Despite the difficult financial challenges of the 1990s, the board and senior managers of the society encouraged innovation and creativity and strategized with the agency’s funders on how best to provide long-term benefits for the children and families the organization serves. According to associate executive director Carolyn Buck, “This is why the society stands out as a child welfare flagship.”
Despite the difficult financial challenges of the 1990s, the society’s board and senior managers encouraged innovation and creativity and strategized with its funders on how best to provide longterm benefits for children and families.
Early intervention and prevention
Four innovative examples of the early intervention and prevention programs started at this time are Family Builders, Babies Best Start, the Family Resource Centre and day treatment programs.
Modelled on the American Behavioral Sciences Institute’s Homebuilders Program and undertaken in partnership with the Catholic CAS, Family Builders was a crisis intervention project and family preservation program aimed at preventing children from being removed from their families and placed in CAS care. It helped parents resolve crises, assess problems and explore options.
Family Builders was a crisis intervention project and family preservation program aimed at preventing children from being removed from their families and placed in CAS care.
For each family in the program, society workers delivered an intensive, short-term, home- and community-based crisis intervention and family education service over a four- to six-week period, for up to twenty hours a week. Families set their own goals and, by building on their strengths, workers helped them achieve those goals. Each worker typically delivered services to two families at a time, and was available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for emergencies.
As an example of the program’s work, its former manager, Joan Davis, recalls the comments of one mother and her son:
The child perceived the goals to be worked on as “bed time and me and my brother going places.” He wrote that “we learned a lot, like not to fight and to go to bed at the right time.” His perception of what he did differently was, “I go to bed at ten and I don’t fight and get mad.” His mother’s ideas about the most useful things the family worked on were “how to handle and discipline the children together and make my husband a gentleman.” Skills she learned and said she would continue to use were “being firm with the kids, listening to my husband and not fighting with him or screaming very often.”
Babies Best Start focused on early intervention and community involvement to support vulnerable children under five years of age and their mothers.
Babies Best Start, set up with a grant from the CAS Foundation but subsequently funded through grants from Human Resources Development Canada, focused on early intervention and community involvement to support vulnerable children under five years of age and their mothers. Supervised by society nurse practitioner Brenda Pickup, the program was, and is, based on volunteer home visitors who, because of their own abilities as parents, were able to pass on these skills to other mothers. The peer approach worked because it brought together women of similar backgrounds, language and culture.
Khadija Ahmed, a home visitor and an immigrant from Somalia, recalled her concern over help that many migrants from North Africa, particularly Somalia and Ethiopia, desperately needed to adjust to a new culture, language and climate: “Back home, a child is wrapped in a blanket when he has a fever. They don’t know about medicines that help to bring the fever down.”
Mahes Parameswaran remembered how, in Sri Lanka, oil was rubbed on a baby’s skin and then the child was left out in the sun during the morning hours. “We had to tell new families to Canada that Canadian doctors tell us that this is not good for the baby,” she said.
The home visitors took an initial forty-two hours of training before being assigned as volunteers. They then continued to meet every two weeks for instruction on nutrition, heath, infant development, behaviour and discipline. During this time, the women would also gather to discuss any problems or difficulties they may have had reaching out to a particular mother or family. Pickup was available for consultation and support. She adds:
Since its founding, the program, now sponsored by Aisling Discoveries Child and Family Centre, has reached over 2,000 parents and their children. Today, it employs forty-five women, all community parents, speaking over thirty different languages and actively supports 500 families, mostly newcomers to Canada.
The Family Resource Centre offered a place for children in the short-term care of the society to visit with their parents in a home-like setting. These mothers and fathers, in turn, were supported by the centre’s staff to learn positive parenting techniques.
Another prevention program was the Family Resource Centre, which offered a place for children in the short-term care of the society to visit with their parents in a home-like setting. These mothers and fathers, in turn, were supported by the centre’s staff to learn positive parenting techniques. Former program coordinator Sue Hansford recalls:
A number of young mothers participated in regular visits at the centre, anywhere from three to five days per week. It provided an excellent opportunity for us to assess their parenting skills and capabilities along with providing ongoing support and teaching assistance.
A number of parents who attended the centre were working to combat addiction to drugs or alcohol, which hindered their ability to care for their children on a regular and predictable basis. Hansford remembers the visits of one such mother:
She visited her infant regularly at the centre before we felt comfortable allowing visits in the family home. She told us that it was helpful to have someone to turn to, someone who would listen about her addiction problems. Having help with infant care was a relief to her and she appreciated the assistance she received in learning how to care for her baby.
As an outgrowth of the alternate care programs described earlier in this book, in the 1990s the agency established two day treatment programs. Located in former admission-assessment residences, they offered children and their families a combination of individual counselling and group programming along with an on-site classroom. The primary goal was to prevent the need to admit children to residential or foster care and to help those children who had spent time in such care to rejoin their families. The program was also designed to help prevent foster care placements from breaking down.
In the 1990s the agency established two day treatment programs, aimed at preventing the admission of children to residential or foster care and to help children who had spent time in such care to rejoin their families.
Primary prevention through community development
The society’s community work program maintained its commitment to primary prevention initiatives that reduced the incidence of child abuse and neglect. It did this through identifying issues, advocacy and by helping communities develop local services for children and families.
The newly flexible funding formula allowed the society’s community work program, which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 1998, to maintain its commitment to primary prevention initiatives that reduced the incidence of child abuse and neglect. It did this through identifying issues, advocacy and by helping communities develop local support services for children and families. The program also addressed the social and economic inequalities that placed children, families and communities at risk. Much of this work was supported by the social and child welfare policy committee of the board of directors, which continued the society’s long tradition of activism on social policy issues that affect the lives of the agency’s clients.
One of these communities was Swansea Mews, a 150-unit public housing project located in the city’s west end. Built in the 1970s, the project was designed to avoid both the dense concentrations of low-income families that were prevalent in housing projects elsewhere in the city and the related challenges that could develop from such concentration.
Over the years, Metro CAS community workers had provided support to the Swansea Mews community, by organizing the tenants, fundraising and addressing issues such as racism, financial deficits and lack of resources. Community worker Ken Sosa remembers some of the programs he helped organize:
The Youth Counselling Project was one of the Swansea Mews community’s great successes. As a result of the project, there was a reduction in vandalism and youth in conflict with the law. There was an increase in the number of children and youth who participated in dramatic arts, entrepreneurial activities and city-wide recreational competitions. Another project was the development of a basketball program and a “just for girls” program. All of these community activities were designed to help children and youth develop self-confidence and feel part of a community that cared about their well-being and supported their development.
Throughout the 1990s, another of the society’s community workers, Ann Fitzpatrick, worked full-time to try to increase support for affordable housing for agency clients, including youth leaving the society’s care. Another worker, Colin Hughes, devoted his full-time attention to issues related to child poverty. In this capacity, he was the Metro Toronto coordinator for Campaign 2000, the advocacy organization formed after the 1989 House of Commons resolution, mentioned in the previous chapter, to end child poverty by 2000. Meanwhile, the CAS Foundation funded the appointment of Sharron Richards to a new, part-time position as the society’s child welfare advocate. As illustrated above, in this role Richards helped the society develop and implement strategies to address the impact of the government’s funding cuts on the agency.
The community work program has had a significant impact on the growth of community life in Toronto. Many creative projects to support immigrant and refugee children and their families, and low-income children and families, arose from the work of the society’s community workers. They include the Somali Women and Children’s Support Network, multiservice agencies such as the Jane-Finch Family and Child Centre and LAMP — the Lakeshore Area Multiservice Program — and community programs like Creating Together, described in Chapter 7.
The community work program has had a significant impact on the growth of community life in Toronto. Many creative projects to support immigrant and refugee children and their families, and low-income children and families, arose from the work of the society’s community workers.
Community partnerships
Without the support and cooperation of external service providers such as those described above and elsewhere in this book, the society’s task of protecting children from emotional, physical and sexual harm would have been next to impossible. The story of the psychiatrist Dr. Paul Steinhauer illustrates the effects of these partnerships.
Dr.Paul Steinbauer
During a thirty-eight-year career that ended only with his untimely death in 2000, Steinhauer treated children at his own medical practice, was on staff at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and was a tireless lobbyist for the rights and welfare of children.
Steinhauer’s passion contributed significantly to child welfare practice. He was an insightful board member of the CAS of Toronto. And as a caring foster parent, he researched the needs of children in care and consulted widely with child welfare workers about how best to meet the needs of the children on their caseloads.
Of particular significance, however, was his work in developing tools to assess families and parenting capacity to help workers gather information about all aspects of a family’s life. Family service supervisor Lin Brough describes the tools as: “A detailed map of patterns within a family that allow workers to predict a parent’s ability to nurture children. They ensure that assessments are comprehensive and allow workers to be objective in their view of families.”
Of particular significance was Paul Steinhauer’s work in developing tools to assess families and parenting capacity to help workers gather information about all aspects of a family’s life.
Steinhauer’s death left a wide gap in research and advocacy for children in Ontario. The legacy of his work, however, will benefit children for years to come.
Young people at risk: homeless and runaway youth
As was highlighted at the beginning of this chapter, during the 1990s young people were among those most at risk of becoming homeless. Forty-six percent of shelter users in Metro Toronto were children and their parents, while many thousands of teenagers and young adults survived as best they could on the city’s streets. Many were under sixteen years old, and were often runaways from CAS care.
There were many reasons these young people found themselves in this situation, including family neglect, conflict and rejection as well as physical and sexual abuse. To them, street life seemed safer than life with their families, most of whom had had a long history of unsuccessful involvement with CAS workers and other professionals. To meet their survival needs, however, these street-involved youth were forced into illegal or undesirable sources of income, making them prime targets for exploitation. Threats to their health and safety were characteristic of the lives they led.
There were many reasons why young people became homeless, including family neglect, conflict and rejection as well as physical and sexual abuse.
Society staff were challenged to respond to the needs of these young people, many of whom, because of their experiences, found it hard to trust adults, particularly child welfare workers and others in positions of authority. As one participant in a Metro CAS focus group said:
Fourteen different CAS placements have a devastating effect on kids like me. Once you go through it you feel not cared about, and you think, what the f— —, why not live on the street — the people on the street care, my family doesn’t.
In 1985, the society had established the Toronto Street Youth Program, described in the previous chapter, for youth engaged in prostitution, one of the survival techniques adopted by some street-involved youth. While this program was able to meet the needs of many such young people, it was unsuitable for the majority of homeless and runaway youth who were not drawn into the sex trade.
While older homeless youth could depend on the shelter system, it was not an option for youth under the age of sixteen who refused to be admitted to or stay in traditional CAS care. For them, the society tried to set up a designated emergency shelter to which a young person could be admitted on his or her own request without the need for parental permission or the order of a judge. However, the legal obstacles to open such a shelter proved insurmountable.
While older homeless youth could depend on the shelter system, it was not an option for youth under the age of sixteen who refused to be admitted to or stay in traditional CAS care. For them, the society tried to set up a designated emergency shelter to which a young person could be admitted on his or her own request without the need for parental permission or the order of a judge.
Outreach and drop-in services seemed to provide a more workable solution, which is why, in 1994, Metro CAS agreed to cooperate with community agencies that worked with the older population of street-involved youth to provide protective services to runaways under sixteen years old. Research had shown that these youth were more likely to trust a worker from one of those agencies rather than one from the CAS. Jason’s story, told in the agency newspaper Communicate — which had replaced the journal Our Children in 1989 — illustrates the success of this approach:
Fourteen-year old Jason regularly “bounced” between his mother’s home, CAS care and the street. He is difficult to work with because he routinely misses appointments with his worker. He was on the run for two months, living on the streets and surviving by his wits.
Recently robbed and beaten, he refused to report this to the police for fear they would return him to the CAS. He told a nurse at the street health clinic, where he went to seek treatment for his injuries, that he planned to go to Vancouver for the winter. The nurse tried to help him consider more constructive alternatives. Jason trusted her because his peers
had told him that she would not immediately pick up the phone to call the CAS.
A week later, Jason returned to the clinic and asked the nurse to negotiate his return to his mother’s place. Jason spent the winter safely at home rather than on the streets of Vancouver.
Young people at risk: lesbian, gay and bisexual youth
Research had shown that a disproportionate number of homeless and runaway youth were lesbian, gay or bisexual. Despite the more permissive climate of Metro Toronto at the end of the twentieth century, the effects upon these young people of growing up lesbian or gay were devastating. Not only did they have to survive the turmoil of adolescence, but they also had to develop a positive identity in the face of the overwhelming potential for discrimination. Like their non-gay peers, they too learned the myths and stereotypes about homosexuality that were still prevalent in society. They risked rejection from loved ones while trying to find a place in the world that, at best, gave no guidance, and at worst, said it did not want them because they were sick, immoral or sinful.
This poster is displayed at all CAS of Toronto branches. Created by a young artist, it represents the agency’s commitment to a gay-positive environment.
The negative stereotyping of lesbian and gay people took its toll on these youths’ self-esteem. Unlike other minority youth, they often discovered that home or CAS foster care was no refuge from prejudice or discrimination. They quickly learned to survive in hostile environments by hiding or denying their true identities. This invisibility came at great cost to their well-being and social development: lesbian and gay youth tended to leave home and school prematurely and were up to five times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide.
A Legacy of Caring Page 29