2003/04 – 2005/06 SERVICE PLAN Ministry of Children and Family Development

Strategic Context

Ministry Overview

The Ministry of Children and Family Development works to ensure that some of the province’s most vulnerable children and families have the best chances possible to succeed and thrive. Services are provided province-wide to support better outcomes for children, youth, adults with developmental disabilities and families, such as community living supports for adults with developmental disabilities and children with special needs; permanency planning for children and youth; residential and foster care; adoption for children permanently in care; family development; community child and youth mental health; and community youth justice and community supervision services by youth probation officers. Also provided are youth custody and services such as safe houses and outreach programs; community-based alternatives to youth custody such as residential or day programs, intensive supervision, alternative measures and community service work; and programs to assist at-risk and/or sexually-exploited youth.

In Spring 2003, legislation is expected to be introduced to enable the establishment of permanent provincial and regional authorities. Currently, the ministry administers the following legislation: Adoption Act, Correction Act (sections pertaining to youth justice services only), Child, Family and Community Service Act, Community Services Interim Authorities Act, Human and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act (Part 3), Human Resource Facility Act, Secure Care Act (not proclaimed), and Social Workers Act. The following legislation also guides delivery of ministry services: BC Benefits (Child Care) Act, Community Care Facility Act, Family Relations Act, Mental Health Act, Young Offenders Act (Canada), and Young Offenders (British Columbia) Act.

Strategic Shifts

The following six strategic shifts will continue to guide the ministry’s operations for the next three years:

• To open, accountable and transparent relationships.
• To enabling communities to develop and deliver services within a consolidated, coherent, community-based service delivery system.
• To making strategic investments in capacity and resiliency building, and providing funding for programs and services known to work. [Capacity, in this context, means ability and potential. Resiliency is the ability to recover from challenging situations. The ministry believes that individuals, families, and communities have the capacity to successfully face and overcome challenges, provided they are given the opportunities and necessary supports to build and integrate this capacity.]
• To promoting family and community capacity to protect children and support child and family development.
• To a community-based service delivery system that promotes choice, innovation and shared responsibility.
• To building capacity within Aboriginal communities to deliver a full range of services with emphasis on early child and family development.

Highlights of Changes from the Previous
Service Plan

Last year, the ministry began a period of transformation to community-based governance. Consequently, some changes have occurred since publication of the 2002/03 – 2004/05 Service Plan, highlights of which are presented below.

• To support improved services for Aboriginal children and families, the ministry will develop and implement a framework for regional Aboriginal authorities. The recently established Joint Aboriginal Management Committee and five Aboriginal regional planning groups will guide this work. The framework will lay the necessary groundwork for the ministry’s successful transfer of responsibility to regional Aboriginal authorities for most services currently provided by the ministry, anticipated for fiscal 2005/06.
• The Accountability Statement for the Minister of State for Early Childhood Development, related to performance measures, has evolved from the last Service Plan. Last year’s published performance measure for the proportion of kindergarten-aged children who are “ready to learn” will continue to be monitored. However, partially due to the process of ongoing refinement and improvement of the ministry’s performance measures, it is not published in this report because its success depends on factors beyond the ministry’s scope and mandate. The ministry will continue to monitor the measure as it remains an important early childhood development (ECD) priority as a key health and well-being population outcome, along with other publicly-tracked population reports. Another measure published last year that relates to the Minister of State’s Accountability Statement is not in this report. The ministry will have been successful in establishing one early childhood development learning site per region to foster integrated planning and delivery of ECD by the end of fiscal 2002/03. Over the next two years the ministry will provide some funding for ongoing infrastructure, with the majority of funds to be directed towards service delivery. A new performance measure regarding public-private ECD partnerships has been included in this report and is reflected in the Minister of State’s Accountability Statement. A new strategy (2.1.5) reflects the need to highlight community focus on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a preventable birth defect.
• Overall, compared to last year’s Service Plan, the performance measures presented in this report reflect a process of refinement and progression. This process, along with efforts to reduce redundancy and reflect changes that have occurred within the ministry over the last year, mean that several other performance measures published in the last Service Plan do not appear in this document. The removed measures continue to be significant indicators and as such, the ministry continues to track and monitor them through other existing plans and mechanisms. With the transition to provincial and regional authorities under community-based governance, performance measures will continue to evolve and be revised, in consultation with these authorities. More information regarding these changes can be found in the Ministry Goals and Objectives section of this report.
• The ministry’s four core business areas (page 9) presented in this Service Plan have evolved from the previous plan’s five, due to significant progress already made in the transition to community-based governance. These four core business areas are represented by three goals. It is important to note that no service reductions are associated with these changes. A new sub-section under this heading explains the current transition to provincial and regional authorities. A brief description of the ministry’s core business areas in the 2003/04 – 2005/06 Service Plan is provided below.
  • Community Living Services replaces Adult Community Living Services in preparation for the transition to a provincial authority administering related services. This core business area will now include some services for children with special needs previously provided elsewhere.
  • The newly created Provincial Services will provide administration for youth custody centres and other provincial programs and services that will continue to be provided directly by the ministry.
  • The reorganized core business area, Child and Family Development, includes services published in last year’s Service Plan under Early Childhood Development and Special Needs Children and Youth, as well as some previously included under Youth Justice, Child and Youth Mental Health, and Youth Services.
  • Executive and Support Services replaces Corporate Services, Program and Regional Management. As community-based governance proceeds, less infrastructure will be delivered by the ministry headquarters.
• Stemming from the core business area shifts described above, the presented order of some of the content in the Ministry Goals and Objectives section differs slightly from the last Service Plan and some minor wording refinement changes have been made. No changes in service planning and/or service priorities are associated with this reordering.
• Results to date, from joint management work in progress with transition groups such as the Community Living Transition Steering Committee, has had a significant influence on the evolving directional changes of the service delivery system, and hence on the contents of this Service Plan.

Planning Context

Demographic and social trends, and the condition of the provincial economy greatly influence the demand for the ministry’s programs and services.

Over 20 per cent, or about 900,000 individuals in British Columbia’s population are children and youth aged from birth to 18 years. Poverty continues to be an issue for a significant number of children and families. As of May 2002, nearly 39,000 families and over 66,500 children received income assistance in British Columbia.

The proportional percentage of children admitted into the care of the ministry, coming from families receiving income assistance at the time they came into care, has been around 65 - 70 per cent over the past decade. About 60 per cent of children in care come from lone-parent families.

Over a period of years, there was significant growth in the number of children in the care of the ministry. The total number of children in care, including those with delegated Aboriginal agencies, increased significantly between fiscal years 1996/97 and 2000/01, from an average of 7,700 in 1996/97 to an average of 10,450 in 2001/02.

However, comparing fiscal 2000/01 to fiscal 2001/02, the rate of children in care dropped somewhat — from 11 per 1,000 children in 2000/01 to 10.7 per 1,000 children in 2001/02. For the first six month period of fiscal 2002/03, the monthly average was 9,910 children in care, or 10.6 per 1,000 children. The drop can be partially attributed to efforts to better support children and their families. The ministry is hoping to further decrease the need to take children into care via recent legislative changes and the development of new strategies to protect children at risk with options less disruptive than removal whenever possible. The ministry continues working to improve family and community capacity to respond to and care for the province’s vulnerable children and youth, and to increase the number of adoption placements for children in permanent care of the ministry.

The Aboriginal child and youth population continues to account for a significant number of children in care in B.C. Between April 2001 and March 2002, on average, 41 per cent of children in care were of Aboriginal ancestry. This percentage continued to increase throughout 2002. Demographically, the provincial Aboriginal child population is increasing while the non-Aboriginal provincial child population continues to decline.

The ministry delivered community child and youth mental health services to approximately 11,100 individuals in 2001/02. (This figure does not include clients of ministry-contracted agencies, which account for approximately half of this program’s budget.) In the future, the ministry hopes to increase the number of children and youth receiving these services, as the Child and Youth Mental Health Plan is funded and implemented, thereby increasing the capacity for service delivery in this area through the ministry and through the regional authorities, when established. In B.C., approximately 140,000 children and youth under age 19 years are estimated to have significant mental disorders.

In 2001/02, there was an average count of nearly 260 youth in custody centres, and about 3,285 youth on bail and probation supervision in B.C.

The monthly average number of youth in custody decreased by about 35 per cent from 1996/97 to 2001/02, and the average number of youth on probation decreased by approximately 37 per cent over the same time period. However, the teenage population is expected to increase relative to the total child population over the next several years, and this may place pressure on these program areas.

Improvements in medical technology have enabled persons with developmental disabilities to live longer. This has added pressure to the lifelong services that the ministry delivers to these clients. In addition, as aged parents are less able to care for their adult children, and as children with special needs mature, caseloads are anticipated to increase. The ministry funds residential services (continuing care) and training and support (day programs) for adults with developmental disabilities. Comparing March 1997 to March 2002, there was an increase of approximately 25 per cent in this client group, with over 8,600 clients in March 2002. Over the past year, the number of clients served by the ministry grew by about 4 per cent. If that trend continues, caseloads will continue to grow.

The ministry provides services to approximately 16,000 children with special needs and their families each year, ranging from infant development, to respite, to child and youth care workers.

The ministry has made policy and legislative changes to support families to care for their own children, and continues to examine alternatives to removal and subsequent out-of-home care when a child’s safety and well-being can be assured. If a child must be in legal care with the Director, Child, Family and Community Service Act as guardian, then the preferred option is the family care model home rather than contracted agencies and residential resources.

Overall, it has become clear that, in times of fiscal restraint, the current level of service to meet the specialized needs of the ministry’s wide range of clientele, would not be sustainable without a radical shift in service delivery mechanisms. The challenge for the ministry will be to ensure the effective and efficient future delivery of services, by developing service delivery models that provide optimum choices and flexibility within available resources.

Vision

The Ministry of Children and Family Development envisions a province of healthy children and responsible families living in safe, caring and inclusive communities.

Mission

Our mission is to promote and develop the capacity of families and communities to:

• Care for and protect vulnerable children and youth.
• Support adults with developmental disabilities.

Principles

The following principles guide the ministry in its work:

• We believe in the right and primary responsibility of families to protect and support the growth and development of children and youth.
• We believe that government must acknowledge and reinforce the capacity of communities to support and enhance the resilience of children and families.
• We believe that this ministry should provide the minimal intervention necessary to ensure the safety and well being of our most vulnerable community members.

Ministry Role and Mandate

The ministry’s role and mandate is to:

• Advance the safety and well being of vulnerable children, youth and adults.
• Advance early childhood development through strategic investments.
• Advance and support a community-based system of family services that promotes innovation, equity and accountability.