British Columbia’s child welfare system is either in a state of crisis or close to it with understaffing and unmanageable workloads, the province’s representative for children said.
A report released by Jennifer Charlesworth Tuesday said the environment for social workers at the Ministry of Children and Family Development is unhealthy for staff, characterized by undue stress, burnout and fear, and there’s no time for the government to wait to address the “critical circumstances.”
The latest investigation comes days after her report on the torture death of an 11-year-old boy who died at the hands of relatives after not being checked on by a social worker for seven months.
Charlesworth said the boy’s death happened within the context of a child welfare office that was not fully staffed, had unstable and changing local leadership, and had an extended period of social worker medical leave with no backfill.
Her office conducted a survey of 700 social workers and managers and more than 80 per cent said they are unable to properly do their jobs because their caseloads are too high.
She said many reported not having enough supports or resources and not having places to turn to refer families in need.
“If you can put yourself in the workers’ position here, you’re feeling you can’t fulfil your responsibility, and you can’t even refer out to fulfil your responsibility. That’s going to add to a tremendous amount of feeling of stress and overwhelm,” she said.
Alan Markwart, the author of the report, told a news conference Tuesday that data from 2021 showed B.C. needed “several hundred” more social workers in order to meet their work requirements 85 per cent of the time. The government has stopped collecting that data, he said.
“The ministry used to also track offices that were staffed at 50 per cent or less, but they stopped tracking that in 2022,” he said.
“Both of those, in our view, are crucial metrics that … they should be gathering, but they don’t.”
The report credits the ministry with taking action to improve working conditions and compliance with the requirement for in-person visits following the boy’s death, but says more work must be done to support current staff and recruit and retain more social workers.
The office says the staffing issues are not confined to just rural and remote communities.
“Currently it’s in every area of the province. It’s the Okanagan, it’s Victoria, it’s the Lower Mainland. There were 46 offices in July of 2022 that were staffed at 50 per cent or less, and they were throughout the province in urban and rural areas. Of course it’s more acute in rural areas ” Markwart said.
Charlesworth said she meets frequently with government officials, including Children’s Minister Grace Lore, and while her findings “may sting a little,” they won’t be a surprise.
She said she’s hopeful the government will follow through on her recommendation, adding there are a number of things already being worked on to address the issues she has raised.
“Social workers in this province have incredibly difficult jobs and to see how understaffed and overworked they are is truly disturbing,” Charlesworth said in a statement accompanying her report.
“We have known about chronic understaffing at this ministry for decades, yet successive governments have not addressed these challenges. Now, here we are yet again, reeling from the death of a child that was entirely preventable.”
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