Child and Youth Agenda in budget is positive response by government

A recent meeting with the deputy minister of health has the new Children’s Advocate optimistic that effective, long-lasting change is possible.

But some of his optimism is based on a dark fact: things are bad.

“The situation is so desperate,” said Bob Pringle. When he was minister of social services in the mid-‘90s, there were 1,700 children in care. Today, there are upwards of 4,800. “We’re in crisis so transformational change is required. That means moving control over to First Nations and Métis leadership stakeholders.”

It looks as if that move is getting underway with meetings already taking place between the province and First Nations and Métis leadership to discuss handing over that control to already existing off-reserve Aboriginal agencies. New agencies may also have to be created.
Pringle was the minister who initiated and signed agreements creating and working with on-reserve child and family services agencies.

Before Pringle took on his job as Children’s Advocate, he chaired a panel that worked through last year and tabled its review of the child welfare system with the province in December 2010. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations responded favourably to the report which put forward 12 recommendations and 50-60 action steps.

“We basically came to the conclusion…that First Nations children are so vastly over-represented…that the structure of the child welfare system and those who operate it is the major reason for poor outcomes,” said Pringle.

In Pringle’s Growing for Saskatchewan report, which is a review of the work undertaken by the Children’s Advocate Office in 2010 (Pringle was only appointed as the new advocate in January of this year), it is noted that 80 per cent of children and youth in care are Aboriginal. The three in-depth child death investigations were all of First Nations male youths and the four critical injury investigations were all of Aboriginal youth.

One of the recommendations to come from the children’s welfare review report, For the Good of our Children and Youth, was the development and implementation of a “Child and Youth Agenda that guarantees children and youth become a high priority in the province, and that all children get a good start in life.”

The provincial government responded immediately to that recommendation with $34 million of new money in the budget and a process that will see seven provincial departments working together.

“They’re taking multi-ministry proposals so there can be a holistic view of the issues that are faced,” said Pringle.
But for any approach to be successful, it has to be driven by the stakeholders. Pringle said presentations made to the panel by First Nation and Métis representatives said “don’t prescribe what the structure should look like. That’s up to us.”

While changes seem to be in the wind, Pringle said he has been in politics for almost four decades and knows how easy it is to lose momentum and vision. And with so many people involved on the government’s part – seven ministers, seven deputy ministers and a larger number of staff – it’s a point of “anxiety” for him.

Pringle hopes that between the premier’s support and a report that the Aboriginal Research Centre will issue every six months measuring the success or failure of the implementation of the recommendations that the issue of the welfare of children can be kept in the forefront.