Imagine there was a clean slate, nothing in place, and you were asked by your government to create a system that would protect children. Would you think to yourself “no problem I’ve got this. Im going to set up something exactly like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – the way we protect dogs and cats”
I imagine you would not think that, yet that is the system for child protection we currently have. A system built 150 years ago coming to Canada through England to New York City to Canada that in its DNA, it’s bones, has never changed. A system built upon risk and liability, treating children like objects and property.
Now imagine, in reflecting upon the task you have been given, you thought “Im not going to create a child protection system but Im going to build a system where every child gets what they need, when they need it in order to thrive and every “family” (no matter how it is constituted) receives what they need when they need it in order to do right by their children. A system built upon community and love, underpinned by “belonging” in all its glorious forms. This, you thought, will protect children.
Imagine.
In releasing , this week ,her seminal report, “Don’t Look Away”, the British Columbia Representative for Children and Youth has courageously imagined this very thing. The report honours the short life of a precious First Nation young boy caught up in a dysfunctional system. In turn it honours the lives of so many other children connected to child protection systems in some way across Canada who we have lost ( in 2022-23 , a shocking record 136 children in Ontario alone)
I was a Member of the Circle of Advisors to the creation of “Don’t Look Away”
The report calls for the building of a “Child Well Being System”that one day could subsume our child protection system. The report suggests a new system that is built and stewarded both by the Legislature in a non partisan manner and by the public service through an empowered whole of government body working across Ministries. A process where both the public service and the Legislature holds itself accountable for meaningful, measurable results
Imagine.
Imagine a government and bureaucracy that acknowledges it cant legislate love but fully understands it can legislate and create, the conditions in which love can flourish.
The BC Representative has courageously set for us a “North Star”.
I expect we will hear from our government some comment like we are working towards change. This is true and well they should continue. Yet when asked “where this change they are working on will lead us to?”, Ontario’s government will have no answer. None. This circumstance will surely lead us to nowhere.
Think of it as if we are renovating the house we are living in, but we know while the renovations must be done, we also realize the house is built upon a shaky, old ,decrepit foundation. While we are renovating,“redesigning”, “transforming”, “modernizing” , we must also build a new house that meets our needs and we must transition into it.
In Ontario our child protection system is now in free fall. The evidence has never been more clear. In Ontario other systems of care ( mental health, complex special needs, special education, addiction, intimate partner violence) have been hollowed out and are unable to meet demand. This too is irrefutable.
In this dangerous perfect storm there is opportunity.
I call upon the Ontario government to put down their beers and immediately deal with the crisis facing thousands upon thousands of children and families in Ontario.
Call back the Legislature this summer.
Establish a functional, non-partisan Standing Committee on Children and Youth
Ask this new Committee to call upon the Coroner of Ontario, the Ombudsman of Ontario, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services to report to them on the children connected to child protection in some way who have died and what has been done to prevent further deaths.
Stabilize our systems of care for children and families.
Then,
Join with humility and an open heart and mind . the work underway, led by the forward thinking organization Stepstones for Youth , convening the Provinces most generative thinkers in order to create a vision, a made in Ontario “North Star”, our own “child well being system”
“Don’t Look Away”
