Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) Report – Alone and Afraid

The Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) is committed to sharing with British Columbians the actions taken in response to recommendations provided by its oversight bodies, including the Representative for Children and Youth (RCY).

On This Page:

• Alone and Afraid: Lessons learned from the ordeal of a child with special needs and his family
• Ministry response
• Initiatives related to Children and Youth with Support Needs (CYSN)
• Initiatives directly related to Child Protection Workload
• Joint-ministry work

Alone and Afraid: Lessons learned from the ordeal of a child with special needs and his family

The RCY released the report Alone and Afraid in December 2018. The report contains eleven recommendations calling upon several ministries that provide services to children to ensure they are best meeting the needs of children and youth in the province. Five recommendations are directed solely to MCFD and three are directed jointly to MCFD and other ministries, e.g. Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education and Child Care

These recommendations focus on child protection workload, the availability and accessibility of services for children and youth with special needs, and the importance of involving an Indigenous child’s family, community and culture at the first point of contact.

The ministry accepted the intent of the report’s recommendations. MCFD has provided the RCY with annual updates on the key actions taken to implement the intention of the recommendations for four years.

The ministry welcomes and appreciates this report as it offers valuable insights on strengthening services for children and youth and guides and informs practice and regulatory changes.

The ministry, with input from partners, will continue to identify and make changes to our services and how we provide them with a focus on prevention and keeping families together. For services for children and youth with support needs, there are a number of ways for parents and caregivers, First Nations, Indigenous Peoples, communities, service providers, experts and practitioners, and others with lived experience to share feedback and ideas.

Ministry response

The ministry has taken the following steps in response to this report:

• In 2022, as part of reconciliation efforts, the province introduced Bill 38: Indigenous Self-Government in Child and Family Services Amendment Act. Through this Bill, British Columbia is changing provincial legislation to remove barriers for Indigenous Governing Bodies to exercise jurisdiction over child and family services, and became one of the first provinces in Canada to expressly recognize Indigenous Peoples’ inherent right of self-government including self-determination specific to child and family services.
• Bill 38 was co-developed with Indigenous Rights Holders and outlined historic amendments to the Adoption Act and the Child, Family and Community Services Act (CFCSA). Bill 38 included amendments that would provide a range of options or pathways for Indigenous Government Bodies to exercise jurisdiction and authority over child and family services matters, including:
  • Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (Declaration Act) agreements which allow for joint and consent-based decisions under the CFCSA and Adoption Act;
  • enabling agreements which uphold the inherent right of Modern Treaty Nations to exercise their laws off treaty lands; and
  • Coordination Agreements as enabled under An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Metis children, youth and families (the Federal Act).
• By extension of the legislative changes made through Bill 38, core ministry policy was developed to help ensure early identification and involvement of an Indigenous child or youth’s family, community, and culture in their care, including:
  • Core Policy 1.1 Working with Indigenous Children, Youth, Families and Communities under the CFCSA, which provides guidance respecting the director’s duties under the CFCSA related to confirming whether a child or youth is Indigenous and, if they are, confirming whether an Indigenous law applies to them and consulting and cooperating with Indigenous communities in the delivery of services when there is no Indigenous law that applies to the child or youth.
  • Core Policy 1.2 Upholding Indigenous Jurisdiction over Child and Family Services’ outlines the actions a director is required to take in meeting their duties related to upholding Indigenous jurisdiction over child and family services for Indigenous children and youth.  
• To help ensure further alignment with reconciliation work occurring at the provincial, federal, and national level, Bill 38 advances alignment with the Federal Act, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the Declaration Act, the Aboriginal Policy and Practice Framework (APPF) and other key commitments.
• ​MCFD’s efforts to transform our services and develop an integrated Network of Care embeds the identification and involvement of an Indigenous child or youth’s family, community and culture as a key feature of service delivery. Within the Network of Care, the ministry’s Specialized Homes and Support Services (SHSS) transformation incorporates planning supports and business processes to prioritize cultural attachment and belonging—ensuring plans are in place to support early identification and involvement of an Indigenous child or youth’s family and community in their care. This includes clear expectations that services must be trauma-informed and culturally relevant, and that service providers will facilitate involvement in practices of the child or youth’s hereditary culture to ensure Indigenous children and youth receive quality care that aligns with Bill 38 and with principles described in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Declaration Act, and the APPF.

Initiatives related to Children and Youth with Support Needs (CYSN)

The Children and Youth with Support Needs (CYSN) program has undertaken many initiatives to support the recommendations outlined in the RCY’s Alone and Afraid report. In 2019, MCFD launched research and engagement to begin the development of a CYSN service framework to better meet the needs of children and youth with disabilities in the province. Two research providers were contracted to assist in assessing the existing CYSN services to identify service gaps and analyze budgetary investments to determine a more effective and accessible approach to service delivery.

The result of the engagement and research led to contracting four (4) community service providers in Kelowna, Prince Rupert, Smithers, and Terrace to launch pilot family connections centres (FCCs). The pilot centres are becoming operational throughout 2023 and offer a needs-based service approach to support families in their regions. Pilot FCCs offer:

• A range of diverse services that include developmental services for families and children that may not have an official diagnosis or designation, and goal-focused services for children and youth with identified support needs, such as:
  • Early identification and support
  • Supported child development
  • Therapeutic interventions (e.g., occupational and physical therapy, speech and language therapy)
• Flexible and accessible ways to receive services to extend reach to families in need and historically underserved throughout the pilot regions.

During the pilot phase, engagement is continuing into 2024 to inform the development of CYSN service approaches for children, youth and their families across the province. This engagement process includes a number of options for parents and caregivers, First Nations, Indigenous Peoples, communities, service providers, experts and practitioners, and others with lived experience to share feedback and ideas.

In addition to developing a new pilot service approach, MCFD has also made changes to improve existing services, including: 

• A re-developed, modernized approach to respite that provides families with more diverse opportunities to reduce stressors, such as in-home supports, increased respite funding, and providing a one-time grant to support community-based respite services to children and youth with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
• New investments to support children with support needs that are currently underserved, including funding for an additional 90 foundational program therapists across the province, expansion of the FASD Key Worker Program, and an additional 175% above the province’s current investment in School Aged Extended Therapy doubling hourly reimbursement rates from $80/hr to $160/hr and increasing the annual maximum reimbursement to $5,760 per year.
• Creating better mechanisms for supporting families to find the best services and supports to meet their child’s needs, once they are approved for autism funding. 
• Development of training for child welfare practitioners to enhance knowledge and understanding of CYSN services and practice; as well as enhance collaborative practice between CYSN and child welfare practitioners to best support families together. 

Initiatives directly related to Child Protection Workload

• Completed a review of the Child Protection Response Policies to identify procedures that staff must complete to ensure the safety and well-being of children and youth. Update procedures to support the ministry’s transformation work with Indigenous children, families and communities and enable staff to focus on relational practice by increasing their capacity to connect and strengthen relationships. Policies related to meeting and interviewing children in a private, face-to-face conversation remain in effect. More recently, the ministry has expanded these procedures to include connection to children and youth in out-of-care placements.
• Identified and are centralizing administrative tasks and functions where feasible to allow ministry staff more face time with children, youth, young adults and families.
• Made practice changes to family preservation work and created tools (noted below) to support staff in understanding the changes.  
  • The Core Practice Accountabilities (CPA): Child Protection tool includes the requirement that all policies and standards are mandatory and identifies which procedures must be completed at a minimum. 
  • The Practice Guide: Using the Structured Decision Making (SDM) Tools was modified to reflect the procedural changes.
• Training and orientation circles occur monthly to ensure all required staff understand the changes to policy and procedures as outlined above (over 1,400 staff have participated to date). This training is also provided to all newly hired child protection staff.

Joint-ministry work