'It's very unfortunate' more Ontario parents of high-needs kids are surrendering them to children's aid: Ford

An increasing number of Ontario parents are surrendering their children to the province, not because they've abused or neglected them, but because they cannot find the services and support they need to keep them safe at home. Asked about that at a press conference last week, Premier Doug Ford acknowledged the problem and announced his government is launching an "audit" of the child welfare system.

"It's very unfortunate that that's happening, but we're pouring money into that," Premier Ford said.

"We're going to do a complete audit of the entire system because I feel we have some issues there."

Ford indicated that it was a high priority for the government, saying, "I probably get 10 to 15 calls a day on it."

The Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services provided no further details about the audit, saying only that it is in the "early stages of planning a review of the child welfare system." A premier's office staffer said the audit would investigate why most children's aid societies in Ontario are running deficits right now.

The timing is striking: four years ago, the province began a "redesign" of the same system that it is now auditing and reviewing, and that redesign is still in progress.

Child welfare directors, workers, and other experts who've spoken with The Trillium described a shift that's taken place since COVID-19 struck: the number of overall cases has gone down, but the severity of the needs of the children in care has skyrocketed in many parts of the province.

Earlier this year, the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa (CASO) took the unusual step of issuing a joint union-management press release warning that the child welfare sector is "at a tipping point where (it) can no longer provide the necessary care for our most vulnerable youth.”

"Some parents, overwhelmed and unable to care for their children at home due to a lack of community treatment supports, are voluntarily surrendering their children to CASO for placement, in the hope that they will receive the necessary care," it said.

But CASO said agencies are having the same trouble as desperate parents in accessing the services the children need.

"We’re not a treatment facility; we’re a corporate parent with the same limited access to treatment options as any other parent," said executive director Kelly Raymond at the time.

It's not clear how prevalent the issue is, and it varies across the province. One child welfare worker canvassed her colleagues and estimated that 40 per cent of the kids in care today are there because of complex special needs rather than abuse or neglect, a figure she said was higher at some agencies. Another worker in Toronto said it's uncommon there, where there are more support services available for families. 

"But it's sad, and it speaks to what kind of a province we're living in when a family can't access services. And they have to relinquish the rights of a child to get services," said Aubrey Gonsalves, president of the CUPE local for the Children's Aid Society of Toronto.

Jess Uddenberg, executive director at Highland Shores Children's Aid Society in Belleville, told The Trillium the issue has become "rampant" and has increased in recent years. Some health and community social service providers have shut down and, at the same time, some children's needs that weren't met through the pandemic have now worsened.

"The youth who didn't get support four years ago are now teenagers — and it's not as though they just outgrew the challenges that they were having," he said.

Uddenberg said there's an important distinction between a child who's in need of protection because of abuse or neglect and one whose family can't cope because their child is stuck on endless wait lists for the services they need. 

"Although the child's not really in need of protection, because the parents are not a risk to their child, they're capable of providing for the child's basic needs, but the behaviours or the complexities have gotten so much, that they can no longer manage that," he said. "Then they come to us because we would be the mandated agency to support them at the end of the day."

When that happens, the agencies often struggle to find an appropriate place for the child to stay, let alone the developmental, behavioural and mental health services they need.

Uddenberg offered an example of a child who was rejected for over 40 placements — including at "group homes that are trained and outfitted and have programs to support youth with these types of challenges" — because the child's history and needs were too complex.

"They have the right to say no — a lot of these are private businesses and for-profit businesses, and when they look at the risk profile, and it may have things like they're prone to assaulting others, or arson, or self-harm, they'll say, 'You know what? The risk is simply too high to have this youth in our care,' and they don't want to take on that level of responsibility and accountability."

"Per the legislation, we're still responsible for this child, and so we're placing this child in a hotel with a two-to-one supervision ratio with my staff," Uddenberg said.

He said that can cost over a million dollars a year per child, "a huge impact" on the agency's finances. 

"But I don't want to just make it about the dollars, because if we're not putting them in appropriate places, we're not moving them forward," he added. "They're surviving, but they're not thriving."

In May, CUPE held a press conference at Queen's Park to warn that children were at risk from the increasing number of unlicensed placements being used, including in hotels, Airbnbs, trailers and the agencies' offices. It said about 65 per cent of agencies are in deficit because of the high cost of placing high-risk youth in these settings.

In June, the province's Financial Accountability Office broke down the overall funding for child protection, finding it has flatlined since the pandemic at $1.8 billion. Of that, $1.4 billion funded an estimated 14,230 ongoing protection cases, which include 11,632 children and youth in the care of a society, and $200 million was spent on investigations into abuse and neglect.

The number of completed child protection investigations cratered during the pandemic and hasn't recovered, the FAO found.

That's concerning to Uddenberg, who said it doesn't mean the base level of need for child protection from abuse and neglect has disappeared. He believes that fewer community programs during and after the pandemic — and, in particular, the temporary closure of schools due to COVID-19 — means there have been fewer eyes on the children who need help and, therefore, fewer referrals to children's aid societies.

Michele Thorn, the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union local that represents the workers at CASO, said she believes the lower number of ongoing child protection cases is also because societies like hers have worked on prevention measures that can keep children safe with their families, without ongoing children's aid involvement.

The funding model is broken, she explained, because it does not fund prevention and is based on the volume of ongoing cases. After her local management issued the public warning that it was at the "tipping point," the government took no action, and the union went on strike.

The agreement they reached will see 38 staff laid off, worsening their already overloaded workload, she said.

She added that layoffs at CASs aren't like those at auto factories, which can decrease production. "We don't have the luxury of stopping the production line — the files keep coming," she said.

Gonsalves, leader of the Toronto CAS union local, pointed to a shift that began in child welfare over a decade ago as the cause of some of today's problems. To save costs, agencies closed their own group homes and turned to privately run homes. Now, those homes are charging exorbitant rates for high-needs children or refusing to accept them altogether, he said.

Workers involved with their unions, including Gonsalves, said they had not heard from the government during its redesign. Overall, reaction to the premier's announcement of an audit was mixed.

"We are pleased (the premier) has acknowledged his failure to protect the vulnerable children under his government’s responsibility," said Lorrie Pepin, a frontline worker and president of the CUPE local for the Simcoe Muskoka CAS, in an email. "But, an audit? What a heartless response to this crisis."

"Our child welfare services need immediate, significant and sustained funding now," she wrote. "Our most vulnerable children are not line items on a spreadsheet or a quota to be met. Stop playing politics with Ottawa and save these children’s lives."

Irwin Elman, who was the province's child advocate until the Ford government closed that standalone office, said he believes it's a sign the government has "blinked" in the face of an increasing crisis in the sector and media reports on tragedies that have occurred, including the death of a 16-year-old girl who was refused a foster placement. Her case was investigated by the Ontario Ombudsman and detailed in a report released earlier this year.

"The premier is blinking, and that's good," he said. "But his solution, always about money, is no solution at all for children and families. It's not about money at this point. It's about our systems being in freefall."

Uddenberg, who has been in contact with the ministry about its redesign, said he doesn't believe the government has a good handle on the situation, but added that its high-level concepts — that modernization and better collaboration between service providers are necessary — are correct.

He and frontline workers who spoke with The Trillium said the province needs to break down the barriers between ministries so that a plan and funding for it can follow children through all of their interactions with government-funded services, no matter what ministry they're delivered by.

They said that part of the solution is outside of the domain of children's aid societies: strengthening the preventative services in communities where they're lacking to stop mental health, behavioural and developmental challenges from worsening, so families do not have to surrender custody of high-needs children.

"There are a lot of reactive dollars that have to be paid to support this group of kids that take away from the proactive dollars that could have been put in place to help them further up the river," Uddenberg said.

When that fails, though, the province needs more treatment beds in areas around the province for high-needs children who end up in CAS care, he said.

"We have enough kids in these types of situations now with enough complex needs. Without the proper treatment placements, the math tells you that something bad is going to happen," he said. "It's going to be damaging to kids and families, and their perspective of us, when really they should be leaning into us as a support to them. Because we're actually there to try and help out — we're not there just to swing the hammer."

Minister Micahel Parsa, the fourth minister for children under the Ford government, was not available to comment on this story and has declined The Trillium's interview requests on child welfare. 

In a statement, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services listed budget line items for child services and addiction and mental health supports. 

"Although the government does not direct children’s aid societies on placement decisions, we require them to ensure placements are safe, appropriate and meet the child’s needs," it said. "That’s not an option: it’s the law."