A Legacy of Caring

by John McCullagh

  Metro CAS’s promotion of a comprehensive adoptive disclosure system resulted in the establishment of an Adoption Disclosure Register for both birth families and adoptees who wished to have their names recorded.

  Despite the legislative mandate given to CAS to perform adoption disclosure work, the activity was permissive rather than mandatory. As Metro CAS and other societies struggled with meeting the need, funding became the underlying issue. Adults were the target group for these services, and MCSS was reluctant to pay for adult services with child welfare dollars, particularly during an economic recession.

  Another change to adoption law and practice, also brought about by the Child and Family Services Act, had a significant impact on the work of Metro CAS. Historically, many adoptions had been made privately, without the involvement of a children’s aid society. For example, a family doctor might place a child of a patient with the family of another patient. The new act, however, prohibited anyone other than a children’s aid society or a licensed adoption agency from placing children for adoption. This gave rise to the development of private adoption agencies, which were required to be charitable corporations.

  These new agencies, which rapidly proliferated, were better able than the children’s aid societies to provide prospective adoptive parents with the healthy infants and toddlers for which so many of them were looking. Because relatively few such children were available in Canada, the private agencies increasingly looked for them overseas.

  This development in adoption practice began in the late 1980s and gathered momentum over the decade that followed. Adopting a child from overseas was seen by many potential adoptive parents as a way of avoiding the long delays in securing a child placement through CASs and other domestic adoption agencies. Media coverage of children living in poor or war-torn countries around the world caused many people to consider adopting internationally, in the belief that they were saving a child’s life. The numbers of completed international adoptions, however, varied in relation to the political situations in the countries involved.

  The development of both private agencies and international adoption left CASs with the increasingly difficult task of finding adoption homes for children who were harder to place — those who were older, had special needs or were living with disabilities. Because of this, in 1988 Metro CAS was able to complete only 101 adoptions, a dramatic decline from the more than 1,000 adoptions the agency completed annually just two decades earlier.

  The development of both private agencies and international adoption left CASs with the increasingly difficult task of finding adoption homes for children who were harder to place — those who were older, had special needs or were living with disabilities.

  The changing role of foster parents

  The changes in the adoption landscape were mirrored in the agency’s foster care program. In the past, foster parents had provided love and physical care for children but were involved very little in the evaluation of, and planning for, these children. In the 1980s, foster parents began to be accepted as equal partners with agency staff, and their responsibilities grew accordingly. Enhanced training programs were introduced, as were specialized boarding rates for families caring for children with special needs.

  Sports celebrities lend their profiles to a Metro CAS foster care recruitment campaign.

  Foster parents now participated in case planning conferences, administered specific programs for the treatment of physical and emotional disorders, taught birth parents about child care and helped to formulate agency policies and practices. The Foster Parent Association supported these new roles through its strong leadership, with substantial encouragement and backing from the society.

  Mandy, Jeff and Tina were three children with special needs being cared for in foster family homes.

  Mandy, aged five months, was born prematurely and had a congenital abnormality that needed surgical repair. Her mother was a troubled teenage ward of the society who had caused disturbances in the foster family’s community and had threatened to abduct the child. Despite this background, she was determined to have her baby returned to her and visited the child in the foster home three times a week. The foster mother taught Mandy’s mother basic baby care and spent time and effort building a trusting relationship with her.

  Mandy, aged five months, was bom prematurely and had a congenital abnormality that needed surgical repair. Her mother was a troubled teenage ward of the society who had caused disturbances in the foster family’s community and had threatened to abduct the child. Despite this background, she was determined to have her baby returned to her and visited the child in the foster home three times a week. The foster mother taught Mandy’s mother basic baby care and spent time and effort building a trusting relationship with her.

  Jeff was the fifteen-year-old son of a single parent and had been in care for about six months. He had a history of petty theft, aggressive and bullying behaviour, truancy and nightly bed-wetting. He was hostile toward his birth mother, abused her regularly and eventually refused to talk to her at all. After he was admitted to foster family care, the bedwetting soon stopped and he began to attend school regularly. His foster father played an important role in this process. He encouraged Jeff to renew contact with his mother and, with his help, Jeff eventually returned home to her.

  Seven-year-old Tara had been in a foster home for most of her life. She was developmentally handicapped, could walk only short distances and was not fully toilet trained. She also needed facial and cranial surgery. The foster mother regularly took her to the Hospital for Sick Children to consult with the medical staff about her needs. Although her potential was considered to be limited, she responded well to her foster parents’ care.

  Advocacy

  One distinguishing feature of the agency in this era was a continuing effort to examine community problems and issues that were pertinent to the society’s work and to address them by devoting time, energy and resources to advocacy and community action. The society did this even in the face of expanding demands, declining revenues and ever-closer government scrutiny. Much of this work was undertaken by community development workers, with the support of the Social Issues Committee of the board of directors.

  Open house held to reach out to the public

  Their work ranged from addressing neighbourhood concerns to providing input into proposed changes to provincial and federal legislation that would affect the welfare of children. The predominant concerns were the need for safe, affordable family housing, accessible child care for low-income parents, adequate social assistance and the provision of sufficient funding for the agency’s operations.

  Multiculturalism

  As outlined in previous chapters, Toronto had seen profound changes in the size and composition of its population since the Second World War. These changes were reflected during the 1980s in Metro CAS caseloads, in which families of aboriginal, Middle Eastern, East Asian, South Asian, African, Caribbean and other backgrounds were increasingly represented.

  Concern about how the society should respond to the needs of these families, as well as about the adequacy of the agency’s services to communities of new Canadians, led to the establishment in 1978 of an agency Multicultural Task Force. Assisted by a U.S. consulting firm, Resources for Change, the task force comprised agency staff and board members as well as representatives of diverse ethnic and racial communities.

  Leland Gudge was the staff member designated to assist the work of the task force. He recalls:

  “We had some serious work to do in the agency. We had to address not only what seemed to many of us as the inability of the organization to respond in a culturally sensitive way but also had to interpret the concept of a child welfare system to communities for whom the idea was totally alien.”

  — Leland Gudge

  We had some serious work to do in the agency. We had to address not only what seemed to many of us as the inability of the organization to respond in a culturally sensitive way, but we
also had to interpret the concept of a child welfare system to communities for whom the idea was totally alien.

  Doug Barr and Grenville da Costa, the only person of colour on the board at the time, decided to undertake an assessment of how to tackle these issues, with the help of an American consultancy firm. Hiring a U.S. consultant was controversial but I think it was a safe position for the board at the time, bringing someone in from outside of the city and the country.

  We had some mighty struggles with various ethnic organizations, aiming to put some teeth and focus to the recommendations while making sure they were doable. The final recommendations were very different from the direction the consultants were leading us. We ended up with a very comprehensive report that looked at systemic change rather than just issues of race relations, which was how the Americans saw it.

  Because the work of the task force was so comprehensive and time-consuming, its recommendations were not tabled until 1983. They committed the society to providing services that were free of racial and ethnic bias and delivered by staff, foster parents and volunteers who were knowledgeable about ethnic and racial differences. The agency immediately set about implementing the proposals.

  Janet Haddock, responsible at the time for the multicultural training programs, recalls:

  We were aware that there were many aspects of the organization that needed to change in order for us to improve our services to a diverse — the term in those days was “multicultural” — community. We couldn’t just say, “Okay, we’re going to do training” or “We’re going to offer brochures in various languages.” We had to make a paradigm shift. Doug Barr likened the time and effort needed to shift the direction of the agency to changing the direction of an ocean liner.

  It required a different way of thinking and a recognition that previously we had done everything from a majority value base and that we needed to recognize that there were a lot of ways of looking at the world and that, accordingly, we had to change the way we operated.

  “We couldn’t just say, okay, we’re going to do training or we’re going to offer brochures in various languages. We had to make a paradigm shift. Doug Barr likened the time and effort needed to shift the direction of the agency to changing the direction of an ocean liner.”

  — Janet Haddock

  Bruce Rivers, then the manager of the society’s residential care programs, recalls going to the training sessions:

  We were asked to explore our awareness and the reaction among many in the agency was, “How could they ask us to do this when we harbour no malice or prejudice toward our brothers and sisters, no matter what the colour of their skin?” However, we needed to get in touch with an understanding of racism and how that had become institutionalized, not just in our agency but also throughout society. Our organization broke ground in Canada by taking hold of that issue, embracing it, making it public and committing to a plan to combat it.

  The society began to undertake more meaningful partnerships with some of Metro Toronto’s ethnic-based community organizations. Cultural interpreters were trained to ensure that when workers and clients did not share a common language they could communicate in a way that was understood across cultural as well as language barriers. Multicultural workers with ethnic and cultural backgrounds similar to those of the clients the agency was serving were hired in each branch.

  Cultural interpreters were trained to ensure that when workers and clients did not share a common language they could communicate in a way that was understood across cultural as well as language barriers.

  An alternate care program specifically designed for children of Caribbean background was established in the east end of Toronto. The Pape Alternate Care Program, as it became known, operated from a homely house in a residential neighbourhood and was enthusiastically supported by the African-Canadian community, which had not previously seen the CAS as a viable source of help with resolving family problems.

  The Pape Alternate Care Program, operated from a homely house in a residential neighbourhood and was enthusiastically supported by the African-Canadian community, which had not previously seen the CAS as a viable source of help with resolving family problems.

  Meanwhile, Jewish Family and Child Service (JF&CS) had for many years been lobbying to become the children’s aid society for Toronto’s Jewish community. It took almost fifteen years of negotiation, conversation and, for JF&CS, frustration, before that agency was fully recognized as a children’s aid society in 1980. (Until then, Metro CAS was heavily involved in overseeing JF&CS’s child welfare work.)

  In a report published in 1967, Jerome Diamond, then executive director of JF&CS, wrote:

  At present, agency policy is for Metro CAS to investigate charges of neglect [in Jewish families]. Then referral to JF&CS for intensive casework is made, where deemed suitable, after a conference with both agencies. [If the child needs to be admitted to care,] all the paperwork is done by our own agency. It goes to the Ministry who then direct the placement to the Metro CAS, who handle the legal step of court work.

  According to current JF&CS executive director Gordie Wolfe, during those fifteen years, “Metro CAS made it possible for JF&CS to serve Jewish families who required child protection services, to maintain children in Jewish foster homes and to preserve the religious traditions that were so important to the agency and which were the driving force behind its struggle to become a children’s aid society.”

  Accountability

  Although the dynamics of multiculturalism were a major focus of activity in the 1980s, the society was also increasingly concerned with responding to ongoing demands for accountability toward clients, governments, local communities, staff and foster parents. There was a clear need for more openness, public participation, grievance procedures and mechanisms for standardized program evaluation.

  These needs began to be addressed through a series of internal reviews and the work of an evaluation and planning department led by Steve Raiken. The department’s responsibilities included developing a system of strategic planning, performance evaluation and a computerized information system (enhanced in 1984 with the purchase of an advanced IBM System 38 mainframe computer). Later, in 1987, the society’s antiquated and separate telephone systems were unified and modernized to provide more effective communications among the agency’s twenty locations and with outside callers. At about the same time, the first word processing equipment was introduced.

  In 1987, the society’s antiquated and separate telephone systems were unified and modernized to provide more effective communications among the agency’s twenty locations and with outside callers. At about the same time, the first word processing equipment was introduced.

  The demands for accountability, however, needed to be carefully balanced with quality services to children and adequate support to the staff, foster parents and volunteers who delivered those services. This challenge became particularly acute when the agency hired a consultant, Neville d’Eca, to develop effective management skills, based on business principles, among supervisors and managers. Many front-line staff thought that a businesslike orientation detracted from supervisors’ ability to act as consultants and teachers in the social work tradition. They feared it would lead to a lessening of morale, greater on-the-job stress and increased staff turnover.

  Doug Barr was clear, however, that “In a climate of increased public accountability for the services we provide, the society has chosen to take the initiative and anticipate what needs to be done before problems arise.” Annual service plans and periodic long-range plans were developed, allowing the society to develop more systematic methods of determining its programming and funding needs.

  Governance and management of the society took on a more business-like approach. Annual service plans and periodic long-range plans were developed, allowing the society to develop more systematic methods of determining its programming and funding needs.

  These plans were complemented by MCSS’s introduction of Exception
al Circumstance Reviews that tried to respond to the twin truths that, on the one hand, children’s aid societies could not close down their intake process, yet on the other, the government needed to control costs. The reviews attempted to determine which cost increases were unavoidable and which could be contained.

  Comprehensive policy and procedure manuals were written to guide board members, service staff, administrative staff, foster parents, volunteers and the Emergency After Hours Service on personnel, orientation and training issues.

  Comprehensive policy and procedure manuals were written to guide board members, service staff, administrative staff, foster parents, volunteers and the Emergency After Hours Service on personnel, orientation and training issues.

  The agency instituted minimum hiring criteria for front-line workers, as well as pre-employment police checks and an updated, more systematic performance appraisal system. A salary classification system was introduced that compensated staff not only on their training and experience but also the complexity of the tasks they were required to undertake. Efforts were made to keep salaries competitive — in 1984, front-line workers earned $30,000 a year on average — so that the agency did not lose staff to organizations where the pay was better. An employee assistance program was developed to provide support to staff involved in work-related crises.

  A salary classification system was introduced that compensated staff not only on their training and experience but also the complexity of the tasks they were required to undertake.