Alberta drops child welfare into communities laps

Page R1

Provincial authorities will be handing over the reins of child welfare services to communities in the new year, said the Alberta minister of Family and Social Services.

Minister Mike Cardinal announced Nov. 30 that a three-year program developing responsibility and control of children's services onto communities will start in January. He enumerated four key areas of focus: community delivery, early intervention, services to Aboriginal communities and co-ordination and integration of programs.

Aboriginal communities - the 45 reserves, eight Metis settlements and numerous urban Aboriginal service organizations in Alberta - will receive half of an estimated $50 million per year in additional funding earmarked for the project.

Currently $266 million is budgeted for child welfare, and while about half of the 8,000 children cared for by Cardinal's department are of Aboriginal origin, as are almost 1,200 of the 2,300 children in foster homes, they do not receive 50 per cent of that budget.

Cardinal insisted that the Focus on Children initiative, begun last November by

Ray Lazanik, provincial commissioner of services for children, is in no way a cost-cutting measure.

"In fact," said the minister, "we are adding financial resources. When it comes to children, budget cuts are not the answer, nor is larger government."

The answer is in community empowerment and integration of the community-based delivery systems into the provincial program, he continued. The 1,500 department workers will devolve onto the community, groups ultimately responsible for the children's welfare under the new system.

Gerald Thom, head of the Metis Association of Alberta, agreed after the announcement the downloading of services and funding to local service organizations will be a positive step.

"We've never received an appropriate share of funding from the various jurisdictions involved in our people's welfare," he said. "This looks at the wants and needs of the kids and communities involved. We can return to a system in which the extended family provides care, which was destroyed years ago by putting everybody under one system and just handing out cheques."

Cardinal's comments echoed Thom's.

Cardinal said that the monolithic policies of the past which were focused on urban areas had contributed to the problems in the system. The three-year period will allow the province to develop policies which are different for communities as different as a reserve in the north, like Fort Chipewyan, and the cities in the south, he said.

As well, the provincial government will retain, for the time being, legal responsibility for the children under care, although the long-term goal is to download that, where possible, as well.

He waxed eloquent over the shift of responsibility from his department to Aboriginal communities.

"The Aboriginal communities have never been more ready to take over these services," he said. "The Metis nation has never been readier to do so, either."

This is the second of three major initiatives to divest Family and Social Services of power and responsibility undertaken by Cardinal.

In April 1993 his department "moved healthy Albertans back into the work force," a move widely decided as welfare cuts. This initiative will be followed by new provisions for people with disabilities next year.

Lazanik stressed that his action plan emphasizes early intervention rather than later mopping up. He said that it also incorporates the movement of government out of the business of direct delivery, although Cardinal insisted that the government will remain responsible for legislation and regulation.