A Legacy of Caring

by John McCullagh

  Volunteers outnumbered paid staff. By 1975, for example, the agency employed a staff of 700, complemented by about 1,000 volunteers. These volunteers ranged from talented ten-year-olds to retired business people, and they donated approximately 4,000 hours of service a week.

  There were now more volunteers than paid staff. By 1975, for example, the agency employed a staff of 700, complemented by about 1,000 volunteers. These volunteers ranged from talented ten-year-olds to retired business people, and they donated approximately 4,000 hours of service a week. Writing in 1974, Lil Laforet, volunteer supervisor for Scarborough Branch, described some of their activities:

  A family service team volunteer could be phoned day or night if a client is feeling depressed or alone. The volunteer may arrange to take the mother of two active little boys to the park for a picnic lunch or to go with another to visit a teacher, sometimes a frightening experience for a parent with little formal education. Another gives individual help to a handicapped child, lessening his frustrations and relieving the mother.

  A volunteer might be attached to a children’s service team working with foster parents in an admission-assessment home or making appointments for eye, orthodontist or annual medical appointments, coordinating these and sharing the driving.

  Children who are supervised in their own homes rather than in care may receive a visit from a volunteer to help make arrangements for a homemaker or babysitter. Working independently and yet with staff, these volunteers are able to keep children in their own homes.

  Lloyd Richardson retires and is succeeded by Ed Watson

  By the end of 1973, Lloyd Richardson was ready to give up the helm of the agency he had guided through massive expansion into an era of increasingly diverse and complex demands.

  At that time, he reflected on the transformation of the agency’s administrative structure, which had paved the way for better program management, decision making and communication — between management and staff and among the organization’s thirty-eight separate locations. These changes in turn enabled the society to respond to its own growth as well as to the complexities created by a more permissive age and by rapidly changing client needs. He wrote:

  “Today, there is a distinct trend away from “rescuing” children and punishing parents towards reinforcing the family unit to help it function as a whole again. The single mother is no longer condemned and the child with personality and behaviour problems is not regarded as wilfully “bad” and therefore to be locked up.”

  — Lloyd Richardson

  No longer do we regard child welfare as “the blessed work of rescuing . . . children found in surroundings of vice and sin,” as one of the society’s early annual reports put it.

  Today, there is a distinct trend away from “rescuing” children and punishing parents toward reinforcing the family unit to help it function as a whole again. The single mother is no longer condemned and the child with personality and behaviour problems is not regarded as wilfully “bad” and therefore to be locked up.

  As the public attitude toward individual rights alters, so gradually does the law of the land. The Legal Aid Act, amendments to the Child Welfare Act and the new emphasis on civil rights and liberties contribute to the challenge and change of longstanding laws and customs.

  But while we believe in the rights of parents, we feel strongly that the rights of the child must also be maintained and that legislation and practice must guarantee these rights.

  “But while we believe in the rights of parents, we feel strongly that the rights of the child must also be maintained and that legislation and practice must guarantee these rights.”

  — Lloyd Richardson

  Richardson’s retirement was widely lamented; many staff felt that his departure marked the end of an era. Richardson did not strive for a high personal profile, preferring instead to work very effectively, often behind the scenes, as a child welfare advocate. He always found the time to be alert to trends and developments in the field and collaborated skilfully with those in government, other children’s aid societies, community services and education. In particular, he formed a close and fruitful working relationship with Ward Markle, his counterpart at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society.

  Richardson was the prime mover in developing the plans for the new Child Welfare Centre at 33 Charles Street East and meticulously followed every detail with the architects and builders. He was the first senior executive at the agency to give serious attention to the development of personnel policies, salary scales and working conditions. He promoted an effective and creative working relationship with foster parents. He also developed and maintained an effective rapport with social work students, encouraging them to come to work for the society.

  Lloyd Richardson enjoyed seventeen years of retirement, much of it spent at his villa on the Spanish coast, until his death in 1990.

  Pressures for accountability, productivity and efficiency

  As Richardson’s successor, the board of directors recruited Ed Watson, executive director of the Family Service Association — a capacity in which he had worked with the society to run several community-based programs. Like Stewart Sutton and Lloyd Richardson before him, Watson was a professional social worker. He had worked initially in direct practice and as an administrator with the British Columbia Public Welfare Department before moving to the Canadian Welfare Council in Ottawa, where he helped develop funding for social work education and training.

  By the time of Watson’s appointment in 1974, the society was dealing with a political and economic environment that had changed dramatically from that of the previous decade.

  On the economic front, a period of rapid inflation, caused by cuts in the supply of imported petroleum products, prompted the provincial government to acquire a keen interest in assessing the costs, efficiency and effectiveness of the bodies it funded, among them Metro CAS. The era was marked by a number of inquiries and structural alterations within the provincial government, and its relations with children’s aid societies grew increasingly turbulent as it demanded greater accountability while at the same time the societies grew ever more anxious to preserve their independence.

  Two inquiries, in particular, merit mention, both reported in the mid-1970s. The first was the MCSS Task Force on Selected Issues and Relationships, known as the Hanson Task Force after its chair, Hugh Hanson. Although designed primarily to examine the ministry’s own activities, the task force also studied the need for more rigorous standards to direct the work of children’s aid societies and even considered — although it did not recommend — that the ministry abolish CAS’s and deliver child welfare services directly. (An earlier Study of the Managerial Effectiveness of Children’s Aid Societies, begun in 1969 by the management consultants Urwick, Currie and Partners, reached similar conclusions, although nothing became of them.)

  By the 1970s, three studies had suggested that CASs be taken over by different levels of government.

  The second was the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto, known as the Robarts Commission after its chair, the former premier John Robarts. It was established to examine and make recommendations on the structure, organization and financing of local government in the Metropolitan Toronto area. The commission criticized Metro’s children’s aid societies as being unaccountable to government at any level and repeated earlier recommendations that Metropolitan Toronto take them over. The municipal government, however, declined to do so.

  At this time, Metro CAS was serving 19,000 children and more than 7,000 families with 750 full-time staff, 500 foster homes and more than 1,000 volunteers. Those numbers, reflecting the size and complexity of the organization, were sufficiently daunting to prevent both the municipal and provincial governments from entertaining any thoughts about abolishing the agency or the other children’s aid societies across the province.

  However, during all this ferment, the press took sides. While the Toronto Star supported the societies, calling for adequate funding
to let them do their work, The Globe and Mail continued its campaign in favour of transferring the societies to direct government management.

  If the autonomy of local societies has a lack of accountability (and we believe it has) and if that lack of accountability has permitted sloppy procedure to go unchecked (and the record speaks for itself), then perhaps that autonomy should be revoked. Perhaps the children’s aid societies should be placed directly under provincial control.

  While the Toronto Star supported the societies, calling for adequate funding to let them do their work, The Globe and Mail continued its campaign in favour of transferring the societies to direct government management.

  This view was never shared by the government of Premier Bill Davis. Still, The Globe and Mail maintained its position on children’s aid society governance until 1982, when, at a meeting with the newspaper’s editor, Metro CAS persuaded the influential paper to change its editioral viewpoint.

  The society’s response to provincial expectations

  This clamour, however, did make for increased complexity and uncertainty as the society struggled to meet the province’s expectations for accountability, productivity and efficiency at a time when Queen’s Park was preoccupied with fiscal matters rather than questions related to organization or programs.

  It became increasingly difficult for the agency to secure — and manage — adequate financial resources. In 1965, when, for the first time, virtually all of the society’s expenses were covered by the provincial and municipal governments, the agency’s budget had totalled a little short of $5 million. By 1973, when Ed Watson became the executive director, it had increased almost threefold to $14 million.

  In this context, the province began to demand substantial evidence of sound management, fiscal prudence and high performance before it would approve the society’s annual budget estimates. In the mid-1970s, this review process deteriorated steadily, with a whole year often passing before the province made decisions on the agency’s estimates. Watson described the relationship between the parties as “taut.”

  As funding restraints escalated, they held serious consequences for every facet of the society’s operations. Watson’s response was to institute important changes in the way the agency was managed, changes that he believed were necessary to meet the province’s expectations. It wouldn’t be easy: he had inherited the responsibility of running an organization that had developed a culture patterned in part on the personality and style of Lloyd Richardson. He recalls:

  When I took over the job of executive director, I felt that the agency was somewhat of an ingrown ship. The senior staff had been in their positions for many years and had been schooled to be responsive to Lloyd’s file. I found there was some resistance to looking openly at better ways of doing things because they felt they knew what they were doing.

  Watson created a service management group that involved branch directors to a greater degree in setting the agency’s priorities and establishing the budget for its operations. At the same time, Paul Michaelis was appointed to a newly created position, director of field services, to oversee the work of the branches. This allowed Watson to devote more time to running what had become a very complex organization.

  Harry Zwerver was hired into a new position of director of planning and development and was charged with instituting a “program planning budgeting system” that would try to set goals for, and measure the performance of, programs in a way that would strengthen the society’s budget submissions to MCSS. Under the direction of Bill Hedderwick, the agency began to use more structured methods, as well as computer-assisted technology, to measure management performance, the placement of children and the deployment of staff consistent with the funding the government made available.

  Under Bill Hedderwick’s direction, the agency began to use more structured methods, as well as computer-assisted technology, to measure management performance, the placement of children and the deployment of staff consistent with the funding the government made available.

  Serious attempts were made to save money by ensuring that children came into care only as a last resort. Youth over thirteen years of age were not admitted unless it was essential, and children were to be moved, whenever possible, from more expensive outside paid institutions into lower-cost agency programs. This was a notable change from the era of deputy minister James Band, who, as recounted at the beginning of this chapter, advocated in 1961 the benefits of limited institutional care for children.

  Many staff embraced Watson’s reforms enthusiastically, although there were endless discussions about how to structure the organization to respond to the issues of the day. Tony Diniz remembers how humour was often used to ease the tension:

  [Debate over how] to deliver services in the best way possible raged through Scarborough branch when I was there in the early 1970s. It had the added complication that this branch somehow always considered itself a pioneer. After what seemed like endless conversations, we determined that the best way to proceed was to bring together the very separate family service and children’s service departments and to create multi-service teams which would be organized around children, families and local communities. We always needed hilarity and symbolism to mark change. Accordingly, we staged a mock shotgun wedding where the two department heads of the time vowed eternal mutual bliss. The two, Marilyn Holland and Cary Wolgelerenter, dressed up as bride and groom and you can imagine who wore which costume!

  In a similar vein, long-time intake worker Ann Coulter recalls:

  When intake got particularly awful, we would bring our pet gerbil out to run about in the office. One Friday afternoon, three of us were trying to catch him on the floor at a time when we were all complaining about ministry cuts. Someone commented, “Imagine if a ministry inspector walked in now — three social workers crawling round the floor trying to catch a gerbil instead of rescuing children in need of protection!”

  Humour did not help everyone, however. Despite Watson’s attempts to proceed cautiously at a pace that most people could accept, several long-term employees chose to resign rather than agree to changes in which they did not believe. Still, staff and foster parents in large part managed valiantly and creatively to maintain service excellence during this turbulent period.

  Union certification

  As workload demands and the effects of government funding restraints intensified, staff began to press increasingly for union certification. This development was also a reflection of the tenor of the times, as staff grew more aware of their rights as employees.

  Another success was a decision that made it acceptable for women staff members to wear pants instead of skirts while on agency business.

  As described in Chapter 4, both the CAS of Toronto and the Infants’ Homes had long had staff associations. In the 1950s, their negotiations with management had yielded a five-day work week and longer vacations. In the 1960s, further negotiations brought about better salaries and personnel practices, the establishment of a staff canteen, parking spaces and an improved heating system at the Charles Street offices. Another success was a decision that made it acceptable for women staff members to wear pants instead of skirts while on agency business.

  By 1973, the staff’s concerns over deteriorating morale, funding cutbacks, attrition and a sense of not being involved in decision making led to a campaign to convert the association into a certified union. The timing seemed right because the president of the board that year, Bert Edwards, was an executive of the United Steelworkers of America. Many board members and senior staff, however, thought a union was unnecessary and that good management practices should be able to provide sound leadership and protection for workers, especially for professional staff.

  The staff association conducted a series of referenda in 1976 to ascertain the wishes of its members with respect to unionization and the degree to which management should be excluded from membership. A majority of front-line staff voted for unionization, but front-line supervisors
did not.

  The front-line workers, therefore, signed their first contract with the society in 1977. Initially the new union was not affiliated with any national organization, but in 1979 it joined the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) as its Local 2316.

  Mary Lewis, who was prominent in the unionization drive, recalls some of the tactics staff used to bring their concerns to the board’s attention:

  We were in the process of going for certification and we decided we’d do a silent vigil. We lined up on both sides of the stairs before a board meeting so that board members would have to walk up through the line. My memory of it is that it was quite a radicalizing experience for the staff members on the stairs because the board members were clearly of a different social class from many of the workers. I think it was awkward for the board too, because we were just silent and didn’t say anything.

  Bill Davis, then the premier of Ontario, and Uncle Bobby, the host of a local children’s television show, celebrate CAS of Toronto’s 100th anniversary.

  A birthday celebration

  In 1975, the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Infants’ Home. Public forums were held, alumni meetings were organized and, at the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in August, there was a grand birthday party. Premier Davis attended, there was music on the bandstand, entertainment for the children and great quantities of cake to go round.

  Uncle Bobby, a television personality much loved by children, celebrated at the CNE, too, on Kids Day, along with a troupe of clowns — foster parents in everyday life. They performed magic tricks and were joined by fire eaters, limbo dancers and other exciting acts for the audience to watch.