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In 2022 we surveyed Manitoba Government Employee Union (MGEU) and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) members employed in the Manitoba child welfare system. We wanted to learn from people working on the front lines if the Manitoba government’s austerity measures were having an impact on child and family services.
Seventy-two workers responded. We learned from them that austerity has created real and direct challenges in child welfare, but we also learned that there is something more deeply troubling happening because of a decades long neoliberal approach within the broader context of colonial policies and practices and the resultant trauma. 90 percent of children in the care of child and family services are Indigenous. Many of the children and families involved in the Child and Family Services (CFS) system are dealing with multiple traumas related to the impact of deep poverty, systemic racism and intergenerational effects of colonialism. Workers tell us that the challenges for children and families caught up in the child welfare system are becoming much worse. Issues have become far more complex and there is a growing sense of hopelessness and despair.
Despite growing need, the resources allocated to child welfare are dwindling. Spending increased in 2017-18 by approximately $45 million, but trended downwards since then. By 2021/22, spending was 11 percent below 2015/16 levels in inflation adjusted terms.
Services for children and families in Manitoba are delivered through a complex system involving multiple agencies operating under provincial legislation. As described in the chapter Austerity and Child Welfare, there have been significant changes to the CFS system since 2016, mainly affecting service and support for Indigenous children and families. After piloting the model in 2019 with nine agencies, the Manitoba government announced a fundamental shift in its approach to funding CFS, moving to the Single Envelope Funding (SEF) model as opposed to allocating funding per child in care. The government argued that this would allow agencies greater flexibility and discretion over the design and delivery of services. But, the efficacy of this approach is contingent upon the amount of funding in the envelope. Under this system, each of Manitoba’s four child welfare Authorities receive a block of funding based on previous year children in care data. The premise is that this gives Authorities greater flexibility on how funds are allocated, which in theory opens up opportunities for preventative measures and eliminates financial incentives to bring children into care. Although having greater discretion over the use of funds is welcomed, there are grave concerns with the amount in the ‘envelope’ and the potential for it to erode over time.
Moving to a block fund in child welfare was particularly concerning given the Manitoba government's implementation of austerity measures that included cuts in spending, wage freezes, privatization and vacancy management. These austerity measures, aligned with the decades-old neoliberal approach continue to exacerbate inequality and erode public investment with devastating implications for vulnerable children and families as well as those employed to serve them. The root causes that lead children and families to become entangled in the child welfare system remain unresolved. Workers face the overwhelming challenge of working within a system that is perpetually underfunded and focused more on fixing people rather than the systems that oppress them.
Manitoba’s child welfare system is fundamentally flawed, and its problems have been exacerbated in a context of increasing poverty, inequality, racism and the lack of political will to take the bold steps needed to transform it. Child and family service workers and advocates have long pointed to systemic injustices in child welfare and governments’ failure to do what is necessary to keep children out of the system. Those working in child welfare offer an important perspective from the front lines. They need to be better supported through increased staffing, wages and better working conditions. However, there has been a long list of studies telling us that keeping children and families out of the child welfare system should be a priority and this cannot happen without significant government investment in the health and wellbeing of vulnerable children and families to ensure they have all the opportunities available to others.
As described throughout this chapter, the Conservative government moved in the opposite direction. Workers that responded to our survey told us that government wide austerity measures push families more deeply into poverty, further complicating the lives of those struggling to make ends meet. Until governments overhaul the foundations of the child welfare system as well as other oppressive systems that serve to perpetuate poverty and exclusion, the problems articulated by workers will not be resolved.
Grant: Community-Driven Solutions to Poverty: Challenges and Possibilities - 2020-2027
Category: Social Inclusion