Kids-in-hotels program to change

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This article was published 17/12/2014 (3410 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s family services minister admits her department has failed to adequately supervise private contract workers who look after at-risk kids placed on an emergency basis in hotels. Kerri Irvin-Ross said Wednesday she accepts the findings of a “draft” internal government report that examined the department’s dealings with private companies. It assessed the adequacy of training of contract workers, the quality of care they provided and whether the department received value for the money it is paying out.

The review found the system wanting in all three areas.

“The recommendations speak to the need for better training and the need for better supervision and protocols around communication — and that it wasn’t the most cost-effective means of supporting children,” Irvin-Ross said in an interview.

“I wish we would have done this (review) earlier,” she added. “But what is important is that we’re addressing the issues now.”

The minister ordered the review following media reports this fall that suggested workers supplied by private firms are ill-equipped to deal with troubled teens.

According to the report, a copy of which was obtained by the Free Press, there is a “lack of clarity” between Family Services Department staff and Winnipeg-based Complete Care as to who was responsible for supervising contract staff caring for kids in hotels. The 15-page document says this confusion “may contribute to unwanted situations and unfortunate outcomes.”

Complete Care received $6.3 million from the Family Services Department to watch over kids in hotels last year. The only other company to handle hotel placements, Drake Medox Health Services, received a tiny fraction of that amount — $3,900.

Children are sometimes placed in hotels temporarily while a spot is found for them in the system.

The contracts with both companies require they “ensure that all children receiving temporary alternate care are protected and safe” and the companies monitor their staff, the report said. But the review found Complete Care management “is of the opinion the CFS agency that placed the child in EPR (the department’s emergency placement resources program) assumes the responsibility for on-site supervision.”

The report noted Complete Care does “telephone checks” with staff and “indicated it will send supervisory staff to hotels” if there are problems. But it added the review “was unable to ascertain the frequency of this monitoring… ” Provincial EPR program co-ordinators also perform “telephone and on-site visits,” the report said, although it didn’t say how often.

The report, dated Dec. 12, was prepared by departmental staff and an outside consultant, Irvin-Ross said Wednesday. In mid-November, she announced plans to create 71 emergency foster-home spaces and the hiring of 210 child-care workers over two years to reduce the government’s reliance on private contractors to staff hotels and emergency shelters.

Complete Care, Drake Medox and one other company, Compassionate Care, also provide staff to work side by side with government workers in shelters. The review found the government could save $1.3 million a year if it used only government employees to staff such placements. (It paid just over $7 million in total to the three companies to help staff its emergency shelters last year.)

Irvin-Ross would not disclose the hourly rate charged by companies to provide staff for kids in hotels, but sources say it’s about $25. The review confirmed the company employees are paid minimum wage or just above for that work.

The report said by and large, companies provide the training required of them under their contracts with government, but noted this should be enhanced. It recommended contracts be reopened “to specify the requirement for ongoing, progressive youth-care training of casual contracted staff.”

The review found that while contracts for emergency placement work with Complete Care and Drake Medox require each to provide services that are professionally and ethically sound and to ensure all kids receiving temporary care are protected and safe, the documents do not specify how these goals are to be measured.

It also said contractors expressed concern their staff were often assigned to hotels “without adequate knowledge of the child or children” they were required to supervise. “Absent this information, assigned staff may be ill-suited to the needs of the child and the quality of care provided could be adversely affected,” the report said.

The review also found there was no centralized record-keeping for reporting incidents involving kids in hotels, precluding the collection of statistics on the frequency and nature of such incidents.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca