Deficit and operational issues cause Province to intervene in Kawartha Haliburton Children’s Aid Society
A review by the province has identified several significant risks related to the overall operations and financial management of the Kawartha Haliburton Children’s Aid Society.
In a media release Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Michael Parsa, said the ministry “does not have confidence in the society’s ability to make the necessary strategic decisions to address its growing deficit and operational issues, which may negatively impact the safety and quality of protection services that vulnerable children and youth depend on.”
To that end, he has appointed Rosaleen Cutler as supervisor for the Kawartha Haliburton Children’s Aid Society (KHCAS) “to oversee and operate the society and help ensure the safety and well-being of children and youth receiving services.”
“Although the government does not direct children’s aid societies on placement decisions, we require them to ensure placements are safe, appropriate and meet the child’s needs. That’s not an option: it’s the law. The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services has provided $4.6 million over and above the KHCAS’ funding allocation since 2020-21, while working with the society to address the findings of various ministry-led reviews.”
As supervisor, Rosaleen Cutler will be responsible for overseeing the operations and managing the society in place of the board of directors and executive director, for up to a year. During her term, Cutler will address the society’s growing financial and operational issues and reinstate good governance and fiscal sustainability, while ensuring the continuity of services to children, youth and families.
Cutler is a respected leader in human services whose experience reflects an inclusive, partnership-based strategic approach, says the release. She brings extensive child welfare and transformation experience, and a demonstrated ability of working partnerships within organizations and externally with diverse communities.
Regulatory amendments associated with the Supporting Children’s Futures Act, 2024 made earlier this year require children’s aid societies to visit children in society care every 30 days – up from every 90 days. That work is continuing with a review and audit of the sector to better understand how children and youth are being served by the child welfare system.
Chronic underfunding across all of our public services has dramatically increased costs for CAS. 4.6 million over and above sounds like a ton of money, but that would barely cover the placement costs for a year for some of the high risk youth in their care. There is a mental health crisis, an addiction crisis, a homeless crisis, and very high numbers of those individuals have and are no longer able to care for their children, so they land with CAS, who has no where to put them. CAS is responsible for placement but the Ministry is responsible for mental health treatment beds, not to mention schools, hospitals, drug treatment facilities, making housing and food affordable… all things that impact child abuse. The Ministry has put impossible demands onto foster parents, who are no longer willing or able to take it on, thus no foster homes. CAS’s are then left to pay extremely high rates to private, for profit homes because the Ministry won’t create enough non-profit treatment beds. If you demand I drive a transport truck to Florida and give me $50 for gas, and then I can’t get there, whose fault is it ??? Then to have the audacity to put money and resources into more reviews and audits, to question why I couldn’t get to Florida on $50. That’s what’s the Ministry is doing here, more beer into corner stores and a map to find them certainly won’t help, thanks Ford…..Unbelievable and horrible for Ontario’s children, who deserve better, and the CAS workers who fight everyday to protect them.
Yes. Well said
This.
Not sure how Rosaleen Cutler is going to pull this off. If she ends up confirming that the agency can’t operate without the additional funding, and staff can’t handle triple the workload, what then?
Same old merry go round.
Jody is writing the real story here. The sector is in crisis, the Ombudsman is involved, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario reported that the sector has been underfunded by 3.7 billion and the government is looking for a scapegoat.
I may be the voice of decent here, however my experience with KHCAS as an adoptive parent is it was incredibly badly run. In the 3 years we spent interacting with the society we saw endless examples where costs, and time could have been saved while still benefiting a child in their care, yet it wasn’t done.
Our experience was that we literally had to fight them to adopt a child in their care. We were regularly told to just let her “age out” rather than trying to adopt her, despite knowing 1. It’s for the best of a child to have permanency, and 2. That it would help to reduce costs on the society to have less children in their care.
While I do agree these societies are underfunded, and that that has the potential to be really harmful to children I believe that part of the reason they are feeling the funding pressure so badly is because they are badly allocating the funds that they do have and relying on tax pay dollars to bail them out.