A week after Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Representative for Children and Youth, criticized the Campbell government for dragging its feet on implementing many of the recommendations contained in the Hughes Review, the BC Association of Social Workers (BCASW) piled on with a news release that said: "With the recent child deaths fresh in our minds it is hard to imagine a ministry choosing to launch a vaguely worded action plan instead of following up on the highly specific recommendations of the Judge Hughes Review." The BCASW was referring to the Ministry of Children and Family Development's draft Good Practice Action Plan which you won't find on the Ministry's website, but which is now available on the BCASW website. A spokesperson for the Ministry defended that omission saying the Plan is a draft. The draft Good Practice Action Plan is labeled "final draft July 3, 2007" and it is mentioned in one of the two recommendations contained in Turpel-Lafond's report.

With all the reports and criticism flying around a scorecard is necessary to keep things straight. The Campbell government appointed Ted Hughes to review the child protection system in British Columbia; his April 7th, 2006 report contained 62 recommendations which the government accepted without reservation. His first recommendation was: "that a Representative for Children and Youth be appointed as an Officer of the Legislature, for a five year term, renewable for a maximum of 10 years." After passing legislation for the Representative, on November 22, 2006 an all-party committee of the Legislature recommended Turpel-Lafond's appointment. The Ministry posted to its website a self-evaluation of its progress and plans for the implementation of the Hughes Recommendations in the form of a document dated May 23, 2007; according to that document implementation of all 62 of the recommendations was either completed or in progress. On November 26, 2007 Turpel-Lafond released her progress report which sharply contradicted the Ministry's May 23rd document. She noted that planning was underway on 8 Recommendations, that there was "no progress" or "limited progress" on 22 of the Recommendations, and that there was insufficient information provided to assess progress on 3 Recommendations. Overall she observed:

"While progress has been encouraging in some areas, I must report that I have found too little evidence within MCFD of a coordinated effort to implement numerous Hughes recommendations where its leadership has been required. When progress on recommendations warrant only notations of "planning is underway" or "limited progress found", this is deeply concerning given that these recommendations were made and accepted more than 18 months ago."

Turpel-Lafond's report included two recommendations:

"1. That Government clarify the connection between the MCFD draft Good Practice Action Plan, and the commitment to the full implementation of the Hughes Review; and

2. That Government reiterate publicly its continuing support for the recommendations of the Hughes Review, and that the Minister of Children and Family Development work with greater urgency to implement the Hughes recommendations that need and deserve priority attention by his officials."

Anyone who read the Ministry's self-assessment might wonder why greater urgency is needed since it suggests that all the work is done. That's why the independent watch dog is necessary.

Just as the Representative for Children and Youth wants to know the relation between the draft Good Practice Action Plan and the Hughes Recommendations, so the BCASW wants to see specific commitments, criteria that will allow the plan to be evaluated.

In fairness to the Ministry, its Plan may be fuzzy on many key points and it may fail to specify how and when it will implement the Hughes Recommendations, but it does contain a list of 40 actions and their associated measures of success that have completion dates of either March 2008 or December 2008. The revised Plan should be equally specific with respect to the implementation of the Hughes Recommendations, but the baby shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater; follow-up needs to occur on whether the Ministry is successful on the actions in its Plan. Of course, if it falls short, it can always say that the Plan was just a draft, but in February the Ministry must table a Service Plan in the Legislature. The 2008-2011 MCFD Service Plan will indicate whether the Ministry is serious about the commitments in its draft Plan and whether it has added to them so as to provide assurance that the Hughes Recommendation will be expeditiously implemented. For example, the draft Plan action 18 is to: "Develop an Integrated Quality Assurance system which supports strengths-based developmental good practice across the integrated continuum of services." That may sound like jargon but one of its "outputs" is to: "Develop a comprehensive set of measures to determine the impacts of programs and services on children, youth and families, which will be monitored within quality assurance and other monitoring mechanisms." The measure of success is that a: "Set of measures has been established and necessary monitoring mechanisms are in place." That is part of what is to be accomplished by December 2008. It looks a lot like recommendation 23 from Hughes: "The Ministry should establish a comprehensive set of measures to determine the real and long-term impacts of its programs and services on children, youth and their families and then monitor, track and report on these measures for a period of time."

There appears to be agreement that MCFD should measure what it is doing, how it affects kids and that it should report out. December 2008 may be a little late, but better late than never. The Campbell government should be held accountable for accomplishing that by this time next year.