Trina Roache
APTN National News
Critics of Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services in Nova Scotia say the notoriously closed agency needs to open up and communicate with a variety of organizations that are there to help families with child welfare issues.
The issue is considered so serious at the moment that a number of meetings are on-going to find ways to open the agency up.
“It’s a big secret what they do,” said Elizabeth Paul, Health Director for the Millbrook First Nation. “They’re not used to sharing any of their anything with anyone.”
Paul and other health care professionals have been meeting regularly with the agency, hoping to develop a better working relationship.
“If they worked closer we would find ways to make it happen.” Elizabeth Paul, Health Director, Millbrook First Nation.
Paul says the agency isn’t in the habit of asking for help but believes everyone has the same goal – to create healthy families.
“If they worked closer we would find ways to make it happen, if we all work together but right now everybody’s working at cross purposes that’s not the way to do it.”
Audits and reviews over the last five years offer rare insights into an agency crippled by problems with management, lack of training, lack of money and a negative image in the community.
A document from the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs (AANDC) highlights the challenges facing the agency.
- Inadequate supervisory and frontline social workers
- Lack of expertise in the supervisory level in the Eskasoni office
- Lack of proper management oversight
- Size of the jurisdiction greatly exceeds capacity to deliver services
An internal AANDC letter summing up the audit wrote, “The province considers the current situation a high risk and believes the casework deficiencies have undermined the safety of children.”
In a 2010 meeting between department officials and the province “there was some discussion of whether the province is considering revoking the agency’s delegation” if the problems weren’t resolved, wrote the bureaucrats.
“Mi’kmaw Child and Family Services is one of the most underfunded agencies in the country,” Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society.
The agency itself is quoted by AANDC as saying “they are running large deficits and therefore in danger of closing their doors if additional funding is not provided.”
AANDC did cough up more money. The agency was able to hire more staff and has worked over the last five years to comply with provincial standards. But many of the agency’s problems can be traced back to decades of running short on cash.
An internal audit obtained by APTN written in 2013 goes into detail referring to ‘serious concerns with respect to case work practices.’ The Cooney operational review found that in addition to high caseloads, there was a “lack of or vague documentation, limited follow up including face to face contacts with children, poor response times, questionable decisions regarding investigations and a lack of case plans.”
Cindy Blackstock heads the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. She says First Nations across the country receive 22 per cent less funding than their provincial counterparts for child welfare. She took that complaint all the way to Canada’s Human Rights Tribunal.
Blackstock says the federal government is short-changing First Nations children. She calls that discrimination. The finger pointing that happens on the ground in First Nation communities. The internal struggles of the child welfare agency. The frustration of the families over why the agency isn’t doing enough. All symptoms of discrimination.
“The problem is the agency can’t do anything about it because they’re funded in ways and structures and in amounts that are far, far short of what the community needs are about,” said Blackstock. “That’s why the First Nation agencies actually created the movement to file this case because they know they should be doing better. They want to do better. But they’re going to need the resources to be able to do it.”
“And what came out at the tribunal is Mi’kmaw Child and Family Services is one of the most underfunded agencies in the country,” said Blackstock.
Brenda Cope testified at the tribunal in Ottawa. She handles the finances for the Mi’kmaw agency and calls the money from AANDC over the years “woefully inadequate.”
“When you’re underfunded, you have a tendency to be putting out fires,” Cope testified.
It put the agency in “crisis mode,” said Cope. It’s unable to plan ahead and unable to hire enough staff. Cope likens it to building a bridge but only having enough money for two-thirds of it.
“It just doesn’t work and and every time we turn around it feels like we’re audited,” said Cope. “It puts a strain, particularly on senior staff because we’re busy answering question and gathering information for audits than the actual provision of child welfare services.”
Cope says audit after audit has shown the agency needs money.
The 2013 Cooney report said that while Aboriginal Affairs handed over enough money to hire more staff, it’s not enough for the agency “to fulfill its mandate” and recommends an agreement for more cash.
In a response to an early draft of the report, AANDC calls the language of the report “contentious” and takes issue “with the term ‘chronic underfunding,’ which again is a loaded and incendiary term…The term” and “…makes it sound as though we were purposefully starving this agency of funds in a systematic fashion. We would suggest that a better description would be that the agency was understaffed until 2010, and that when staffing was increased we responded with incremental funding. Let’s not forget that the EPFA funding agreement we signed with much fanfare back in 2008 was heralded at the time as a sign of a cooperative relationship.”
The EPFA agreement – the Enhanced Prevention Focused Approach. It gives two million dollars more per year to the agency, with the goal to reduce the numbers of children coming into care.
AANDC’s take on the agreement differs wildly from notes senior management made in response to the Cooney report, who point out it was not collaborative but “…based upon an AANDC predetermined amount.”
Back in 2008, Joan Gloade was executive director of the agency and says she signed the financial agreement with Aboriginal Affairs “with a sword to my back” fully knowing that the funds would not be sufficient.
“MFCS staff “expressed serious concern with the Enhanced Funding model given the reality that it would not meet projected needs,” said Gloade.
But the Cooney report is also critical of how the agency spends some of its money. Particularly its use of what are called supervision orders. These are orders issued by the court outlining what the parent has to do to keep their child. It could be rehab, counselling or anger management. The agency calls this “less intrusive” because the children can stay at home.
The Cooney report calls supervision orders “punitive in nature” and expensive. In 2013, the agency spent over 2 million dollars a year taking families to court. And another 1.3 million on drug testing ordered by the court. The report recommends “alternative case practices be explored to enable work with children and families.”
AANDC gets in its own dig at the agency, pointing out that when the agency signed on to EPFA agreement, “…the first year’s $2 million increment to build a new building in Indian Brook was again presented as a triumph. There was no talk of ‘chronic underfunding’ then.”
“It just doesn’t work” Brenda Cope, Financial manager, Mi’kmaw Family and Children’s Services.
Brenda Cope defends that decision. The old office in Indian Brook was cramped and run down. And in fact, the Cooney report recommends a third office be built so the agency can better respond to child welfare issues all over the province.
Cope bristles at the mention of the Cooney report, but adds it has helped and the agency has followed some of its recommendations. Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services is in much better shape than it was five years ago. More money, More staff. More training.
But a paper trail focused on money and policy doesn’t always means anything on the ground in communities, for families struggling day to day with addiction and poverty. And in the blame game over child welfare, the Mi’kmaw agency takes the hit.
When the Cooney report suggests programs to “break the family cycle of child welfare” the agency responds that “the Nation as a whole needs to address poverty, housing, social, addictions, family violence which are determinants of health.”
“There are problems on reserve that having nothing do with child welfare that impact on child welfare,” said Cope. “Housing issues, education, you name it. There’s a problem with the outside perception of what it is to be a First Nations person living in Canada. I mean, let’s face it, there’s discrimination. These things are all impacting us. So if you waved a magic wand you’d have to change an awful lot.”
@trinaroache
When I first served as President of MMFCS, our initial goal was to design, promote, develop and establish a National Indian Child Welfare Act in Canada. Our mission and vision was cut short by the Chiefs of Nova Scotia. The Chief’s lust for Honorarium was far more greater than their commitment to sound and sustainable and continuium funding by virtue of national legislation. The agency was community driven vs driven by politics!