We are in unprecedented times in Ontario. When OPSEU/SEFPO Local 454, representing Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa workers, held a press conference on June 18th, 2024 with management of the agency announcing the hard truth that the organization was at “a tipping point,” it became publicly clear just how dangerous the unprecedented times are.
We are six years into a government-led child welfare system “redesign” that has brought on the hollowing out of every support system serving vulnerable children and families – including complex special needs, mental health, intimate partner violence, special education, and food security. We are in the midst of a perfect storm – a storm that is battering children and families of Ontario. A storm that is taking lives. A storm that has placed our systems of care in free fall.
It is far too easy to be cynical and think that strikes are only about self-interest. I know this not to be true. Workers of the Ottawa Children’s Aid Society have found themselves in a terrible Hobson’s choice: they meet children and families where they are at; they must decide whether a child is in need of protection; they know that life in child welfare care is likely to be entirely difficult for any child; they know that “homes” in care for children are limited if they exist at all. At the same time, they know that leaving a child in their biological home or even with kin can be perilous due to the lack of supports those families have to rely on, if any supports exist at all. All the while, as management has admitted, “staff are continually asked to do more with fewer resources.”
I cannot recall how many times a staff member at a Children’s Aid Society has told me “I just want to be able to do the work I went to school to learn how to do, but I can’t.” Workers are going above and beyond the scope of their practice to fill community gaps for care, all while buckling under the financial strain brought on by chronic underfunding and the vicarious trauma such work necessarily involves. Certainly, the peril children and families are in is traumatic. It is also true that the peril is traumatic for child welfare staff who must witness the carnage of this entirely government-made perfect storm. It is an impossible situation.
In my mind, the strike at the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa is an SOS: an act of courage. It is an SOS for the growing and ever-increasing needs of children and families in our communities. It is an SOS for the staff who must walk alongside.
I unreservedly support the members of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 454. In fact, I am grateful for them. I urge the government to step in with the funding needed to stabilize the agency, save positions, and meet fair wage demands.
I urge the government to work together with OPSEU/SEFPO and other labour organizations to move past this moment of crisis, weather the perfect storm, and set a north star where every child would have what they need when they need it in order to thrive.
– Irwin Elman, Ontario’s former Child Advocate from 2008-2019