July
15, 2003
Feb-June Numbers Confirm
Drop in Child Protection Investigations
Thanks
to excellent work by Vancouver Province columnist Mike
Smyth, Gordon Hogg, Minister of Children and Family Development,
was feeling a lot of heat prior to the 2010 announcement.
Since then cuts to vulnerable children and adults have
disappeared from the news. No doubt Hogg is breathing
a sigh of relief, but the people who will suffer from
a further $70 million in cuts are experiencing nothing
but anxiety.
At
the staged cabinet meeting held on June 25th, a colleague
asked Hogg if "there been any changes or do you contemplate
any changes in the way that social workers respond to
reports or allegations of abuse of children?" Hogg
claimed that there have been no changes; he went on to
say "We still receive about 90 reports a day of abuse
and neglect in this province, and we have to investigate
each one of those thoroughly and appropriately."
Numbers
released by Hogg's ministry on the number of investigations
do not support his claims. Between February 1st and the
June 30th, 2003, the ministry conducted 7,590 investigations
for an average of 1,518 investigations per month. During
the same period in 2000, the ministry conducted 10,262
investigations (2052 per month). The trend for the number
of investigations since 1997 is shown in the following
chart (a third order polynomial is fitted to the data
by Microsoft's Excel XP to determine the trend line; it
is not a freehand sketch). The chart shows that the drop
in the number of investigations began when the Campbell
Liberals came to power. Many suspect that it is driven
by budget cuts rather than by fewer children in need of
protection.
It
is government policy to take fewer children into care.
It may be a good thing to keep more children in their
own homes, if adequate services are provided to families
with children at risk. That does not eliminate the need
to conduct investigations into possible abuse. Alberta's
Children's Services reports a steady increase in the number
of investigations into child abuse and neglect, as was
the case in BC prior to the New Era.
If
nothing has changed, as Hogg claims, then how does he
account for a drop of more than 20% in the number of investigations
into child abuse and neglect? At the staged cabinet meeting,
Hogg said "When we look at the children coming into
care, about 65 percent of them come from single-parent
families on income assistance, and in many cases they
need a little bit of support to keep their family together
- perhaps a child care worker, perhaps some respite care,
perhaps some training in parent effectiveness and those
types of things." At that point Premier Campbell
cut off his presentation. No one asked how it could be
that welfare could be dramatically cut by the Campbell
government without there being more cases of suspected,
and possibly real, abuse and neglect of children. No one
asked for the information that is presented here which
shows that things have changed. No one at the staged cabinet
meeting took the time to put a little heat on Hogg because
the taxpayer paid televised propaganda show was all about
providing excuses for more cuts.
February
17, 2003
20%
Fewer Child Protection Investigations
Information
released by the Ministry of Children and Family Development,
following a freedom of information request, reveals a 20%
drop in the number of investigations for potential abuse
or neglect of children. A drop in the number of children
taken into care can be understood in the context of a policy
to provide other, possibly better, alternatives. It is difficult
to understand, however, why the number of investigations
of potential child abuse or neglect would decline. Government
would have people believe that fewer children are being
taken into care because of alternatives that it is providing.
It looks like fewer children are being taken into care
because fewer investigations of abuse are being done.
It should not take a tragedy to force government to put
the protection of children ahead of its plan to cut the
Ministry's budget by 23%.
Child welfare goes through cycles. Some believe that the
Gove Report, combined with attacks from the BC Liberals
when they were in opposition, contributed to a change in
attitude that led to more children being taken into the
care of the Ministry through court orders. It might be a
good thing if the pendulum is swinging towards more support
in order to keep families together, but no one should confuse
apprehensions with investigations. That is why I submitted
a freedom of information request to obtain more information
on the Ministry's activities.
The
Ministry has released detailed monthly data on child protection
intake activity from April, 1997, through January, 2003.
Unfortunately, when the data are aggregated they do not
balance with the number of investigations reported in the
1999-2000 Annual Report. That report showed 23,425 protection
investigations in 1997-98 while the data released by the
Ministry showed 22,403 - a thousand less. Similarly, the
Annual Report showed 24,136 investigations in 1998-99 compared
to 22,424 according to Ministry data; 24,321 investigations
were shown in the Annual Report for 1999-2000 while the
data shows 23,006. There could be a variety of reasons to
explain those differences, such as records being purged
from the database between the recent release and the time
the Annual Report was prepared. Whatever the explanation,
there is clearly a need for the Ministry to have accurate
data on all aspects of its operations in order to manage
and properly evaluate policies.
The
following graph shows the total number of child protection
investigations by month from April, 1997, through January,
2003. A trend line shows the recent decline in the number
of investigations. (Note: The trend line is a third order
polynomial fitted by MS Excel XP, i.e. it is not a freehand
sketch. Right click
here to download the full 111K Excel file with the ministry's
data and my analysis.)
Alberta's
Children's Services reports a steady
increase in the number of investigations. The last published
BC data showed the same trend. If the data released by the
Ministry of Children and Family Development are correct,
the reduced number of children in care could be due to a
reduced number of investigations. That raises serious questions
as to what is happening. Are fewer children being abused
or neglected? Is the Ministry ignoring reports of suspected
abuse? Will it take a tragedy to get an objective review
of what the Ministry is doing to protect children at risk?
A Ministry and a Minister who was on top of more than budget
cutting would know that there has been a 20% drop in the
number of investigations and would have answers to these
questions.
January
30, 2003
Cuts
to Child Protection
According
to Minister of Children and Family Development, Gordon Hogg,
65% of the children taken into the care of the government
come from single parent families on welfare. The goal
of Hogg's Ministry is to reduce the number of children in
care. Meanwhile, Minister of Human Resources, Murray Coell,
has cut welfare rates for single parent families.
On April
1, 2002, government made it harder to get child care, and
support payments to single parents with a child over 3 also
went down by $51 per month. On July 1, 2002, there was a
further cut of over $50 in shelter allowances for families
of 3 or more (including single parent families with 2 or
more kids). Coell and Hogg sit in the same Cabinet. Are
their policies inconsistent, or does Hogg's acceptance of
a 20% failure rate for kids explain how they can cut support
for the most vulnerable while cutting child protection.
Hogg
was quoted in the April 1st Victoria Times Colonist as saying
"Even with the best risk management tools an 80 per
cent success rate is probably the most that can be achieved."
When interviewed by Vaughn Palmer on Shaw Cable's Voice
of BC on January 22, 2003, Hogg repeated his assertion that
a 20% failure rate is acceptable. He stated that reorganizing
his Ministry while cutting it by 25% was "not ideal".
In opposition, the BC Liberals pilloried the NDP for not
putting more money into child protection and acted as if
every tragedy was the personal responsibility of the Minister.
Hogg
said that his Ministry has saved $40 million by reducing
the number of children in care by 1,000. The Ministry has
yet to respond to my Freedom of Information request for
statistics on the number of child protection
cases. It is likely that the number of children in need
of protection has continued to increase even though the
number of children in care has decreased. Since the government
eliminated the position of the independent Children's Advocate
before it started its cuts, we will have to wait two years
to see data from Vital
Statistics on the number of deaths. Government, meanwhile,
eliminated that measure from any of its "service plans"
(except for aboriginal infants).
Hogg
said that his Ministry has data showing that every time
a high profile tragedy hit the news, social workers in his
Ministry responded with higher rates of apprehending children.
He neglected to mention that it was the BC Liberal caucus
who raised the profile of every tragedy over the past ten
years. Now that they are in power, it is particularly
hypocritical that his response to tragedies is a lecture
on the acceptance of failure. There is a need to verify
that no tragedy is the result of cuts imposed by the Campbell
government, but you can be certain that they will make it
virtually impossible to ever make that determination.
January
8, 2003
Reports
of Abuse & Neglect
According
to the 1999-2000 Annual Report for BC's former Ministry
of Children and Families, there were 34,700 reports received
about children in need of protection. The number of such
reports increased throughout the 1990s as did the subsequent
investigations by the Ministry.
In 2001
the Ministry was reorganized by the Campbell government
and renamed the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
The 2001-2002 Annual Report does not reveal the number of
reports on children in need of protection, and it does not
reveal the number of investigations, although the report
claims that the "rate of reported at-risk children
and youth supported to stay at home" was 91% in 2001-2002.
The report makes it impossible to determine whether the
number of reported at-risk children continued to increase
while 91% were kept at home, or whether fewer at-risk children
were reported to the Ministry. Almost all of the "measurements"
used to measure outcomes in child protection for the new
ministry happen to also measure cost savings. That is why
it is particularly important to see what is really happening
with reports on possible abuse and neglect, and what is
happening with child protection caseloads (separate from
just the number of children who are apprehended).
Minister
Gordon Hogg's stated goal for child protection services
is "To Promote an Environment where the most Vulnerable
Children and Youth are Protected and Supported by Families
and Communities". That goal is implemented through
two objectives: 1) "To promote and support the capacity
and responsibility of families to protect and care for their
children;" and 2) "To improve the safety and well-being
of children and youth receiving child protection services."
The emphasis on the responsibility of families might be
over emphasized relative to the safety of the children.
A measurement
used by the Ministry for the first objective is the number
of children in care, with the goal of reducing that number
(rate in-care per 1,000 children under age 19). A measurement
used by the Ministry for the second objective is "Percentage
of children in residential care placed in foster homes instead
of other contracted residential resources (excludes Aboriginal
children in delegated agencies)." As those "measurements"
go down, so too do costs to the government. Government attempts
to explain its association of foster care with its objective
on safety and well-being by saying that "Placing a
child in care in foster care (as opposed to other contracted
resources) usually offers a more suitable environment for
the child." Of course, those not focused purely on
costs would say that safety and well-being depend on the
needs of each child.
In contrast
to BC's foster home objective, Alberta says its goal is
to "provide positive, stable living situations and
ongoing nurturing relationships for children and youth in
care." It uses several measurements for that goal including
the percentage of "children in care whose file closed
in the year, and who had no more than 3 placements while
the file was open." Alberta also reports on the percentage
of "children who exited foster care, group care and
residential care by either returning to parental care, placement
with significant other, placement with extended family,
placement in independent living or placement in supported
independent living." It looks like the Alberta measurements
are more focused on the quality of care rather on the least
expensive alternative.
Alberta
states its basic protection goal as "protect Alberta
children from abuse and neglect". Note the emphasis
is on protecting children rather than on stressing family
responsibility. Unlike BC, Alberta measures attainment of
that goal by reporting on the "percentage of children
who stay free from abuse or neglect while receiving child
protection services", and on the "Reported, investigated
and substantiated incidences of child abuse and neglect."
Alberta,
with a smaller population, received 49,091 reports of suspected
child abuse or neglect in 1999-2000, and 53,468 reports
in 2001-2002. It is likely that the number of reports in
BC for 2001-2002 also increased. Hopefully BC will restore
full public reporting on the number of reports on the need
for protection and on the number of investigations. The
following graphs come from Alberta's
2001-2002 report and BC's
1999-2000 report (the last data available).
January
3, 2003
Child
Protection in the New Era
The
following request under the Freedom of Information and Protection
of Privacy Act was faxed to the Ministry of Children and
Family Development at noon on January 2nd.
January
2, 2003
Manager
of Information and Privacy
Ministry of Children and Family Development
PO Box 9702 Stn Prov Govt by
fax only to (250) 387-0817
Victoria, British Columbia V8W 9S1
Dear
Sir/Madam:
I make
this request pursuant to the Freedom of Information and
Protection of Privacy Act.
On its
website at http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/media_site/statistics.htm
the Ministry of Children and Family Development makes available
statistics on the number of children and youth in care since
1981 and even makes the underlying data available for download
in the form of an MS Excel spreadsheet. Comparable data
for the number of open family service cases, intake and
case closures are not available.
Please
provide statistics giving the number of open family service
protection cases and the number of open family service non-protection
cases by month for at least the last two years and for any
earlier period for which the data are readily available.
Also please provide statistics on the number of intakes,
the number of family service protection cases closed, and
the number of family service non-protection cases closed
by month for the same period. In other words, please provide
data on the total number of cases by category as well as
on the additions and deletions by month.
A performance
measure and target in the service plan for the Ministry
of Children and Family Services is to reduce the number
of children in care from 11 per 1,000 as of March 31, 2001,
to 9 per 1,000 by fiscal year 2004/05. While the number
of children in care can be reduced through decisions of
the Ministry, it is not clear that the number of family
service cases will decrease. In fact, reducing the number
children in care may require an increase in the number of
open protection cases. Consequently, routine reporting on
caseloads would be consistent with the Ministry's stated
"strategic shift" of "more openness and accountability".
While we wait for regular public reporting of case statistics
in a manner similar to the child in care statistics, please
provide the statistics as described above.
Sincerely,
David
D. Schreck
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