BETTER OUTCOMES - THAT'S WHAT WE DESIRE / 541

These are the new office holders.

• Minister of Children and Family Development (MCFD) - Hon. Mary McNeil.
• Deputy Minister MCFD - Stephen Brown.
• Provincial Director of Child Welfare – Doug Hughes

We are believing that they will be able in cooperation with Children and Youth Representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond to affect collegial renewal to important aspects of child welfare in our province.

These have all been political and administrative leadership choices. They have initially instilled some hope for change. However, legal and administrative changes are not where the complaints of troubled and disenfranchised parents lie. What we call for is Ms. McNeil and Stephen Brown and Doug Hughes to recognize the need and to bring correction to the adversarial and secretive culture within the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It appears to be a culture that has been cultivated over a period of the past thirty years. The ever shifting offices of principal players never provide the time or the energy to uncover the significant areas for needed changes.
But then, some of the key elements for satisfactory change, call it reform, relate to training of social workers. Start there. Clearly there is an ongoing debate about the effectiveness of child protection workers. In child protection case work and in work with other involuntary clients, the use of certain skills by child protection workers is likely to result in positive client outcomes. I am convinced that had different actions, approaches and conversation been used with Zabeth and Paul Bayne in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and now in 2011, the outcome would have been exceptionally different from what we have witnessed. I would not be rehearsing this litany of years. Good grief, I might not even be writing this never-ending plea for mercy for a family that desires nothing more than the opportunity to live together in peace, safety, freedom and joy.

Among the benefits of effective practice is helping clients and client families to understand the role of the child protection worker; working through a problem-solving process which focuses on the client’s rather than the worker’s definitions of problems; making appropriate use of confrontation; and using these skills within a collaborative client/worker relationship. Of course parents are going to be resistant to protection workers’ involvement with their family and children’s lives. But effective case workers know how to diffuse this conflict. Effective case workers know how to use the appropriate skills to affect good client outcomes. When workers use the suited skills, the clients have better outcomes and make better progress. Further, clients are better satisfied with the outcomes and the cases are closed noticeably sooner, perhaps in 12-16 months. Not four years.