A Legacy of Caring

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A Legacy of Caring Page 27

by John McCullagh


  My challenge as executive director was to rationalize the delivery of child welfare programs that were funded by a government that had adopted a more businesslike approach to the management of social services and that was demanding more accountability from those it paid to deliver mandated services.

  Staff, meanwhile, were looking for more resources, smaller workloads and better salaries. MCSS was clear, however, that budget increases would be pegged at the rate of inflation — or less — despite growing caseloads, children with increasingly complex needs, and the mounting costs of maintaining the agency’s many properties. At the same time, the province ordered the society to eliminate its budget deficit of more than $1 million.

  The agency would be forced to make some hard choices and respond creatively to the changing times. That this would be a challenge was epitomized by the steady deterioration of the rapport between the society’s executive staff and its frontline employees.

  The agency would be forced to make some hard choices and respond creatively to the changing times. That this would be a challenge was epitomized by the steady deterioration of the rapport between the society’s executive staff and its front-line employees. There were some who felt that Finlay appeared not to value or make use of the knowledge and skills of the agency’s staff in conceptualizing child welfare practice in a large, complex urban community. Finlay does not disagree with that sentiment:

  I am not a social worker and I thought that those in the forefront of service delivery were much more capable than I would have been in that role. My job was to ensure the agency had sufficient dollars to deliver effectively the services we were mandated to provide. To do this, I attempted to create a climate in which we could look at how we were delivering those services and ask whether it was the most effective way. Because I posed these issues, I think I was seen as a threat.

  It certainly put the middle managers in a real bind. While I was requiring of them a greater level of participation in the [decisions] we needed to make to help us adjust to the new fiscal and accountability realities, they also fully comprehended the pressures that front-line staff were under in trying to do the best job they could with minimal resources.

  Unfortunately, however, you cannot turn a ship around overnight, even if there is agreement on what needs to be done. But there was no agreement on what we had to do. Yet, I had to plan ahead to manage the changes that were being required of us.

  Finlay managed the changes mainly by cutting staff and programs. The result was a proposal in 1986 to eliminate eighty-six staff positions, a plan that garnered swift criticism from MCSS and the community (much of it organized by the agency’s community work staff) because most of the cuts were to be made from front-line services rather than from support programs or administrative areas. Finlay, however, recalls that:

  With the kind of dollars we needed to cut [to meet government expectations], the savings had to come from a reduction in programs and program staff. There was no attempt to preserve management positions. It was just not possible to maintain the status quo. We needed to make changes in our expensive residential programs while championing the foster care program as a cost-effective solution for looking after children who needed to live away from home.

  “With the kind of dollars we needed to cut [to meet government expectations], the savings had to come from a reduction in programs and program staff. There was no attempt to preserve management positions. It was just not possible to maintain the status quo. We needed to make changes in our expensive residential programs while championing the foster care program as a cost-effective solution for looking after children who needed to live away from home.”

  — Mel Finlay

  The unionized staff go on strike

  The lack of funding, increased workloads and a perception that management was authoritarian and defensive led to mounting stresses among those on the front line.

  During contract negotiations in 1986 between the society and Local 2316 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), union leaders believed that its members’ interests were not a major concern of the agency’s administration. They felt that, because important issues were being trivialized and disrespected, it would be impossible for normal collective bargaining to take place. Kenn Richard, the chair of the union’s negotiating committee, went as far as to say in a letter to John Sweeney, the minister of community and social services, that “[some union members] feel that the society, most specifically Mel Finlay, is deliberately provoking a strike situation as a cost-saving measure to provide quick resolution to the current financial problems facing the agency.”

  Finlay denied this allegation, saying it would have been inappropriate for the agency to save money on the backs of workers, even if it had been possible. The union’s negotiating team nonetheless requested that the minister recoup what it described as “unethical” savings that would be realized through salaries that would go unpaid as a result of a possible strike. The government of Premier David Peterson did later respond by temporarily withholding those funds.

  Negotiations eventually broke down, resulting in a fourteen-day strike in July 1986. It became quickly evident that many of the supervisory staff who maintained emergency services to children and families in need were very sympathetic to the striking front-line workers, as were some board members. For example, supervisors regularly passed refreshments out through agency windows to picketers, and one board member offered strikers coffee and doughnuts purchased on the way to a board meeting.

  The impact of the strike was significant. Clearly, the union had argued its case convincingly. Its members achieved a salary increase of 3.2 percent — raising the average compensation of a front-line worker to $33,000 — almost a full percentage point higher than the final offer management had made prior to the walkout.

  Supervisors regularly passed refreshments out through agency windows to picketers, and one board member offered strikers coffee and doughnuts purchased on the way to a board meeting.

  Mel Finlay resigns

  Despite the settlement of the strike, staff morale continued at low ebb. Many of the union’s issues remained unresolved and there continued to be mistrust between the parties. At the same time, Finlay thought that the board no longer endorsed the direction in which he was taking the agency, and so in February 1988 he decided to resign his position as executive director.

  Finlay had, by his own admission, “ruffled feathers” in the difficult job of repairing relationships with the province while trying to change the way the society delivered services in an era of diminishing resources. He recalls:

  Finlay had, by his own admission, “ruffled feathers” in the difficult job of repairing relationships with the province while trying to change the way the society delivered services in an era of diminishing resources.

  It had become clearer just what the costs were in attempting to change the direction of a 100-year-old agency. People were clearly upset at what was happening, so there was a pulling back from that. Also, I didn’t fully appreciate the way in which the board and the executive committee had changed over the three years of my contract as executive director. We were dealing with a different attitude and agenda at the end of my term than the ones in place when I was hired.

  As Finlay’s predecessor Doug Barr had also discovered, it was difficult for the agency, after “the golden years” described in Chapter 6, to adjust to the new realities of government fiscal restraint and demands for accountability.

  Finlay went on to work in the business world as a consultant, and subsequently became a Baptist minister. For several months after his resignation, the board decided that — rather than appoint an interim director while it sought out a successor — its own executive committee would run the agency directly, supported by senior staff members Jim Thompson, the director of service delivery, and Larry Harrison, the director of administrative services. In reality, Thompson and Harrison effectively assumed the executive director’s role, reporting weekly to the
executive committee at early-morning meetings.

  Foster parent slowdown

  One of the major challenges Thompson, Harrison and the executive committee faced was a work slowdown by foster parents, which arose out of the foster parents’ distress at the low boarding rates the province set. According to Wilma Wrabko, the president of the agency’s Foster Parent Association, they believed “The significant difference in payments to private foster care and day care providers as compared to [Metro CAS’s] foster parents is inequitable and unacceptable.”

  Foster parents were also distraught because they felt a lack of recognition of the work they did to carry out their essential tasks.

  In June 1988, the association informed the executive committee that, because of this dissatisfaction, their members would conduct a work slowdown, during which regular foster parents would refuse new placements of children in their homes unless they received significant per diem increases, plus expenses for each child. Foster parents in special programs, who already received more, would also work to rule and refuse new placements.

  During the slowdown, regular foster parents would refuse new placements of children in their homes unless they received significant per diem increases, plus expenses for each child. Foster parents in special programs, who already received more, would also work to rule and refuse new placements.

  The slowdown lasted throughout July 1988 and was effective in achieving most of the association’s goals. The society negotiated successfully with the government, and the rates at which foster parents were reimbursed for caring for each child increased by about 10 percent. The slowdown also achieved greater acknowledgment of the agency’s, indeed the province’s, dependence on foster parents. As the provincial cabinet minister John Sweeney said, “We simply can’t attach a dollar value to the selfless and challenging work done by so many foster parents throughout the province.”

  “We simply can’t attach a dollar value to the selfless and challenging work done by so many foster parents throughout the province.”

  — John Sweeney

  Foster parents deserved the sense of increased appreciation they gained that summer. Although fewer in number — by a third — than they had been just a decade and a half earlier, their commitment remained astonishing. Many loyal foster parents displayed great tenacity and skill in caring for a growing number of young people who presented grave challenges. They performed amazing feats despite low rates of compensation and little recognition of the effects fostering had on their own families.

  One such foster parent was Susan Oley, who became part of the agency’s developmental care program that offered a family alternative to institutionalization for children with developmental handicaps. Oley recalls:

  In 1987, we were introduced to Rico, a tiny, curly-headed boy of seven years. He was in need of a home with a family with whom he could stay until he was able to live independently. Rico was born with spina bifida and was paralyzed from the waist down. He looked fragile and his needs were numerous, but his eyes were lively and appealing.

  Rico had a severe stutter, especially when he was nervous. When he came to us, he weighed only 24 pounds [11 kg], so small that he could sit on the edge of the kitchen counter to help me prepare meals. I remember all his anxiety of the first few months, his worries about eating, not knowing how to play and whether we would ask him to leave.

  Thirteen years later, we are filled with memories of a little boy who is now almost twenty years old. There have been many trials and tribulations. I’ll never forget all the time we have spent promoting Rico independence, helping him to dress and care for his hygiene, to transfer in and out of his wheel chair and to develop a group of friends. I’ll always remember his compassion and understanding toward other children who came to stay with us.

  Rico’s only wish was to be with his natural family. He wanted so much to become independent, thinking that this was the only reason he didn’t live with them. In 1992, Rico’s hard work paid off and he went to Florida to spend Christmas with his family. He continues to visit them yearly and is proud of his brother and sister, but has now decided that his life is in Toronto and visiting them is enough.

  Now Rico seems happy, has a girlfriend and is participating in a co-op work program. He still has many new challenges ahead of him, but I don’t think he is afraid any more. He has control of his future and his choices. He also knows that whatever he does, he will always be a part of our family.

  Oley subsequently received an outstanding achievement award from the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies for her work with developmentally handicapped children.

  Pape Adolescent Resource Centre

  At the end of 1985, the society had 1,640 children in care. Almost 800 of these were living in the society’s 400 foster homes, while the remainder were looked after in agency group homes or outside institutions. As they reached their mid-teens, these young people needed help with the transition most of them would shortly be making from agency care to legal, financial and social independence.

  To meet this need, the Pape Adolescent Resource Centre (PARC) opened in 1986 as a collaborative project between Metro CAS, the Catholic CAS and MCSS. Housed in the building recently vacated by the Pape Alternate Care Program described above, PARC was designed as a transitional program for youth fifteen years and older who were in the process of leaving, or had already left, the care of the Toronto children’s aid societies. Services were to include counselling on independent living skills, employment, housing, literacy, sexuality and substance and alcohol abuse.

  By encouraging and supporting personal and emotional growth and providing a variety of tailored supports to meet the different needs of many agency wards and former wards, PARC quickly became one of the society’s highest-profile and most successful programs. More than fifteen years later, it remains a central component of the agency’s services to youth.

  By encouraging and supporting personal and emotional growth and providing a variety of tailored supports to meet the different needs of many agency wards and former wards, PARC quickly became one of the society’s highest-profile and most successful programs.

  Innovation and leadership

  Notwithstanding the challenges of the 1980s, Metro CAS continued to innovate and provide leadership in the child welfare field at a difficult time in its history. Every year, the society made a difference in the lives of over 9,000 families and more than 17,000 children, of whom roughly 2,600 annually were offered quality care by foster parents and other providers. For every child in the society’s care, however, agency staff provided services to another seven in their own homes, working hard to protect them and to support their families. Around 1,000 volunteers remained as committed as ever, providing more than 20,000 hours of service each month.

  Despite the difficulties in finding the necessary resources from a barely adequate annual budget of $51 million, the society established new programs that took a broader view of how a child welfare agency should respond to the needs of young people at the end of the twentieth century.

  Despite the difficulties in finding the necessary resources from a barely adequate annual budget of $51 million, the society established new programs that took a broader view of how a child welfare agency should respond to the needs of young people at the end of the twentieth century. Many of these programs were supported by the CAS Foundation, which raised more than $300,000 annually to fund projects ranging from parental skills training and incest victim support to youth employment programs.

  Metro CAS believed that it was well equipped to enter the fast approaching 1990s, which it would do under a new executive director.

  CHAPTER 8

  Recession and Reform,

  1989–1998

  Toronto in the 1990s

  An economic recession, federal and provincial changes to the social safety net and municipal unification transformed Toronto in this era.

  On January 1, 1998, the amalgamation of Metropolitan Toronto’s seven
municipal governments created a new City of Toronto. This change did not significantly affect the governance of Metro CAS, which since 1957 had served all of the territory in the new city’s jurisdiction, although on July 1, 1998 the society did reflect the change by reverting to its former name, the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto.

  (Because these changes did not occur until 1998, at the very end of the period covered by this book, and to avoid confusion to the reader, the terms Metro Toronto and Metro CAS will be used throughout this chapter.)

  At the time of municipal amalgamation, Metro Toronto was home to 2.4 million people, just over half the population (4.6 million) of the Toronto census metropolitan area. More than a million residents of Metropolitan Toronto, or 47 percent of the population, were born outside Canada, accounting for one in four of the nation’s immigrants. Between 1991 and 1996, more than 300,000 foreign-born newcomers settled in Metro, of whom 20 percent were children and 10 percent were refugees. The main sources of these immigrants were Sri Lanka, China, the Philippines and Hong Kong. This influx of newcomers has contributed to Toronto’s standing as one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world.

  At the time of municipal amalgamation, more than a million residents of Metropolitan Toronto, or 47 percent of the population, were born outside Canada, accounting for one in four of the nation’s immigrants.

  The trends established over the two previous decades toward common law unions, delayed marriages and divorce or separation when such relationships no longer satisfied one or both partners continued into the 1990s. The fertility rate, which had also been declining during this time, reached its lowest-ever level in 1997, as mothers gave birth on average to only 1.6 children each.

 

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