BC child and youth care budget:
numbers don't add up
Afraid of losing their continued provision of services to some of the
region's most vulnerable residents, child and family service providers
are banding together to fight proposed cuts to the provincial ministry
that funds them.
Representatives of community-based service providers on the South
Island are pleading for the province to restore the funding from the
Ministry of Children and Family Development that fuels their programs.
Figures, which the group says comes from ministry staff, illustrated a
South Island budget with a deficit of $3.2 million. A handout takes the
proposed $34.6 million budget for 2004-2005 — the last year of the
government's budget balancing plan — then subtracted the estimated
budgets for services that are protected by law such as early childhood
development, youth justice and youth mental health programs; the
transfer of money to the new aboriginal family authority; plus the
children in care and ministry staffing budgets.
On the South Island, MCFD funds community child and family service
providers to the tune of $7.3 million a year. That figure didn't
contribute to the deficit, said Jim Fisher, spokesman for the South
Island child and family development planning group . a committee formed
months ago to work with government to help create a new, more efficient
service delivery model for the ministry. Fisher said providers support
the strategic shift in service delivery and are "anxious to do more
collaborative planning and practice" alongside ministry staff. But any
momentum providers and ministry staff had built through their
consultations about the impending changes was "completely stifled" when
the preliminary budget numbers were released.
"We feel we need to be speaking to government and cautioning
government that the implementation of these plans will destroy the very
system that they'll be looking for to implement the change," he said.
"What we've got here is a process of visioning and planning that has
been disconnected from the budgetary process. When you connect the
budget with the planning it destroys the whole system. It's almost as if
two different ministries were at work here, one ministry planning, the
other ministry budgeting."
Craig Meredith, executive director for the Victoria-based B.C.
Federation of Child and Family Services, said if the government were to
go ahead with the proposed budget, it would plunge the children and
family service into "chaos" in British Columbia. He called service
providers "the hands" for government social workers, who are "case
managers" that use community-based organizations to provide many of the
direct services for their clients.
Not providing funding for those direct services would be like taking
the hammer and nails out of the carpenter's hand, he said.
"At this point, I'm very happy that there has been a review,"
Meredith said. "We've been working with the ministry and advising the
minister for some time that we have some concerns, and our concerns are
in regard to the risk to children. We want to make sure that the
government is well aware of the consequences to children and families."
The cohesiveness of service provider groups on the South Island has
Fisher optimistic that their pleas will get through to government and
make a difference.
"I'm buoyed up by the energy of the people," he said. "People are
starting to move on this stuff and are really getting the message out.
That's the only chance this has is that it lands in the lap of enough
MLAs, and the message is seen to be coming broadly enough that they're
going to have to put a stop to it and re-think this whole process."
29 May 2003
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=community/esquimalt&articleID=1336097
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