Children’s
minister Tracy MacCharles: Overhaul child
protection system! Or crimes against humanity committed on children and
parents? What is a Crime Against Humanity?
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that
they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or a grave humiliation,
degradation and devastation of human beings."
Ontario vows to overhaul child protection system
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/05/20/ontario-vows-to-overhaul-child-protection-system.html
Children’s minister Tracy MacCharles
vows to act on experts’ report that criticizes major gaps in ensuring safety of
children in care
Ontario's Minister of Children and Youth Services Tracy
MacCharles says the government will act on the ministry-commissioned report on
a child protection system that experts said is secretive, inconsistent and
fails to track many youths. (Jim Rankin / Toronto Star file photo)
By Sandro ContentaNews, Insight, and Laurie MonsebraatenSocial justice reporter, and Jim
Rankin
Feature reporterStaff Reporters
The government’s promised action — and
the report it released Thursday — comes after an
ongoing Star investigation found a child protection system that is
often unaccountable and secretive, and group homes where high numbers of kids
are being physically restrained.
The new report, written by three
government-appointed experts, describes a muddled system where the government
loses track of children taken into care, has no minimum qualifications for
caregivers and allows a growing number of kids “with complex special needs” to
be placed in unlicensed programs.
Citing a case first publicized by the
Star, the report notes that “a young person died in one such (unlicensed)
program in the Spring of 2015 during a physical restraint” by staff. Justin Sangiuliano, a 17-year-old with
developmental disabilities, was a resident of an Oshawa group home when he
died.
Justin Sangiuliano, 17, died after being restrained in an
Oshawa group home in 2015.
The report, called Because Young
People Matter, lays responsibility for the troubled system squarely at the
doorstep of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, noting it failed to
put province-wide standards and mechanisms in place to ensure children receive
high-quality care.
In a statement, children’s minister
Tracy MacCharles said her ministry “values each of the (33) recommendations
outlined by the panel.”
“In the coming months,” MacCharles
added, “we will build a blueprint for reform that focuses on improving the
quality of care for children and youth, enhancing oversight of licensed
residential settings and using data and analytics to inform decision-making at
all levels.”
MacCharles, who was not available for
an interview, said she will form two panels to help guide reforms: one made up
of key players in the sector, another for youths.
Article Continued Below
The report was embraced by the Ontario
Association of Children’s Aid Societies and by Ontario's Advocate for Children
and Youth Irwin Elman, who hailed it as a watershed moment for child
protection.
“If you see the system as a home, the
whole home is in disarray and in need of renovation,” he said, calling the
report a “damning” indictment of a ministry with no ability to understand how
children in care are doing.
The panel of experts — Ryerson
University’s Kiaras Gharabaghi, McGill’s Nico Trocmé and former deputy minister
Deborah Newman — was appointed in July 2015. It consulted almost 900 people,
including 264 young people. It describes a system that has been
“very slow” to change despite years of commissioned reports. “It is time to
shift gears,” the report says. See more in the Toronto Star…
“Children’s minister Tracy MacCharles and workers
of the Children’s Aid Societies”
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