The Looking After Children system was developed in Britain to assess and meet the needs of children in out-of-home care.
Despite the increased emphasis on professionalism, however, the factors that motivated families in the 1990s to welcome foster children into their homes had changed little from the impulses that drove those whom Vera Moberly had recruited for the Infants’ Home eighty years before. For Betty Luff’s family, it was the love of children.
That’s why we started fostering, and because we love kids we felt we could do something to help families by providing a temporary home for their children. Little did we know fostering would become a way of life for us. We find fostering rewarding and challenging. It is never easy when you are saying goodbye. Our reward is knowing a family is back together or an adopting family has someone special to share their lives with.
For Imelda Ayres it was because:
We had one child in school and were not planning to have any more children. My husband had a good job so I didn’t really have to go to work. I had a fair amount of spare time, and I like small children, so we thought we should try fostering and see if we could make some contribution to society, especially small children in need of love and care.
The motivation for Sharon Beck, vice president of the society’s Foster Parent Association (FPA) during the 1990s, was to make a difference in the lives of children who come into her home.
I really enjoy watching premature and failure-to-thrive babies begin to develop. It’s also very rewarding to see children who are behaviourally out of control come around. But fostering is not without its challenges and heartaches, separation being one of the most difficult. When a young child returns home or is adopted by a permanent family, it places everyone in the family on an emotional roller coaster. Foster parenting also requires more than just parenting. Individuals are called upon to work with a great many staff from across the agency and often with a foster child’s birth family. We attend meetings and assist in planning the care of children for whom we are responsible.
Sharon Beck and her family.
Wilma Wrabko became a legend among those who fostered children for Metro CAS. Not only was she the long-time president of the FPA but, along with her husband Joe, she also found time to care for more than 100 children in a fostering career than spanned thirty-five years. One of those children was Jackie, who was placed with the Wrabkos when she was nineteen months old, straight from the Hospital for Sick Children. Twenty-four years later, she is still part of their family. As Wrabko explains:
“Fostering is not without its challenges and heartaches, separation being one of the most difficult.”
— Sharon Beck
Jackie was diagnosed as developmentally delayed and possibly autistic. She spent her time in hospital lying in the fetal position and she never made eye contact with her caregivers. Medical people at that time worried that the child had made a decision not to survive.
However, survive she did. She began to respond to the care and stimulation we provided. We taught her sign language, but eventually she learned to speak. There was no turning back. She succeeded in school. She developed the capacity to form enduring relationships. With support, she had developed her personal self-care and self-management skills, although she will always need guidance in those areas. She is skilled in the use of a computer.
We are grateful for the help we have received in caring for Jackie over the years. But most importantly, we are proud of the gains she has made and continues to make. As we like to say, “Foster Care works!”
Adoption in the 1990s
During the 1990s, Metro CAS completed an average of about seventy-five adoptions a year. While most were infants or older children with special needs, and several were children adopted by their long-term foster parents, newborns placed for adoption in this era usually came to the society’s attention through its Pregnancy and Aftercare (PAC) Program.
This voluntary counselling and referral service helped expectant parents to make decisions about a pregnancy. Without coercion or attempting to influence the outcome, PAC workers would assist them to decide whether or not they would parent the child, place the child for adoption or terminate the pregnancy, after which they would help the parents follow through with the decisions they had made.
Adoption practices in this era moved more and more toward openness, with the birth parents encouraged to become involved in the selection of an adoptive family for their child. While the identities of both the birth and adoptive parents were protected, birth parents increasingly began to attend the adoption placement conference and to participate in the process of selection.
Adoption practices in this era moved more and more toward openness, with the birth parents encouraged to become involved in the selection of an adoptive family for their child.
As knowledge about the needs of adoptees grew, there was a growing acceptance of the importance of providing them with information about their birth family and the circumstances of their adoption. Life books (a record of an adopted child’s life that uses words, photos and graphics and that contains the child’s artwork and other memorabilia), letters, exchanges of photos, and so on, all became commonplace.
Life books (a record of an adopted child’s life that uses words, photos and graphics and that contains the child’s artwork and other memorabilia), letters, exchanges of photos, and so on, all became commonplace.
The Continuity of Care model of teamwork and cooperation extended to work between foster parents and adoptive parents. All but one of Linda and her husband’s four children were in foster care prior to their adoption. In a tribute to these foster parents “who cared for our children before they were ours,” Linda wrote:
It would have been easy to forget about our children’s foster parents. So why didn’t we? The answer is quite simple. They are good people. They are our link to our children’s past. They once cared for and loved our children as we do now. We gladly offer news of our children’s development, accomplishments and milestones to these special people who truly share our joy. It is a foster parent’s reward for their labour of love. It is an adoptive parent’s way of saying thank you.
As the decade progressed, it became ever more challenging to find suitable foster and adoptive families for the young people in the society’s care. To broaden the number of potential homes for children awaiting placements, the society placed more and more of them with single-parent families or with those who were middle-aged — in the past, such applicants would likely have been considered unsuitable to become adoptive or foster parents. In 1994, the agency also invited same-sex couples to apply to become foster parents, taking the position that sexual orientation should not be an obstacle to their being considered as adoptive or foster parents.
In 1994, the agency invited same-sex couples to apply to become foster parents, taking the position that sexual orientation should not be an obstacle to their being considered as adoptive or foster parents.
Although these decisions about same-sex fostering and adoption were very controversial, they followed two years of study and reflection by a broad-based board and staff committee that considered independent research, reviewed the literature and sought input from external experts. The leadership taken on this issue by the board’s president, the prominent businessman Jack Darville, was crucial to the agency’s decision to acknowledge that sexual orientation had nothing to do with parental competence, and that gay men and lesbians were as capable as anyone else of being good parents.
Jack Darville, former Board President.
Significantly, the society’s board made its decision on same-sex adoption on the same day that the provincial legislature voted not to extend the definition of spouse to include same-sex relationships. Although this did not affect the agency’s right to place children in approved same-sex foster homes, the vote did mean that it was not yet legal for the society and other adoption agencies to place children with same-sex partners for the purposes of adoption.
Significantly, the society’s board made its decision to support same-sex adoption on the same day that the provincial legislature voted not to extend the definition of spouse to include same-sex relationships.
Volunteering at Metro CAS
Metro CAS began as a volunteer organization, and volunteers have remained a strong component at the society ever since. Joan Berndt joined that illustrious group because:
I read an appeal on the back of one of the Our Children magazines. We had two successful adoptions through the agency and I felt volunteering was a way of thanking the agency. However, I wasn’t sure I wanted to work with kids and couldn’t drive. As an interior designer, I was unsure about how I could be used. The agency was undaunted, however, and one of my first tasks was helping young moms. I then became a parent aide and then took on other responsibilities with the board of directors.
Joan Berndt, longtime society volunteer.
For Sidney Gordon, “Becoming a volunteer just followed naturally from being retired. The volunteer centre suggested I become a tutor at the CAS. That suggestion has brought me significant satisfaction for many years.”
Malcolm McKeil was a young child and youth worker when he started volunteering for the agency: “It provided me with much training and experience that I would have been hard-pressed to get elsewhere. I learned a lot about people, the world and myself through working with the families and staff at CAS.”
Since the earliest days of the automobile, the society had used volunteer drivers to transport children in care to and from appointments to visit their parents, social workers, doctors and dentists. Before the Second World War, when fewer people drove, these volunteers would also often chauffeur workers on their regular visits to the homes of clients. Organizing the required drives and coordinating them with the available drivers, however, had long been a logistical nightmare.
Before the Second World War, when fewer people drove, volunteers would often chauffeur workers on their regular visits to the homes of clients.
This is why, in 1991, in a joint initiative with the Catholic CAS, the agency developed an innovative, computer-based transportation management system known as the Children’s Aid Amalgamated Transportation System, more commonly referred to by its acronym CAATS.
The challenge facing CAATS was threefold: to combine the volunteer drivers affiliated with both agencies; to change the method for requesting drives from paper to an online computer; and to link each agency’s mainframe systems. As CAATS supervisor Enid Freedman remarked, “In those days, computerization was still in its infancy at both Metro and Catholic CASs. For many workers, CAATS was their first experience with a personal computer and to daunting terms such as ‘download,’ ‘network,’ ‘cursor’ and ‘field.’ ”
“For many workers, CAATS was their first experience with a personal computer and to daunting terms such as download, network, cursor and field.”
— Enid Freedman
Although, as with any new technology, CAATS had its share of problems, by 1995 the system was successfully coordinating almost 60,000 drives a year — 65 percent of them on behalf of children in the care of Metro CAS. It made requesting drives for children fast and efficient and lessened the time workers spent on at least one administrative task.
Lieutenant Governor Hilary Weston and Valerie Witterick on the cover of the agency newspaper Communicate.
One of the drivers who benefited from this new technology was Valerie Witterick. Over the course of thirty years as a volunteer for Metro CAS, Witterick has been a volunteer driver as well as a special friend to children, a parent aide, a member of numerous committees and president of the board of directors. In 1997, Lieutenant Governor Hilary Weston presented her with Ontario’s Volunteer Service Award in recognition of her outstanding voluntary service to the people of Metro Toronto. As former volunteer coordinator Melanie Persaud recalls:
When one speaks of Valerie Witterick, the word “dynamo” inevitably comes to mind. She is in perpetual motion. Always willing to help at the drop of a hat, she took to wearing a pager so that the clients with whom she worked could reach her when they were in need of support. She embodies the term “community spirit” and it’s become a family value. Her husband Bob is an active member with the CAS Foundation and a former board president of the society while her daughter Kathy followed in her mother’s footsteps as a volunteer for the agency.
Looking back to the past and forward to the future
In 1991, the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto by J.J. Kelso and his associates. Among the special events that year was a reunion on the shores of Lake Ontario (organized by a committee that included Joan Davis, Jean Fuerd, Jim Clendinning, Mary Hutchings, Sheila McDermott, Ann Parsons, Sharron Richards, Bruce Rivers and Mona Robinson) at which 450 current and former staff, foster parents and volunteers spent an evening of pride, celebration and camaraderie. The guests greeted friends, reminisced, and even met “famous names from the past” — including none other than J.J. himself, brought to life again by former executive director Doug Barr.
The mandate of the agency had not changed in the hundred years since its founding, but by 1996 it was time for Metro CAS to develop a new set of long-range goals that would help define the society’s strategic direction for the balance of the century. Board members, staff, foster parents, volunteers and the agency’s partners in the community were all consulted in the development of these objectives.
The new goals included ensuring children and families a full range of child welfare services, delivered at the right time and in the right place and with sensitivity to issues of race, ethnicity, culture and religion. Other goals promoted improving the public’s understanding of the agency’s work, efficient management of its financial resources and effective collaboration with community partners.
Although, as described in Chapter 6, the society had experimented in the 1970s with the use of computer-assisted models to measure agency performance, in most respects modern technology came late to Metro CAS. For example, a manual telephone switchboard was still in use until 1987, while by 1991 the agency had deployed only four personal computers.
In most respects modern technology came late to Metro CAS. For example, a manual telephone switchboard was still in use until 1987, while by 1991 the agency had deployed only four personal computers.
Early in his term as executive director, Bruce Rivers recognized the rapid changes technology was bringing to business life, as well as its potential to make the management of not-for-profit social service agencies more efficient. The earlier notion of computers as a mere support system had been surpassed.
In 1993, the society replaced its System 38 mainframe computer with a state-of-the-art IBM AS/400 model that made it possible for the agency to upgrade its financial and accounting systems. By mid-decade, local area networks of personal computers were established, and an e-mail system — with a mailbox for each member of staff — was introduced. Shortly afterward, the society became the first CAS in Ontario to be fully connected to the Internet. This enabled workers to e-mail clients, colleagues and others via the global electronic network, while the agency itself gained a powerful new means of promoting its services though its own Web site.
The most significant development, however, was the agency’s introduction, under the leadership of Brian O’Connor, Sam Lee and Corrie Tuyl, of a computerized family service information system and a risk-assessment tool. This simple and elegant technology, developed in-house, helped to influence provincial systems development and revolutionized the way in which our front-line staff managed their work with children and families.
A new direction for the CAS Fou
ndation
The Children’s Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto Foundation, established in 1979 to support child abuse prevention programs not funded by government, had allocated millions of dollars to the society and to programs in the community over the years.
Teddy Bear Affair.
While hundreds of individuals and community groups had been faithful donors to the foundation, it had also formed particularly strong partnerships with the business community. Although some corporations preferred to sustain an individual program or project, many others supported the foundation’s work through such special events as the Teddy Bear Affair, a black-tie gala that began in 1986 and became one of the most successful fundraising events in the city.
By the beginning of the period covered by this chapter, the foundation, under its president Sue Bochner, had become a spectacular success. Difficulties, however, began to emerge in the early 1990s that led to a rift between Metro CAS and the CAS Foundation.
In its early years, the foundation’s board had been made up largely of current or former Metro CAS board members, and the relationship between the two organizations was quite informal. A pair of issues brought about an estrangement between the two: the lease of an unsuitable building for the society’s North York Branch and the foundation’s ambition to take on a more national focus.
Staff clown around at Foundation fundraiser.
In 1990, at the height of a booming real estate market, the foundation sold, for $13 million, the property on Yonge Street in Willowdale that Metro CAS had inherited in 1957 from York CAS and upon which a year later the society had built its North Branch offices. The initial plan was for the foundation to purchase or build new offices to replace those on Yonge Street. However, it proved hard to find an appropriate building or site, which forced staff to move a temporary office in an industrial neighbourhood in Don Mills.
A Legacy of Caring Page 31