The Department of Family Services provided training on departmental standards and procedures for child protection, as well as orientation and onboarding on Inuit culture, to a significant portion of community social services workers.

• The department revised the Family Wellness Core Training Program with updated content on Inuit Societal Values.
• According to the department’s data, 31 permanent and casual community social services workers out of a total of 67 employed community social services workers attended the revised Family Wellness Core Training Program as of 31 October 2024. Only 1 of the 14 permanent and casual supervisors had taken the core training by the end of October 2024.
• In September 2024, the revised Family Wellness Core Training Program was made available to all staff through an online platform. Staff already on duty were granted 6 months to complete the online program; new staff were given 4 months after their hiring date to complete the program. This will help ensure staff do not go for extended periods without receiving training.
• The department offered supervisors and local and regional managers a series of awareness sessions in 2024 on the new standards and procedures for placing children and youth outside of the territory. However, the department did not track attendance for these sessions.
• In our 2023 audit, we found that the department had only 1 staff member to do all the work related to training. Two new staff, including a manager, were added to the Family Wellness division’s training team as of September 2024.

The Department of Family Services implemented and used the Matrix information system to access data on children and youth under its care or receiving supports from the department, both inside and outside of Nunavut.

• The department launched a new information management system—Matrix—at the end of November 2023. The system was not yet being used by all community social services workers (CSSWs) and other staff despite being functional. The department was able to generate reports on the number of staff who logged in to the system but not the number of staff who were using the system to manage case files.
• The department made case documentation stored on the department’s shared drive accessible through the Matrix system in fall 2024. The department had not transferred case documentation into Matrix that had been stored on USB keys or in paper files.
• The department offered new training for staff on Matrix and published a directive that all staff be using Matrix by the end of March 2025. As of 31 October 2024, 57 staff out of a total of 141 Family Wellness staff had completed the revised Matrix training, including 30 CSSWs. Another 16 staff were in the process of completing the training.

The Department of Family Services has complete, accurate, and up-to-date data on the number of children and youth under its care or receiving supports from the department, both inside and outside of Nunavut.

• Not all staff used Matrix to record and manage information. Accordingly, as an interim measure, the department manually collected information on children and youth from CSSWs in each region of Nunavut.
• The department conducted validation work with care providers and child welfare agencies, including for individuals placed outside of Nunavut. Meetings took place between Family Wellness division staff at headquarters and in Nunavut regions and information was received from regional staff to update information and check the completeness and accuracy of the list of children and youth.
• As a result, the department had a more complete and up-to-date list of children and youth compared with what was in place during our 2023 audit.
• We found that there were inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the latest version of the department’s list that we examined (for example, inconsistent information regarding where children and youth were placed, inaccuracies in birthdates). The quality of the list of children and youth did, however, improve since the first versions generated by the department in early 2024.
• As part of the new standards and procedures for out-of-territory placements, CSSWs were required to give the department’s interjurisdictional placement specialist prior notice of any placements of children or youth outside of Nunavut. This is intended to help keep the list of the number of children and youth placed outside of the territory, and their placement details, accurate and up to date.