Yukon Family and Children’s Services—Department of Health and Social Services

Opening Statement to the Yukon Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Yukon Family and Children’s Services—Department of Health and Social Services

(Yukon Family and Children’s Services—Department of Health and Social Services—February 2014 Report of the Auditor General)

10 June 2014

Michael Ferguson, CPA, CA
FCA (New Brunswick)
Auditor General of Canada

Good morning, everyone. Madam Chair, I am pleased to be here today before the Public Accounts Committee to discuss our report on family and children’s services in Yukon. This report was tabled on February 18th in the Legislative Assembly. With me are Ronnie Campbell, Assistant Auditor General, and members of the audit team, Eric Hellsten and Ruth Sullivan.

In this audit, we looked at how the Department of Health and Social Services fulfills its responsibilities for the protection and well-being of at-risk children, youth, and their families. We did this by examining the Department’s compliance with selected requirements of the Child and Family Services Act and related policies and procedures. We selected only those requirements that

We also examined the Department’s collection, analysis, and reporting on information about its family and children’s services.

I would like to briefly go over the main findings of the report. We found that the Department met many requirements of the Act and its policies and procedures. For example, it contacts Yukon First Nations when their children and families are involved; offers family conferencing and co-operative planning; provides assessment services, counselling and treatment; meets requirements for approving foster homes; and has developed service standards.

However, the Department did not fulfill several of its key responsibilities. It developed case plans for families and plans of care for children that are to be reviewed and updated quarterly and annually, respectively. We found that this is not being done in most cases. Without such reviews and updates, the Department does not know whether plans are being implemented as intended or whether they are addressing the needs of children and families. These documents are one of the Department’s main means of ensuring that it is looking after the best interests of the children.

In addition, the Department did not develop transitional plans for all youth over the age of 16 in the Department’s care or custody to help them gradually take responsibility for their own care. This is cause for concern, particularly since studies show that many youth who leave foster care have difficulties as they make the transition to adult life.

The Department developed service standards, and it involved First Nations when providing care to First Nations children and youth. As well, it met most requirements for approving foster homes.

However, it conducted few annual reviews of those homes. Further, it did not ensure that all children in its care or custody had annual medical and dental examinations, which are important to ensuring the well-being and long-term health of these children.

The prevention and support services offered by the Healthy Families program and the Child Development Centre were used frequently, but the Department did not measure how the programs performed. As a result, it does not have all the information it needs to make evidence-based decisions that could improve these services.

The Department’s Client Index System is not a case management system, so it cannot assist social workers in managing files by prompting them to carry out required actions at key dates. We found that the data in the system was unreliable, and many of the files in the system were misclassified. Consequently, the Department cannot use the system to compile data of sufficient quality to be used for performance management or for accurate reporting on the services it provides.

We made recommendations to the Department on the following:

The Department agreed with our recommendations and has committed to implementing them. The Department has developed an action plan in response to our recommendations that has been tabled in the Legislative Assembly. We encourage the Committee to ask the Department to provide members with an update on the implementation of this action plan.

Madam Chair, this concludes my opening statement. I am happy to answer any questions the Committee may have. Thank you.