Appendix 1. Strategic Context

Vision, Mission and Principles

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; and
• 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;
• That government must acknowledge and reinforce the capacity of communities to support and enhance the resilience of children and families;
• That the ministry should provide the minimal intervention necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of our most vulnerable community members; and
• That government must retain accountability to achieve results to meet the fiscal and social policy agenda. Services should be effective, efficient, and appropriate. This means that:

— Services should be managed and delivered to provide appropriate outcomes for children and families;


— Services should be managed and delivered at the lowest cost with consistent quality services; and

— Services should focus on providing the right service at the right time and in the right place.

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; and
• Advance and support a community-based system of family services that promotes innovation, equity, and accountability.

Planning Context

Ministry Strategic Shifts

Six strategic shifts have been confirmed and will continue to guide the ministry's operations for the next three years. The ministry is moving:

From		To
A closed, reactive defensive culture		Open, accountable and transparent relationships
Centralized decision making and fragmented service delivery		Enabling communities to develop and deliver services within a consolidated, comprehensive, community-based service delivery system
Funding endless services		Making strategic investments in capacity and resiliency building and providing evidence-based funding
An approach of protecting children through removal from their families		Promoting family and community capacity to protect children and to support child and family development
Providing direct care and support for adults with developmental disabilities		A community-based service delivery system that promotes choice, innovation and shared responsibility
A focus on the devolution of child protection authority to Aboriginal entities		Building capacity within Aboriginal communities to deliver a full range of services with emphasis on early childhood and family development

Planning Assumptions

As a result of the mid-term Service Plan review in July 2003 and the ministry commissioned report, New Governance — Some Considerations, the planning assumptions in the 2003/04 – 2005/06 Service Plan were reviewed and redefined. The recommendations in both these reviews have been used extensively in the ministry's 2004/05 – 2006/07 service planning process. In particular the ministry has taken the responsibility for stabilizing the budget before funds are allocated and service delivery is transferred to new regional and provincial governance authorities. Ensuring predictable funding is critical for the new authorities when they begin the process of budget and service planning.

As well, it was recognized that the ministry has needed to do more to change child welfare practice to ensure more children can remain safely within their families and communities rather than being taken into government care. As a result a service transformation plan for child and family services has been developed. The Plan outlines specific initiatives with well-defined measures and milestones to track progress. Although much of the work on these initiatives will be completed in the fiscal 2003/04 year, many have targets and milestones, which continue through subsequent years and must be considered in planning for the 2004/05 – 2006/07 fiscal years. Ministry service transformation initiatives to be implemented over the next three years include:

• transforming government's response to child welfare concerns, including community-based options;
• reshaping case planning and decision making through Alternative Dispute Resolution;
• transforming planning for children in care including alternate guardianship options that promote life long relationships;
• redesigning services to better meet the needs of the community and individual clients;
• promoting prevention and support for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder;
• promoting integrated Early Childhood Development programs; and
• funding options for supported child care.

Sustainability of services for adults with developmental disabilities is of concern. The ministry's interest is to protect the health and safety of those adults with developmental disabilities who receive services from the ministry, while transforming services in a way to provide increased choice and flexibility for individuals and families. A Transformation Plan for Community Living Services has been developed and key initiatives include:

• individualized/direct funding payment options;
• redesigning contracted services for sustainability and support to transformational services; and
• training and professional development opportunities for staff.

The timelines for the move to new governance models, including the creation of a permanent provincial Community Living authority and regional authorities, have been extended since the last Service Plan. Once readiness has been demonstrated by all parties, the permanent provincial Community Living authority is expected to be in place during the 2004/05 fiscal year and the responsibility for delivery of Child and Family Development services will be incrementally devolved to regional authorities.

There are three other initiatives that were key considerations for the ministry during the planning process. These are the provincial Child and Youth Mental Health Plan, the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, and the ministry commitment to developing a system of safe care services for sexually exploited children and youth.

The implementation of the Child and Youth Mental Health Plan over the next five years reflects the long-term commitment of the province to improving the resources and outcomes for children's mental health in British Columbia and will focus on:

• timely and effective treatment and support services for children with serious mental illness;
• programs to reduce risk by preventing and reducing the effects of mental illness;
• building community and family capacity to prevent and/or overcome the negative impacts of mental illness in children and youth; and
• better systems to co-ordinate services, monitor outcomes, and ensure public accountability for policies and programs.

The new federal Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), which came into effect April 1, 2003, increases the emphasis on informal interventions, treatment and rehabilitation, and community-based alternatives to custody for certain cases. British Columbia has historically had a high rate of diverting youth from the formal court system, and has targeted significant resources to rehabilitative programs and community-based alternatives to remand and sentenced custody. It is difficult to assess the impact of the YCJA, as it is still in the early stages of implementation.

Opportunities and Challenges

• As a result of the mid-term review and the ministry commissioned report, New Governance — Some Considerations, the ministry recognized the need to use an effective project management framework to clearly outline key deliverables and outcomes and to be able to regularly monitor progress toward the Ministry's goals. A project management framework will be used to measure progress on the ministry Service and Transformation Plans, the ministry's "Strategic Implementation Plan". The ministry will also implement a project framework to establish governance authorities, a framework that will be managed in partnership with the new authorities.
• The ministry has an opportunity to introduce and/or enhance its performance management framework and accompanying performance measurement system. It is recognized that the service system must be sustainable within present resources, which emphasizes the need for careful monitoring and tracking of expenditures in relation to the performance of the service system.
• As in past years, demographic and social trends and the condition of the provincial economy continue to greatly influence planning and present the ministry with both areas of opportunity and some challenges. The following are key demographic and service utilization trends:

— 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 July 2003, nearly 30,000 families and over 47,000 children received income assistance in British Columbia.

— From 1996 to 2001, there was significant growth in the number of children in the care of the ministry. However, since 2001 the rate of children in care has been dropping, the decline can be partially attributed to efforts in the ministry to better support children and their families. British Columbia is the only jurisdiction in Canada that has a declining number of children in care.

— The provincial Aboriginal child population is increasing while the non-Aboriginal provincial child population continues to decline. The Aboriginal child and youth population continues to account for a significant number of children in care in B.C. Between April 2002 and March 2003, on average, 44 per cent of children in care were of Aboriginal ancestry. Aboriginal children and youth continue to be over represented in relation to population in the utilization of many other ministry programs and services. This ministry has an opportunity to reverse these trends by working closely with Aboriginal communities to design a service delivery system that builds capacity and better meets the Aboriginal peoples needs by finding alternative service delivery methods.

— In B.C. approximately 140,000 children or youth have significant mental disorders. Through implementation and funding of the Child and Youth Mental Health Plan, the province has the opportunity to increase capacity for service delivery in this area.

— The number in youth in custody centres has decreased about 45 per cent from 1996/97 to 2002/03, while the average number of youth on probation decreased by approximately 22 per cent from 1999/2000 to 2002/03.

— Improvements in medical technology have increased the number of children living with severe medical problems who require complex supports and have enabled individuals with developmental disabilities to live longer. This has added pressure to the lifelong services that the ministry delivers to these individuals. 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. Presently, the ministry provides services to approximately 16,000 children with special needs and their families each year. In July 2000, the Supreme Court of British Columbia declared that the Province must fund some form of early intensive autism therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder based on the principles of applied behavioural analysis. As a result of this litigation, there is increased pressure on the resources available for these programs.

— The BC economy grew 1.7 per cent in 2003, slower than the 2.7 per cent expected at the time of last year's budget, according to BC's independent economic forecast council. The Council now expects growth in BC's economy to pick up to 2.9 per cent in 2004. Further information on the BC outlook may be found in the Budget and Three-Year Fiscal Plan released with the budget.

Risk Management

The Ministry of Children and Family Development has embraced the province's Enterprise Risk Management Guidelines, risk management policies, and current best practices for managing risks and maximizing opportunities within the ministry.

The ministry has undertaken the following key activities related to its risk management implementation strategy:

• established an Enterprise Risk Management project charter to guide its work;
• created the organizational structure to identify and manage risks;
• provided risk management training to over 250 ministry staff;
• completed risk assessments for high priority budget and service initiatives; and
• identified the risks to achieving service plan objectives.

A project management approach has been used to assign individual accountability, and establish an ongoing monitoring plan for the implementation of strategies to minimize risk and increase the likelihood of achieving ministry objectives.

During the next three years, the ministry plans to continue using a risk management approach to evaluate the risks associated with achieving service plan objectives and high priority initiatives, and to expand the implementation of the risk management approach to the regional and divisional levels of the ministry.

The long-term vision for risk management within the Ministry of Children and Family Development is that all employees proactively identify and manage significant risks and opportunities. The ministry has used the Risk Maturity Matrix, a tool developed to evaluate the risk management culture of an organization, to establish a benchmark and help to evaluate the ministry's progress towards achieving its long-term vision for risk management. The Risk Maturity Matrix tool provides a method for the ministry to assess the degree of "maturity" gained in key risk management areas such as: organizational philosophy/culture; risk management leadership and commitment; integration with other management practices and systems; risk management capabilities; and, risk management reporting and control.

Highlights of Strategic Shifts and Changes from the Previous Service Plan

Overview of Changes

Recommendations from the mid-term Service Plan review in July 2003 and the ministry commissioned report, New Governance — Some Considerations, have been used extensively in the ministry's 2004/05 – 2006/07 service planning process. Through these reviews the ministry's previous strategic shifts have been confirmed. However, there has been a renewed focus on the methods for stabilizing the ministry budget, transforming service delivery prior to moving to new governance models. These methods have been represented throughout the current Service Plan.

• The ministry has implemented initiatives to stabilize the budget to ensure predictable funding to new authorities.
• In response to the need to clarify methods to achieve service transformation, the ministry has created two internal documents outlining the initiatives, including milestones and measures, to be undertaken to achieve a successful service transformation in the community living and child and family development service areas. These initiatives encourage working in partnership with stakeholders to redesign services to be more sustainable and accessible. In addition, the current Service Plan reflects the work being undertaken to implement the Child and Youth Mental Health Plan and the new federal youth justice legislation.
• The move to the new community-based governance model has been reviewed and timelines for the move to governance extended, so that a permanent community living authority will be created in the 2004/05 fiscal year, based on readiness. Regional authorities will be created incrementally following this, based on their readiness. The Service Plan reflects these extended timelines and ongoing work of the ministry and the interim community living authority to achieve the following six readiness elements:

— achievement of budget stability;

— demonstrated success on service transformation;

— operational Readiness Criteria;

— a service delivery plan;

— trust; and

— an implementation/transition plan.

Goals, Objectives, Strategies:

This year's plan removes duplication and provides a logical link between the goals, objectives, and strategies. In the previous plan, some objectives simply re-iterated the goal and/or lacked a connection between the goal, objectives, and strategies. All goal statements have been restated to reflect the desired result for both people and/or the service delivery system. All goal statements remain consistent with the ministry's strategic shifts and principles published in the previous plan.

Objectives have been rephrased as result statements not as activity statements. The objectives focus primarily on the priority areas of change, following the ministry's mid-term Service Plan review and the ministry's response to the New Governance — Some Considerations report. On-going service delivery is essential to the achievement of the ministry's goals, and is included under the Core Business Areas. In the previous plan, objectives were identified for each target group served by the ministry, offering each area equal prominence.

The following list shows the details of the changes made in the 2004/05 – 2006/07 Service Plan from the 2003/04 – 2005/06 Service Plan.

Measures:

A number of the measures, baselines, and targets have been updated since the 2003/04 – 2005/06 Service Plan. New measures have been added and result in a refocused approach to transforming service delivery, stabilizing the budget and the approaches to moving toward new governance models. Although some of the previous measures have been dropped from this section, the ministry will continue to monitor many of these measures. Please refer to Appendix 2 "Supplementary Performance Information" for detailed information on rationale and definition of the current measures.

Consistency with Government's Strategic Plan

The Ministry of Children and Family Development is responsible for achieving key priorities and strategic actions related to the BC Government's Strategic Plan for 2004/05 – 06/07. The ministry also contributes toward ensuring that fiscal plans for the service system meet the government's three-year budget targets. It will continue to work collaboratively with ministries, communities, and stakeholders to achieve these priorities.