The committee met at 12:36 p.m.

[N. Simons in the chair.]

Special Project

N. Simons (Chair): Good afternoon, Members, and welcome to the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. I’m happy to have this opportunity for a quick discussion on our committee’s special projects.

Members received information from the Clerk’s office about the, potentially, four discussion areas or project areas. I was hoping that today we could potentially have a nice discussion about this and maybe come to some conclusion as to what direction the committee will take as we end this calendar year and go into the next one.

If you want my opinion, I think of the options put forward, there are two that strike me as essential and important and really do fulfil our expectation that we have as a committee to help the public and legislators understand the child and youth–serving system. I believe we really need to have a look at services to children with special needs. I think that’s something that has been a bit lacking in the past — not through any omission, rather than just, probably, workload.

I also think that it would benefit us to have a good understanding of other successful approaches in keeping children and youth out of care.

If anyone wants to have some input on this, now is the time.

M. Stilwell (Deputy Chair): I just would like to go with what you were saying on the children and youth with special needs. I see it as a priority, especially with the Representative for Children and Youth having an increased mandate to work with the children with special needs. I think it would speak volumes, and it would be good work to accomplish with the committee.

N. Simons (Chair): So be it. Obviously, we have options as to how long we want to take to examine these areas. We need to get a workplan with date timelines, etc.

But it sounds to me, Deputy, like you think that those are at least two areas that we should pursue?

M. Stilwell (Deputy Chair): The youth and special needs is definitely one that I would like to see. I mean, they’re all areas that would benefit the committee. I agree with that. But I would say if we were going to walk away with one thing today, if we want to make a decision…. We have been at this for a little while, and we would like to get some work started. I think you and I are both in agreement that the children and youth with special needs option is a priority.

So if we could acknowledge that from the rest of the committee members and perhaps, then, give direction to staff to be able to start that work and that framework of what it is we’re actually going to undertake and how we’re going to undertake it. We need to walk away today with something on the table.

[12:40 p.m.]

S. Furstenau: I agree that the children with special needs is an important area to look at.

I’m wondering if we could consider two outcomes, as you’re suggesting, Mr. Chair — having sort of a short focus study as well as…. Given the reports we receive to this committee and the history of the reports that have come to this committee — well over 80, I believe — identifying some pretty significant themes around overrepresentation of Indigenous children, around challenges with the child and youth systems, that Nos. 2 and 3 outlined here — the experiences with the child and youth system, and then the successful and collaborative approaches to keeping children and youth out of care — I think would operate nicely as a larger major study.

The reason why I think the experiences with the child- and youth-serving system are important for this committee is partly because the voices that we don’t hear often are the people that are interacting with this system. As well, we had the youth from First Call come through — in October, I believe it was — who were so articulate, so eloquent, so capable in conveying their experiences as well as what they see as needs, from their point of view. I think that it would be an enormous value for us as well as the public to be able to hear these stories, hear from these people and to look at the solutions that exist out there are.

I would like to see us potentially look at two outcomes — a short and focused study on the youth and children with special needs and a broader study, a more major one, that combines these two as an expression of, really, the committee recognizing that those voices and those solutions should be heard.

L. Throness: We haven’t undertaken a study yet, in a year and a half, so I think it’s important that we begin with something. As Michelle has said, I think we should begin with a study on special needs. That’s great. My only concern is that we not leave fostering and adoption to the end — maybe in a year and a half — because there’s attention needed to them, in my view, now — but soon. So I’ll just leave it at that.

R. Glumac: Well, I agree that in terms of working on items 2 and 3 concurrently, it is a larger-scale project. Those two, to me, seem complementary, looking at the current system. Being able to talk directly to families and people who have been through the system while also looking at ways of keeping children and youth out of the system — I think those two go well together, but I think it would be a larger-scale project.

Working with children and youth with special needs, I think, could be a shorter-timeline type of project. In terms of which should go in front of the other…. Like it’s been stated, if we want to get started on something, perhaps children and youth with special needs would be a great place to start. But I would strongly advocate that our next priority for a larger undertaking would be items 2 and 3 together.

R. Singh: I would echo what Sonia said and what everybody else is saying too. For me, the third option is extremely important. We all know what we have been hearing in the news and that the research shows that so many Indigenous kids are going into foster care. So we really need to…. As a committee, I think we should be looking into that.

Having said that, I also know the importance of children and youth with special needs — a study to be done on that. So if we can decide on doing one bigger study, as Sonia said, and a small-scale study, I’m all good with it, with these two options here.

[12:45 p.m.]

J. Isaacs: I want to just mention that all of them are good. All of them have some application for what we’re doing, sitting on this committee and trying to understand some of the challenges within the system. All of them apply somewhere, but we haven’t actually taken any action steps yet.

I like the idea of children and youth with special needs, because it’s the early intervention part that is going to, hopefully, prevent some of the subsequent behaviour and challenges that a child may have later on — if we can help with the preventative side of things and supporting child development. I think this is a key one to start with, because it’s going to change the impact and trajectory along the way.

I think the second piece — for experiences with the child- and youth-serving system…. Again, it applies to all of these different areas, and I think things will come up as we go through each one of these areas. I’m not sure if it’s necessary to do another study or if it would be beneficial to do another study, but I think there will just be applications that we will see become very evident as we explore all these different areas.

I’m still very much on foster care and adoption. I think it’s absolutely something that hasn’t had the proper attention. Just recently I was at an event where a woman was getting recognized for having 70 foster children. Her story is amazing, and the outcomes of these children are amazing because of her fostering care. And she adopted four of them.

I think it’s still another priority for us, so I would vote children and youth and then foster care and adoption.

L. Throness: Just one more comment. I was recently at a meeting of foster parents, and one prospective foster parent told me that she’s been waiting for 2½ years to be assessed. She used to be an MCFD worker. She has a degree. She’s an Indigenous person with a big, empty home and ready to welcome kids, and she cannot get through the system. I think there’s a real problem here.

N. Simons (Chair): Thanks. That’s a compelling story.

Teresa, did you want to add something?

T. Wat: Yeah, I just want to state my preference. First of all, thank you for coming up with these four projects. I think all of them are good. Given the time limitation, we have to pick one maybe for a bigger project and then look at the other one. I’m with my colleagues. I think children and youth with special needs should be the one that we should focus on. I always have a lot of feelings when I see children and youth with special needs. I think they are the ones that we should really pay more attention to, because they are already under a lot of stress. I think we should really take this as our priority project.

The others, No. 2 and No. 3 are good, but I always believe that all children are better, for their future, to be in adopted homes, and that’s why I think we should really look at the foster care and adoption project as well. That’s my input.

R. Leonard: There are four distinct notions here for us to pursue, but they all have some overlap. When I look at special needs, I know that there are a lot of kids that are in care who have special needs, and when it talks about the functional needs of children and the capacity of their caregivers, it kind of gives you that hint of just how it is all-encompassing.

I’m drawn to the special needs, the early interventions, as was being mentioned earlier. I’m trying not to look at us out of context either, because we do have the representative who now has created a whole new stream for looking at Indigenous children in care and just that whole system. I want to work in a way that’s going to be complementary and not have us come from different angles and perhaps get ourselves tied in knots.

Maybe you can comment on that aspect.

[12:50 p.m.]

N. Simons (Chair): I still have trouble seeing how finding out people’s experiences with the system will help inform best practices that exist in other jurisdictions. I don’t see those as going together, but I see them as very important stand-alone questions. As it is, No. 3 is already a combination of two. One is the best practices, and the other is keeping children out of care. Those were two that we combined into one to say: how do we look at other systems that work — in other words, that allow families the strengthening…? How do we support families staying intact?

I think that if we were to examine experiences with the child- and youth-serving system, that’s big enough to fill a lot of meetings. I don’t know, necessarily, whether they would directly inform the best-practices discussion. I think they should be apart. But I hear unanimous agreement that special services to children and youth, I think, is an important area to look at. I think that, as we’ve said, there hasn’t been a lot of light shone on that particular area of programs.

I also don’t think we necessarily have to make a decision on any second option. But maybe we could ask for potentially more detailed work — possible workplans with schedules. If we were to examine the one that has been chosen or this — one of the other options that…. I don’t want to go into a situation where it’s going to be this versus that. We could plan for all of these.

In fact, I think we could start with asking the ministry for a complete scan of adoption and foster home services now. How many people are fostering? What levels? Where are they? How many resource workers are available? What’s the adoption timeline? How many children are waiting for a home? How many homes are available that are not…? All those questions, I think, could be answered first in a scan. Then if we need to drill down further, I’d say we should. We definitely should, especially when you hear a story like Laurie’s that someone has been waiting to be foster parent and is qualified. It may have something to do with expectations on either side. I don’t know, but there are questions that could be answered.

Can I just get people’s impression on whether or not…? I think that the experiences will tend to turn towards negative experiences with the child- and youth-serving system. Knowing that there are many young people who have had positive experiences, I worry that it’ll be a bit more like getting people to simply state how they’ve had a negative interaction. It’s not that that shouldn’t be looked at, but I do think that a study of best practices doesn’t need that. We know where the weaknesses are in the system.

Comments, anyone?

Okay. Well, considering the workload that we’ve had this last year, I think everybody’s feeling like there’s a lot on our plates in this legislative session. The holiday season is coming up. Maybe at this point we should say: let’s start the process on the special needs. Let’s talk about…. We have to review a couple of reports in January and maybe at that time have another, further discussion.

The child and youth special needs. I think we should go ahead and plan a study, a project, an initial scan of adoptions and foster homes, maybe with some comparative stuff — other provinces. Maybe we’ll see that we have an average across the country. We don’t know. Those are important questions to answer, and I think we will be looking at some deeper issues as well. We don’t want to overload the Clerk’s office, and we don’t want to overload our own capacity.

Are people generally pretty okay with that direction?

Interjection.

N. Simons (Chair): Yeah? So with that, I just want to thank each and every one of you for making the time. I know it’s hard. There are not a lot of us. I really appreciate each and every one of you.

I ask for a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 12:54 p.m.