. Is there any tracking? Where are they going? I’m just trying to understand. That’s a huge number of decreases. It is great that we’ve got a lens on the fact that we’re not using hotel placements anymore. But is there some understanding of where they’re going, considering that it’s not just an emergency because of a fire? Are we using more…? Is there more need for a specialized resource, for example?

My other question related to the action plan recommendation and links to…. What is the coordination with the DAAs and the delegated agencies? Where’s the interface between both? Dennis was talking about doing the residential inventory. Is there someone that is going to lead this inventory that oversees all 24 DAAs in those 13 service delivery areas, again, in a systematic, coordinated fashion?
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A. Scheiber: I can just start out here. I think it’s important to put some of this in context. I chair the Directors of Child Welfare Committee, which is a committee of directors of child welfare across Canada. I can say that this problem of lack of resources and lack of foster parents is a problem in every province and territory. It’s not unique to British Columbia at all. In fact, the Child Welfare League of Canada has actually produced a report for the directors talking about the issue, the problem and some potential strategies for recruiting.

Dennis mentioned the public campaign that’s going to be happening this fall, but it’s more than just simply public campaigns to recruit foster parents. We also need to know the types of foster placements we need. There’s no single answer to it. We know that some of our most specialized resources right now are with large agencies that provide caregivers, and we know that there are issues on that side as well.

Part of it is about recruiting more foster parents, yes. But it’s also about making sure that we recruit the right number of foster parents. The campaign that’s happening this fall — maybe, Dennis, you can say more about that — is more than just saying: “If you’re interested in being a foster parent, call us.” It’s about a targeted campaign as well.

D. Padmore: I can’t say more about the actual campaign. We’re not really involved in it. I’ve just been told about it, so I’m not an expert in that. But I do understand that, yes, they are looking at specifics as well.

What we’re going to propose, from the committee’s perspective, is that we go beyond what the general campaign will do — go into each area, understand what the needs are within those areas and really make a concerted effort to find those people. They are out there. We’ve done it. I’ve done it before. Fifteen years ago we were in a situation with our — this is what they called them at that time — satellite homes. We were able to recruit, over a two-year period, a large number of specialized caregivers.

It can be done, and we’re going to learn from who in the province is doing it well and spread that knowledge around.

A. Scheiber: That’ll involve working with our partners like the British Columbia Federation of Foster Parent Associations, the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents and other partners as well to make sure we get the message out there.

Melanie, you mentioned tracking children. The provincial director of child welfare tracks hotel placements from the time that the placement happens until the time that they leave. We look at the plan that’s in place, the transition plan and the plan to move the child on.

The provincial director does not track the children after they leave the hotel placement. However, each…. I mean, it’s an expectation in our policy that children in care have transition plans and plans of care. So it’s an expectation already that the social workers, guardianship workers, team leaders and community services managers make sure that the placement needs of the child are met on an ongoing basis. I just wanted to clarify that we don’t track them on an ongoing basis once they’ve left.

I think you had a question, as well, about delegated aboriginal agencies, whether the residential inventory will cover them. Did you want to say something?

D. Padmore: It will. We’ll be working through your shop to work with delegated agencies once we have done this piece of work.

A. Scheiber: Interestingly enough…. I’ll just add to that. We’re not seeing, really, in our most recent numbers any usage of placements at hotels by delegated aboriginal agencies, which is great news. They really have redoubled their efforts to find other placements.

M. Dalton: Thank you very much, Alex and Dennis, for the presentation. There are some significant changes that are occurring right now, which is great.

I guess I’m surprised about just the challenges between communication and coordination that you had within the ministry prior, as far as hotel stays, in that it really wasn’t flagged as an issue prior to now. I’m glad that we’re working on it now. But that it had gone on for such a long time…. Anyways, it’s good that we’re moving on this.

Regarding foster caregivers and given that…. You’ve made comments about as far as aboriginal children…. Over half the children in care are aboriginal. What percentage of homes of the caregivers are currently aboriginal? You’ve mentioned that there is a recruitment strategy for new caregivers among the aboriginal population. What are the challenges you’re facing? Are the numbers there for these aboriginal children to go into aboriginal homes? Maybe you could just further expand and make some more comments as far as aboriginal caregivers.

The recruitment of aboriginal caregivers in this province has been an ongoing challenge. I won’t try to sugar-coat that. It’s been very difficult to recruit and retain the number of aboriginal foster homes that we need.

I’d like to say that most aboriginal children in care are in aboriginal homes. That’s just not true. We continue to struggle. Also, the delegated agencies continue to struggle recruiting aboriginal caregivers and retaining them. There are probably lots of reasons for that. That’s one of the issues that we face when we’re trying to match children in care with caregivers. It’s not good enough just to simply find a bed for them. We’re really looking for the
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right bed for them and the right caregiver for them.

For aboriginal children, we know — and the legislation says — that it’s a priority to place aboriginal children with aboriginal caregivers. We know that that’s necessary. Our campaign will target aboriginal people, as well, to ensure that we can get to aboriginal communities and do our best to try to work with aboriginal leadership in the province, to try to recruit as many caregivers.

Grand Chief Ed John’s report, which is expected out soon, will probably say quite a bit, I’m anticipating, about aboriginal foster homes and, as well, the need to find alternative placements to avoid bringing children into care in the first place. That’s really, I think, where we want to go — to try to reduce the number of children in care and then avoid the need for foster parents to begin with.

I know that that’s probably not an entirely satisfactory answer, but I just wanted to underscore the challenges we’re facing. The campaign that we’re launching this fall will, as I say, be aimed at recruiting more aboriginal foster homes.

Just looking at your report, it says that 16 children were aboriginal that were in hotels, and eight were non-aboriginal. Not only are the number of kids that are in care, the majority of them, aboriginal — almost double…. Or the majority of them are aboriginal that are going into the hotels. It speaks to that piece to around not just the DAAs’ delegation and their jurisdiction for aboriginal children.

What is the overall cultural lens, in this strategy that you’re talking about, to work with the SDAs and the DAAs so that there’s a cultural framework, so that it’s not siloing the DAAs or SDAs? Then we get into alphabet soup, when we see time and time again that the numbers show aboriginal overrepresentation in so many circumstances.

My question really is about…. It relates to my first question. How is your team going to be working with the SDAs and the DAAs overall around residential care?

D. Padmore: I can’t speak for every area of the province because I don’t know every area of the province at the moment. But I do know that there is a fair degree of cooperation working with the DAAs locally.

Well, sorry. I’m talking about Vancouver-Richmond. We work in the same geographic area. We share foster homes. We share the ability. When campaigns like this happen, we work together to find caregivers at the same time.

I think the same is true for the majority of the province. I think that the SDAs work carefully with the DAAs that are within their areas. I think anything that we would do would naturally include the DAAs.

A. Scheiber: I would also just add to that…. We have an aboriginal policy and practice framework that has been introduced this year and requires that all of our policies, practices, be looked at through that lens. We need to make sure that every strategy we have, whether it be a recruitment strategy or a strategy or policy on placing children in hotels — all of that — is looked at through that aboriginal practice and policy framework to ensure that we’re doing the best we can to find the very best placements for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal children in care.

We have more work to do in that area, Melanie. I would say that 16 aboriginal children in care being placed in hotels is unacceptable. Unfortunately, it’s not too far off of the average, when you look at the representation of children in care in general. I wouldn’t say that we’re placing aboriginal children in hotels per capita more than non-aboriginal.

But you’re right. It’s still unacceptable. It has to stop. We have to not only stop placing in hotels, but — equally important, I would say — we have to find the right placements for those children so that they have permanent homes, stable connections, lifelong connections with their aboriginal community. And quite frankly, that’s the bigger challenge for us — finding those types of homes and caregivers.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. I think that you have an appreciation of the intense interest of this committee in this topic. Certainly, we’ll be looking forward to more updates. You’ve got another one coming up in October, I understand. I’m assuming that our committee members will be very interested in that. Keep up your positive work and your positive direction. We commend you for that.

M. Mark (Deputy Chair): I apologize. For those of you who aren’t aware, I spent basically my whole career advocating for children, so I have familiarity with the system.

I guess, as well, emphasize the importance of having that coordinated, systematic approach, right? These things are not going to happen on their own. The SDAs and DAAs will not voluntarily coordinate and share information on their own. The systems need the infrastructure in place for that to happen. So speaking about the aboriginal…. Sorry, I can’t remember exactly….

M. Mark (Deputy Chair): Yeah. Is it co-chaired between the DAAs and the SDAs? I know that’s not how
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the system works. I guess what I’m saying is perhaps my recommendation or my hope is that there are going to be some resources in place that allow the leadership of the SDAs. Those are all the directors, the EDSs. All 13 plus 24 can come together and come up with a framework to address residential care throughout the province. If they’re not all together in the same room or on the same page, there will continue to be systemic gaps.

I just want to request that it’s not approached with a voluntary framework but that there’s some capacity to help coordinate these groups. My apologies if I’m not articulating this clearly, but I just see more gaps ten years from now if all the systems aren’t talking together.

A. Scheiber: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Melanie. It has to be systemic. You have to have databases that talk to each other. We’re getting there, but we don’t quite have that. You have to have an inventory that covers all 23 delegated aboriginal agencies and all 13 SDAs so that, regardless of who you’re working for, you can see, at the push of a button, where existing capacity is.

You have to have blueprints that cross boundaries between SDAs as well. Many of our kids move between SDAs and delegated aboriginal agencies, and many of the foster homes and the residential capacity and the agencies we work with also cross those boundaries.

I think you’re right that we have to…. It’s all about having a system, a bed management system, a provincial blueprint. Those are really important to us. I think it’s fair to say that if we continue on the way we are, it’s going to become a bigger and bigger problem. I think you’re absolutely right. It’s continuing to become a bigger problem across Canada.

Because of the changing demographics of foster parents, we can’t rely on the old models that we used to have for recruiting mom and pop like we did in the ’50s and ’60s. It’s just not going to work. We have to come up with a different system, a different strategy. So that’s what we’re trying to do.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thank you, again. I like that expression “databases that talk to each other.” All of the work that the committee has worked on — our special projects and all of the reports that we listened to from the representative — talked to that issue.

We understand that a lot of this, also, isn’t just MCFD. It’s other ministries as well. Even out of the ministry, you have to coordinate and try to cut down those silos as well. So we appreciate your work and thank you.

Then maybe, if we’re okay, we could ask for a two-minute recess while they go. Is anybody okay with that?

Can we switch around the order? There’s one item in our agenda — actually two — that we should be going in camera for. One is the committee statutory review process planning, which we haven’t really started to talk about. Then the other one is with regards to the representative appointment.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): We’ve got one item, No. 4, that says: “Review and approval of 2015-16 draft Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth annual report.” You will recall, previous members — well, members besides Melanie — that we did actually send this out several months ago, a couple of times.

I remember reading it several months ago, and I was fine with it. I didn’t get any responses back from anybody from any side with regards to any kinds of alterations or changes or anything, so I’m coming to this committee under the assumption that everybody’s actually okay with it and that all we have to do is basically sign off. But I want to give everybody the opportunity and, in particular, Melanie.

I guess it was just kind of an overview for you to see what we’ve done, which is a lot of work.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Two motions. We’re circulating those now to members for their information. I’d be happy to make any final editorial changes. I know Helen, our committee research analyst, will be finalizing it for public release if it meets with your approval this morning.

We have prepared two motions. The first is that the committee approve and adopt the annual report as either presented or amended today and that the committee further authorize the Chair and the Deputy Chair to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes.

Then, the second motion is simply to authorize the Chair to deposit a copy of the report with the Office of the Clerk. That has the effect, when it’s ready, that it will be made a public document, and then it will be presented to the Legislature at the earliest opportunity. Those are the two motions that have been prepared and are in your hands at this time.

C. James: I’ll move the first motion, that the committee approve and adopt the annual report as presented today and, further, that the committee authorize the Chair and Deputy Chair to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes to complete the sup-
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porting text — with a huge thank-you to staff and to our writer and researcher, who put things together.

D. Plecas: I would like to move that the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth deposit a copy of the annual report with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly and, further, that upon resumption of the sitting of the House or at the next following session, the Chair shall present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): You will, just as soon as we put the final touches in terms of the desktop publishing of it — put the fancy, attractive report cover on it and complete all those necessary details. Then we will be in touch.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That’s correct. As soon as we have concluded those final steps in our office, we will coordinate with you the moment that it will become a public document. It will be available on the committee’s website. It will be provided to all of you in final form via email that day. We’ll work towards that in the week ahead.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): There are two other items that we need to discuss in camera, so we need a motion to go in camera.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): We’ve had some planning with regards to upcoming meetings. What we are going to be doing is getting our calendars together for October and getting most of the committee members to meet to receive the two outstanding reports of the Representative for Children and Youth, as well as seeking her input on the statutory review process, which we must begin.

Then we’ll have one other meeting before Christmas, probably in November, that will allow others to give us their opinions on the statutory review. We’ve already had some idea of some interested folks that want to present, but we wanted to officially let others know that we will be beginning our consultation for the statutory review of the act. That will begin in November of 2016.

C. James: I’d just add that we also are looking at a process to allow people to send in written submissions. That’ll come out to the public in the next month or so, so that the public has an opportunity, as well, to put in written submissions related to the statutory review. It’s so that we can get as broad feedback as possible.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Working closely with the Chair, the Deputy Chair and the full committee, we will have that information publicly available on the committee’s website in due course. I imagine that there would be a media release to that effect, once the process is officially underway, with information on how to participate.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Excellent. Do we have any other business that people want to discuss?

Not seeing any other business, or any other hands going up, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? We’ve got Maurine that has got a motion to adjourn.

Access to on-line versions of the report of proceedings (Hansard)
and webcasts of committee proceedings is available on the Internet.

Chair:	Jane Thornthwaite (North Vancouver–Seymour BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	Melanie Mark (Vancouver–Mount Pleasant NDP)
Members:	Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal)
	Marc Dalton (Maple Ridge–Mission BC Liberal)
	Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
	Maurine Karagianis (Esquimalt–Royal Roads NDP)
	John Martin (Chilliwack BC Liberal)
	Dr. Darryl Plecas (Abbotsford South BC Liberal)
	Linda Reimer (Port Moody–Coquitlam BC Liberal)
	Jennifer Rice (North Coast NDP)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH