The majority of social workers in the child welfare system are so overburdened by cases, they’re unable to do their jobs properly, according to a new report from B.C.’s child and youth watchdog.
Jennifer Charlesworth said the existing understaffing and unmanageable workloads in the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) puts children in care at risk because they’re more likely to fall through the cracks without proper oversight.
“What we see here is a situation where social workers are often unable to provide the responsive and thorough support that children and their families need. This puts young people at risk,” Charlesworth said in a statement.
That was the case with the 11-year-old Indigenous boy who was tortured and killed by the pair tasked with his care in 2021 on a First Nation in the Fraser Valley.
“Social workers in this province have incredibly difficult jobs and to see how understaffed and overworked they are is truly disturbing,” Charlesworth said.
“We have known about chronic understaffing at this ministry for decades, yet successive governments have not addressed these challenges. Now, here we are yet again, reeling from the death of a child that was entirely preventable.”
A report released last week called Don’t Look Away investigated the circumstances that led the boy, referred to by the pseudonym Colby, and his younger sister to be placed in the care of relatives who starved, whipped and abused the children.
That report found that despite a rule requiring MCFD social workers to meet with foster children at least once every 90 days, no one checked in on the children in the seven months before Colby was found badly beaten in February 2021.
Paramedics flew Colby to a hospital in Vancouver, where he died.
The foster parents, whose names are protected by a publication ban, last year pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In a paired followup report released one week later, called No Time to Wait, Charlesworth says the boy’s death happened within the context of a child welfare office that was not fully staffed. For example, she said one social worker overseeing Colby’s file went on medical leave for two months and was not backfilled.
A new report from B.C.’s child and youth representative called “Don’t Look Away,” chronicles the provincial failings that led to an 11-year-old boy being slain by the foster parents he was placed with. As Katie DeRosa reports, B.C.’s Ministry of Children and Family Development acknowledged the system failed the child and his family.
High stress levels
That report is based on a survey with 700 social workers and their supervisors carried out by Charlesworth’s office in April and May.
Her office also held focus groups, community engagement sessions and reviewed ministry data on staffing.
Charlesworth heard that MCFD social workers are dealing with an environment rife with stress, burnout and fear. She urged the government to address the “critical circumstances.”
Previous audits obtained by the representative’s office show that, because of their excessive workload, many social workers are not following provincial standards.
Minister of Children and Family Development Grace Lore said there are currently 3,393 people in her ministry providing direct service to families, an increase of 200 people since September.
“This report is clear and it’s clear when I talk to our front-line staff, we have more to do to support our teams to recruit and retain,” Lore said during a Zoom media availability Tuesday.
“Our teams do some of the hardest work, and we need to support them in doing that. They work with families in the most difficult times of their lives. We need to have a workforce response that speaks to the complexities that families are facing, speaks to the complexities on the ground.”
Alan Markwart, a researcher in Charlesworth’s office, estimated “several hundred” more social workers would have to be hired in order to improve the current situation.
However, Charlesworth stressed the solution is not as easy as just hiring more social workers.
She said the ministry should develop and implement a workload measurement tool that would help determine manageable caseloads for social workers and where staffing needs to be beefed up.
Such a tool, Charlesworth said, would take into account which social workers are handling more complex caseloads – such as cases that involve family violence or substance use like in the case of Colby’s family.
B.C. Green party leader Sonia Furstenau said in a statement the report “reinforces what we’ve heard from British Columbians decade after decade: MCFD fails to protect children, families, and its own workers. There are good people trying to help children in this province, and the toxic system at MCFD is actively thwarting their efforts.”
Furstenau said given the “culture of fear” within the ministry, simply hiring more staff won’t be enough.
“This is not a people problem,. This is a culture problem. The RCY report describes front-line staff who are afraid of their supervisors and afraid to tell people where they work.”
The B.C. Greens and the B.C. Association of Social Workers called on the province to require that all social workers be registered under the B.C. College of Social Workers, which right now isn’t the case.
“Treating social workers as professionals and having their practice superintended by a regulatory college has the potential to professionalize child welfare, address recruitment and retention issues, and enhance protection of the public through external oversight of social work practice,” said Michael Crawford, president of the B.C. Association of Social Workers, in a statement.
However, Lore did not commit to those specific changes. She said the MCFD recognizes a range of educational backgrounds, as well as the importance of lived experience and cultural knowledge so that the ministry is delivering service to families and children in a way that meets their needs.
Mary Teegee, executive director of Child and Family Services at Carrier Sekani Family Services in Prince George and president of the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society, said the high rate of children in foster care coupled with social worker burnout has reached a “crisis point.”
She urged the province to address the root causes of family breakdown, including child poverty and housing instability.
“Those are factors that are causing children to become vulnerable and go into care,” said Teegee, who has been a social worker for more than 20 years. “So we need to look at a full holistic web of supports, web of prevention services. If we’re not doing that, we’re not dealing with the root of the problem.”