Baby's death ignites care dispute

Page 1

Second-rate funding for reserve children in care may be at the root of problems brought to light by a highly publicized dispute that began with the death of a child in foster care.

The story first hit the news on April 26 when Alberta Minister of Children's Services Iris Evans revoked the authority of the Kasohkowew Child Wellness Society on Samson Cree Nation territory after a 10-month-old boy, who the society had placed in an off-reserve foster home, accidentally drowned in a bathtub. Seven children in the care of the agency have died in the past two years.

Ten days after the revocation order was made, under threat of legal action, the Alberta minister reversed her decision and committed to help lobby the federal minister of Indian Affairs for better childcare services and funding for reserve children.

"On reserve, a child has to be in care for money to flow and that can be problematic," said Mark Kastner, director of communications for Alberta Children's Services. "Off-reserve agencies get money based on the population in care or in preventative programs like counselling or early intervention. On reserve, the care providers have no choice but to take children into high cost care in order to get funding."

What results is a second-rate funding system for reserve children, agreed Bill Hogle, the lawyer acting for Kasohkowew.

"There is a discrepancy in the funding of child welfare services to children that were being served by First Nation authorities. What I mean by that is there was a discrepancy in terms of preventative program funding and that type of thing. The ancillary funding to the hard-core type of services, preventative programs, administrative support, management consultations, all of those types of things are available to provincial authorities operating outside of the reserves," the lawyer said. "But when you've got a delegated authority operating on the reserve, as the Kasohkowew Child Wellness Society is, they don't have the same kind of access to funding like that. That really is a critical issue here."

The funding discrepancy was brought to light during Evans flip-flop on revoking Kasohkowew's authority to operate, a decision some say she made in haste based on bad information.

Hogle said he was "bewildered as to why there was a revocation, initially." He said the society was never told of the minister's reasoning for either the revocation or her reversal.

"That was one of the real difficulties that we had. There was no reasons given when the initial revocation purportedly was made. That was a real concern. There had been a lack of consultation even," Hogle said. "We received notice after hours. I think the director got a cell call after hours the evening that it was, in fact, expiring and there had been a fax to the office of that fact that day. That's the notice we got of the revocation."

Reporters tried in vain to get the minister to explain, with specifics, why she decided to revoke Kasohkowew's authority.

Kastner shed some light.

"Since the agreement was formulated with Kasohkowew in 1997, there's been a litany of things. The minister basically said 'we need to intervene and change the way they're doing business. Something's not working.'"

Hogle suggests another theory.

The ministry had recently been criticized when an inquiry into the death of another young person in provincial care found that the delivery of foster care was "too distant from the eyes of the ministry," said Hogle.

After examining the events that led to the death of two-year-old Korvette Crier, whose foster mother was charged and convicted of causing her death by pushing her down a flight of stairs, Judge D.J. Plosz issued a number of recommendations that called on the ministry to review how it regulated childcare providers. Plosc's report was made public just two weeks before the young boy drowned in the bathtub.

"I can't speak for the minister as to why she acted with such hae in the first instance othe than that there certainly seemed to be an issue in relation to timing," Hogle said. "And we talk about political influences and trying to understand that, I can tell you that there was a fatality inquiry report released less than two weeks in advance of the tragedy that occurred this April. So I'll have to leave you to draw your own conclusions."

Hogle said the position Kasohkowew took was that the revocation was invalid.

". . . it was done in an arbitrary fashion without consultation and without the proper information required to make that decision," the lawyer said. "That was the position that we maintained throughout and, obviously we were successful in eventually bringing the minister around to the same conclusion because she did grant an order that made the original invalidation order invalid ab initio."

Ab initio is a legal term that means "from the beginning." Samson sources say it's a complete vindication of Kasohkowew and an admission by the minister that her original decision should never have been made.

Rich Vivone is a veteran observer of provincial politics in Alberta. The former journalist's weekly newsletter Insight Into Government is a must-read in government offices. He believes Minister Evans probably made an error when she revoked the society's authority.

"The minister has never really said why she did that," Vivone said. "There's a number of things in this case. One of them is that when she first revoked the right of the band to take care of the kids that she had bad information. That's always a possibility. She has shown over time that sometimes she jumps the gun pretty quick."

Premier Ralph Klein is seen as a friend of Aboriginal people in government circles and may have intervened.

"I suspect that he understood what had happened as well and there may have been, and I use the term may, he may have put pressure on the minister to re-think what she had done and to respect the autonomy of these gops. Beyond that, I don't know. I was surrised when she did it and I was surprised when she changed her mind," he said.

He believes the minister's about-face is a sign that she realized she'd made a mistake.

"I suspect that the reason that Evans first revoked the band's right was simply that she acted too quickly and made a mistake. She's a very sensitive woman when it comes to matters of children and I think that she may have erred on the side of caution to make sure and she was prepared to change her mind once she had evidence. Now you can argue up and down as to whether her thought process was valid, but Minister Evans' heart you can never question. To the best of my knowledge I think that that's probably what happened and I know her well. I've known her for years. If she made a mistake, she's prepared to admit it but if the evidence wasn't there to revoke the right, she would simply give it back."

For 10 days, the society's staff felt they had been unfairly assigned the blame for the deaths.

"Certainly it was a traumatic experience for the society and all the people involved and in some ways I think it was perceived as a negative action. Well, that's really the reality. If your authority is revoked there's almost a stigma attached," Hogle said. "But there have been some positives that have come out of that and that is, one of the keys is that this whole funding structure and funding requirements will be examined with the province participating."

Hogle said the funding issue doesn't get Kasohkowew off the hook.

"That's not to say that the society doesn't have problems because any agency delivering these kinds of services has problems. The provincial agencies have problems; First Nation agencies have problems. The nature of the work is such that it's extremely difficult and challenging work. I think it's indicative of the broader picture," he said.

People inside the system say that provincial funding cuts have led to some of the strains on chidcre service providers. Hogle said an inquiry 15 year ago into the suicide of Richard Cardinal, who was in the province's care at the time, recommended that case managers have bachelor of social work degrees.

"That's the desired standard but I think the reality is I'm not certain that that standard is being met," he said.

Vivone said a lot of childcare agencies in Alberta resisted government cutbacks and simply kept spending and went into debt. He said the deficits for the 17 or 18 agencies in the province were in the $50 million range. With the economic slowdown that followed the events of Sept. 11, Alberta found its revenues were falling short of projections and the government started cutting back on spending.

"When revenues went into the tank last fall, then the clamps were put on. Rather than the department having to cut back, they were told to eliminate the deficit. To run a balanced budget for a change. And I think they did that. They did let some people go, I think. But for the most part, they found it through efficiencies. There was a lot of controversy that some of the programs that were cut were considered to be preventative programs in different social services agencies that were working with kids to keep them out of the welfare system."

Maureen Braun, chair of Alberta Union of Provincial Employees local 006, speaks for the union on social service matters.

"More and more First Nations are starting to get control of children's services. They're delegating more and more bands to take over control of their own child welfare systems but at the same time I think a lot of the bands are struggling because it's a new area for them and the turnover rate in children services as a whole, whether they're on reserve or not, of staff is very high," she said. "So to keep qualified staff or to keep enough staff or for the government to put enough money in there to keep staff is also a big issue. I would imagine on reserve they're trying to develop their