State Crimes: Against children and youth continues
to take place in group homes and foster homes, administered by of the Ministry
of Children and Services and the Children’s Aid Societies. The numbers of
children and youth have been killed, scarred, traumatized, and maimed for life
in atrocious acts of violence committed by the government institutions and
private societies are uncountable. Because of the seriousness of the crimes against
humanity perpetrated in this country against children and youth must be
investigated by an independent international human rights organization.
Children's aid societies urge Ontario group-home overhaul
Caregivers not screened through a provincial database of people who may be risk to children, report by 44 societies finds.
Jim Rankin / Toronto Star
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Sally Johnson of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies
helped prepare a submission to the province on improving residential
care for children and youth. She says current screening of group home
staff doesn't go far enough.
Children’s aid societies are calling for an
overhaul of Ontario’s group home system, where standards are so low that
caregivers are not screened through a provincial database of people who
might be a risk to children.
The demands are contained in a hard-hitting
report by the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS),
which represents all but three of the province’s 47 privately run
societies. The report, obtained by the Star, was presented in February
to a government-appointed panel reviewing Ontario’s system of
residential care.
It describes a widely inadequate system of
residential services and lays much of the responsibility on the Ministry
of Children and Youth Services, which funds and regulates child
protection in Ontario. The societies note that despite years of debate
and study, group homes remain unaccountable, to the point that societies
don’t know if the homes they send children to are performing badly.
“Why is it that I can check online for a
rating on a restaurant but can’t check on a group home?” the report
says, quoting an unnamed “senior counsel” with Algoma children’s aid.
The report makes clear that children and youth are paying the price.
“Group home staff are often underpaid and not
always well trained in understanding treatment needs or how to deal with
behavioural challenges” presented by children often struggling with
trauma or mental health issues, it says.
The report describes “somewhat cryptic”
ministry standards for a group home licence. Most troubling, perhaps, is
a double standard on background checks.
Foster parents approved by societies must be
checked through Fast Track, an electronic database that contains records
of all children’s aid societies and flags people who have abused
children or risked their safety. But people hired to care for children
and teens in group homes are not screened through Fast Track.
Group homes do get police to check for
criminal records and to conduct a broader “vulnerable sector check.” But
Sally Johnson, OACAS director of service excellence, says those checks
don’t go far enough.
“A criminal record check won’t tell you if
they have a child protection record somewhere in the province,” says
Johnson, who headed the OACAS team that drafted the residential services
report.
Screening caregivers through Fast Track was recommended by the coroner’s inquest for Jeffrey Baldwin, who died in 2002
after years of mistreatment by his grandparents. The Catholic
Children’s Aid Society of Toronto failed to check its own records, which
would have flagged their convictions for child abuse.
Despite the litany of system failures it
outlines, the OACAS report says group homes play a “critical role in
supporting children and youth in need of protection.” But the ministry
has no systematic way of determining local needs and, as a result, no
idea where to set group homes up.
Children from northern Ontario are often
placed far from their communities and cultures. Children suffer through
“a high number of moves in care” before finding the right placement, the
report says. Long waits for mental health programs mean kids “often end
up being placed in hospital psychiatric wards, which may not be the
most appropriate environment.”
The report describes a system that in many
ways is flying blind. It notes there is no public registry or website
that outlines which homes are fully licenced by the ministry and which
are operating under provisional permits — an indication that standards
have not been fully met.
In the past five years, no group home has had
its licence revoked. Two licences were not renewed, one because of
“findings noted during an unplanned inspection,” according to a ministry
response to Star questions.
Even reports that must be filed to the
ministry about serious incidents involving children in care are not
compiled and shared with societies, the OACAS says. They disappear into a
black hole, along with other residential care data that could be used
to gauge performance.
“Current ministry policy and processes do not
facilitate or promote transparency and accountability in residential
programs,” the report says.
The OACAS also reveals that local societies
sometimes investigate complaints against group homes, but do not share
findings with other societies. It says the government-appointed review
panel noted this practice could result in societies placing kids in
homes where they are at risk. But when societies in the past shared the
results of investigations, group homes sued them, the report says.
“It puts a bit of a chill on people,” Johnson said in an interview.
On average, 15,625 children were taken into
care in 2014-15 due to parental abuse or neglect. About 3,300 ended up
in Ontario’s 484 privately owned group homes. The province last year
gave societies $1.5 billion in funding.
The OACAS report credits the Toronto Star with
revealing some child protection performance data through freedom of
information requests. The Star’s ongoing investigation discovered a patchwork of practices and services across the province.
The Star also revealed that in 2014, there
were 23,263 serious occurrences involving children and youth in
residential care. Of those, about 9,000 resulted in kids being
physically restrained and pinned to the floor by caregivers.
A Star analysis of serious occurrence reports
to the ministry also found police being called in 40 per cent of
incidents in Toronto, often because kids broke house rules or damaged
property.
“Some group homes utilize rigid behaviour
management models and the police are often called in to manage
acting-out behaviours,” the OACAS report says. “This is especially
problematic for racialized and marginalized youth who are not only
disproportionately reflected within child welfare, but are also
overrepresented in the corrections and justice systems too; a trajectory
that often begins in group care.”
As a licencing condition, the ministry should
insist on programs “geared to changing rigid group home cultures focused
on punitive behavioural control,” OACAS says.
The ministry is expected to release the findings of the group home panel it appointed by early April.
The Canadian Regime
and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services should be investigated for
human rights violations.
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