MCFD- asleep at the wheel again

Katie Hyslop, writing in the September 17 edition of Tyee Solutions, The Hook, has captured the truly inept and sluggish rate of change that festers  in MCFD regarding the inter-provincial placement of kids in care (not that lots of other issues aren`t festering there as well.) The Children’s Commissioners just released report, Out Of Sight: How One Aboriginal Child`s Best Interest Were Lost Between Two Provinces, tells a damning tale of bureaucratic paralysis.

In a same day radio interview on the Simi Sara show, she strongly suggested that an unwillingness for MCFD to spend money to send BC Social Workers out of province to assess prospective homes was also a factor.

Child Welfare can be a costly venture.  We need to adequately fund children’s services. Governments of all stripes seem to want to shortchange kids at risk. This includes, though the Commissioner doesn’t mention it in this report, adequate back-filling of temporarily or permanently vacant social work positions.

Social work is a labour-intensive activity. It requires sufficient personnel to give each case enough time. You would think they would know that by now.