Some British Columbians are fond of making comparisons between BC and Alberta. Witness the recent joint cabinet meeting that played on common interests. Minister of Children and Family Development, Gordon Hogg, participated in that meeting; we can hope he compared notes with his Alberta counterpart, Iris Evans, since Alberta has also changed its approach to child welfare services.

The annual report for Alberta's Children's Services for 2002-03 shows that reports of child abuse or neglect increased from 53,468 in 2001-02 to 55,255 in 2002-03. BC's Ministry has ceased publishing those statistics as part of its annual report but Minister of Children and Family Development, Gordon Hogg, recently suggested on a talk radio show that his layoffs of social workers are justified because the Ministry is receiving 15% fewer complaints to investigate, 85 per day rather than 100. For sake of comparison, Alberta's report of 55,255 complaints is equivalent to 151 complaints per day, 365 days per year. It is curious that Alberta would have far more complaints even though BC has a 15% larger population of children under age 15.

Alberta's annual report also reports that the number of completed investigations into child abuse or neglect decreased from 37,051 in 2001-02 to 35,642 in 2002-03 while the substantiated investigations decreased from 16,522 to 16,350. The slight decrease is attributed to the implementation of Alberta's new response model. In BC the number of investigations has decreased by 20% according to unpublished data obtained from the Ministry but Hogg appears unable to clearly say why that has happened. The fear is that fewer investigations are the consequence of spending cuts within his Ministry, although Hogg contends that it is the opposite way around even though the spending cuts were first announced on "Black Thursday" in January 2002.

Alberta has adopted an approach it calls the "Alberta Response Model" that is described in its ministry's annual report as "a new way for the ministry to work to ensure positive outcomes for the children, youth and families of Alberta." A background document lists specific outcome measurements including "recurrence of child maltreatment (rate and incidence), serious injuries/deaths (rate and incidence), grade level/graduation, positive child behaviours, permanent placements, temporary placements with family known to the child, 'moves in care', and time to achieve permanent placement." The "Business Plan", similar to what is called a "service plan" in BC, for Alberta's Children's Services for 2003-06 includes many of the outcome measurements listed in their response model. Compare that to Hogg's "service plan" where you will see measures that have a lot to do with cuts to spending and little or nothing to do with outcomes for children.

Although it is not part of the Hogg's "service plan", since 1997 BC's Ministry of Children and Family Development has published a report that does a better job than Alberta in measuring outcomes. First titled "Measuring Our Success", the third edition published in May 2002 was titled "Measuring Success - A Report on Child and Family Outcomes in BC" it included 130 indicators or measurements including child death and hospitalization rates for various causes. The Ministry's "service plan" looks at the "rate of children in care (per 1,000 children under 19 years of age)" as a key indicator, but "Measuring Success" looks at "rate of domestic child abuse/neglect per 1,000 ages 0-18 population". It is possible for the rate of children in care to decrease as the result of cuts in the Ministry even though the rate of domestic child abuse or neglect is increasing. Of course, with fewer social workers and fewer investigations, Hogg's Ministry might not know the rate of abuse.

The Ministry has yet to release the 130 measures of performance for the years since 1999. Whatever the objective indicators show for the performance of the Ministry since New Era cuts began, they should be released as soon as possible and no later than May 2005.

Measures of child welfare outcomes are not the only data being withheld from the public. Until 2003 the Ministry conducted practice review audits of child protection offices in a 4 year cycle and posted the reports to the Ministry's website (see http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/audit/child_protection.htm). No practice review audits have been posted since December 2002. It appears that the Ministry is shifting from auditing actual practice to emphasizing accreditation as illustrated by documents at http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/accreditation/index.htm. Accreditation can be useful but it is no substitute for measuring outcomes whether by indicators as found in "Measuring Success" or for audits of social work practice. There is more to child welfare than the financial bottom line but you couldn't tell it from the direction the Ministry has shifted in the New Era.