Children in Alternate Living Arrangements still without regulated protection: Opposition 

Yvonne Jones, Opposition Leader and MHA for the District of Cartwright and L’Anse au Clair, says that the lack of province-wide policies and standards for children living in alternate living arrangements (ALA) is continuing to compromise the safety and protection of children taken into government care.

Jones raised this issue in the Legislature today as a follow-up to her questions in May to the Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services on the need to implement province-wide regulations for children removed from their homes and cared for by government.

“While the minister did acknowledge that a review is underway, I am concerned about the here and now, and the level and standard of care being provided to children already in alternate living arrangements,” says Jones. “I would have expected that these regulations would have been brought forward to this session of the House of Assembly. This is a serious issue that encompasses the care of children who have already endured a great deal of emotional and physical challenges in their young lives.”

Jones says that while she agrees with the minister that foster homes are the better option to nurture children removed from their families, alternate living arrangements is necessary to address this gap for many of those children.   

“Children in ALAs face a system with many deficiencies and one of these is a shortage of social workers and caregivers which results in a high turnover of workers assigned to these children. A review of files found that, in some cases, as many as sixteen different social workers were handling the files.