The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the House of Assembly.

CHAIR (Hutchings): Good morning, everybody.  Welcome to the Estimates Committee.  This morning we will hear the Estimates of Child, Youth and Family Services.

Before we begin, I would like to start to my right and ask the Committee members if they could introduce themselves.

MR. YOUNG: Wally Young, MHA, St. Barbe.

MR. RIDGLEY: Bob Ridgley, MHA, St. John's North.

MR. CORNECT: Tony Cornect, MHA, Port au Port.

MR. KEVIN PARSONS: Kevin Parsons, MHA, Cape St. Francis.

MS JONES: Yvonne Jones, MHA, Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS MICHAEL: Lorraine Michael, MHA, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

CHAIR: Thank you. 

I am Keith Hutchings, MHA, for District of Ferryland.

The standard procedures we use with the Estimates Committees, we will rotate, initially it will be ten minutes and then it will be fifteen after that.  Minister, when I go to you, you will be free to make any opening comments you would like to make.  First of all though, I would like for your staff, if they could introduce themselves.  I will just remind you that when you speak, and for the benefit of Hansard, you identify yourself each time you speak so Hansard can pick that up.

Okay.  I will ask the Clerk to call the first heading.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01 carry? 

With that, Minister, I will go to you.

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

As for an opening statement, it is not so much an opening statement as it is more of an explanatory note.  You will see as we go along why it is important for the explanatory note and I am certain that a lot of the questions will reflect around that.

Basically, the operating budget for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services for 2011-2012 reflects a department that continues to operate in transition.  There are changes from 2010-2011 operating budget that reflect the changes occurring within the department.  You will see that the operating budgets for the Executive, Corporate Services, and Program Development and Planning reflect the implementation of the corporate structure, new staff hires, reorganization of staff within divisions and re-profiling of positions.  It also reflects travel and communications, supplies, and purchased services are based on the best estimate at this time and are expected to change in subsequent years as the department becomes more experienced with operations coming in from the RHAs. 

You will also see more specifically within the budget for Regional Services 2.1.01., that it reflects the transition process that the department is undergoing.  Significant increases in the salary and allowances and assistance budgets for 2011-2012 reflect the transition of the Western Region which was completed in March and the Central Region which is scheduled for June this year.  Increases reflect the projected costs of salaries and allowances and assistance in each region.  Increases in salaries and allowances and assistance are offset by decreases in grants and subsidies.  Grants and subsidies to regions are discontinued as the department becomes directly responsible for service delivery.  The reallocation of operating budget, increase in salary and allowances and assistance, decreases in grants and subsidies will continue throughout the transition process.  So I suspect there will be a lot of questions around that as we go forward. 

I would like to now introduce my staff.  We will start with my Deputy Minister, Sheree MacDonald. 

MS MACDONALD: Hi, I am Sheree MacDonald.  I am the Deputy Minister with the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. 

MS DOOLING: Genevieve Dooling, Assistant Deputy Minister for Corporate Services.

MR. GRANDY: Paul Grandy, Departmental Comptroller.

MR. MOORES: Wayne Moores, Manager of Budgeting. 

MS SMYTHE: Rosalind Smythe, Director of Family & Child Development. 

MS COMPANION: Lori Anne Companion, Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy and Programs.

MS HOGAN: Josephine Hogan, Executive Assistant to Minister Johnson.

CHAIR: Thank you. 

Okay, we will go to our Committee. 

Ms Jones. 

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Minister, for the brief overview. 

I would like to start my questions with the transitioning within the department, since you touched on it in your opening comments.  First of all, who is overseeing the entire transition process?  Is it the staff in the department?  Is there a transition team that has been appointed by government to manage this or what approach have you taken to that? 

MS JOHNSON: It is done by the staff in the department.  There is a leadership team that has been assigned to this, but most certainly it is overseen by Sheree, the deputy. 

MS JONES: Okay.  I guess this particular team; they are the group who have been dealing with any of the issues that arise from transition, the transition of workers, programs, services.  They handle the whole piece of it, is it? 

MS JOHNSON: Yes, we have weekly meetings to bring us up to date on any issues that may arise.  As you can imagine, with over 600 employees transitioning there are bound to be things that come up.  The MOU with each of the regional health authorities, and we want to make sure nobody falls through the cracks, especially the people who rely on our service.  There are things that come up along the way and they certainly bring them to my attention as well on a weekly basis. 

MS JONES: Is the transition of the Western Regional Health Authority all completed now?  Are all of the functions currently being taken care of by the department? 

MS JOHNSON: The actual transition took place on - I never thought I would forget the date – March 28.  We are still ironing out some of the issues along the way but for the most part, in terms of the service delivery, that is now fully within our department. 

MS JONES: Okay.  There were some issues I think raised publicly by the union as it related to the workers.  Has that been resolved? 

MS JOHNSON: Those negotiations are still ongoing with the union. 

MS JONES: Okay.  Can you tell me what the issue is there? 

MS JOHNSON: With the negotiations ongoing –

MS MACDONALD: I guess primarily one of the issues that the union has raised is whether they recognize us the employer.  At this point, negotiating the other things that may be of concern to individual employees will have to wait until that issue is settled.  So, that is the biggest one now.  They still recognize Western Health as the employer, and we will be making an application to the Labour Relations Board for them as an independent body to make a direction on that. 

MS JONES: I know it is a change in terms of who the employer is, but is there any real change in terms of what benefits accrue to those workers or any of those particular issues?

MS JOHNSON: Absolutely.  We have completely changed the organization model so that the social workers will have - what we heard in the consultations is that they wanted more support in terms of clerical, administrative, more social worker assistants and more access to supervisors.  So, the organizational model has changed with the start of this transition; Western being the first.  You will see a ratio now on a provincial average of twenty cases to one social worker.  You will see a ratio of one supervisor to six social workers.  You will see, before there were five regional directors, now you will see thirteen zone managers.  So, you will see more access to supervisors and more supervisors having responsibility for the child in care through the legislation.  This will all unfold over time.  You are not going to snap your fingers and you are going to have a one-to-twenty caseload overnight because this has to be done on a provincial basis as we transfer all of them in; but, no doubt, they will see better supports for themselves. 

MS JONES: I guess I am failing to understand then what the issue is with the union.  I am wondering if you could be more specific for me in terms of what their concrete issue is.  Obviously, if it is a change in employer, there has to be some implication.  What I am hearing from you is you are giving them additional supports; you are giving them more resources to do their work with.  What would be the exception that they would have in switching employers?  Is there going to be some problem with the succession rates?  Is it going to affect their pensions?  Is it going to affect their severance?  Is it going to affect how public servants are able to move through the system and advance in their careers, in their jobs?  I just want to get an idea of where the union might be coming from because, so far, it is unclear to me. 

MS MACDONALD: I could comment on that.

In terms of the rights and privileges that the employees currently have compared to what they previously had with Western Health, they are exactly the same.  There are no changes.  All the rights and benefits accrued to them under their collective agreements, absolutely nothing has changed.  All of that is being honoured, all of their annual leave, sick leave, pension rights, all of that has been transitioned to this department and will be recognized.  There was quite a bit of detailed work to make sure all of that was recognized as they transitioned.

The minister mentioned a new organizational model we will be implementing.  That has all kinds of positives in it for the employees in terms of the issues they raised with us.  When those employees actually transition, though, they transition exactly in the organizational structure they were in.  We will make those changes the minister indicated over the next couple of months.  So we will move to that new model with the new ratios and those types of things.

Everything was the same when they transitioned, all of their rights and benefits under the collective agreements.  The primary concern is in that reorganizational model there are some positions we have redeployed differently.  What we did was wipe the slate clean and considered what was the new structure we needed to best serve the children and families of the Province, and also to meet some of the issues the staff were raising.

So, in that, there are some employees whose jobs will be changing, and that is one of the key issues.  Primarily, they are positions known as Social Worker II positions.  There are currently under twenty of those now that will be impacted.  The primary piece of the individual negotiation, apart from the –

MS JOHNSON: Throughout the Province, not just Western.

MS MACDONALD: Yes, that is good clarification: throughout the Province, not just Western.

So the primary issue, apart from the issue of whether they recognize us as the employer at this stage, is the change in jobs for the Social Worker II and how we might be able to support them in that transition.  That is the primary area of negotiation.

MS JOHNSON: If I could just add, the reason for the change in the jobs is what we have seen and what we have heard from the people is that you have your most junior social workers fresh out of university working on the most difficult cases, the child protection cases.  We wanted staff to have more – what is the word I am looking for – experience in the different fields such as child protection, youth corrections, and adoptions.  We want some of the more senior staff to be working on some of the difficult cases, and that is absolutely required.

MS JONES: What is the difference between a Social Worker I and II?  Because I have no idea.

MS MACDONALD: The actual salary difference is approximately $5,000.

MS JONES: No, I am thinking in terms of responsibilities.

MS MACDONALD: In terms of responsibilities, in the current organization and the way the regional health authorities are organized, they have taken on more of a co-ordinating role, doing co-ordinating functions that have to do with either co-ordinating around foster care licensing, youth corrections, and those types of issues, or they have taken on some specialized program responsibilities in training, monitoring – I am just trying to think of some of the other positions.

MS JOHNSON: (Inaudible).

MS MACDONALD: Yes, monitoring the computer systems, supporting other social workers in using the computer system, those types of things.  We have redesigned that now to put more of those positions back on the front line and providing those types of supports in other ways; the training obviously done through the training facility.  We will have a full IT unit now supporting the IT and those types of things.  The function will still available to social workers, but in more traditional format than they have used.  We will be able to use those experienced social workers now to do that work on the front line with our other social workers.

MS JONES: Social Workers II, I am led to understand, would actually be what we call front-line social workers in the Province.  They would be the people who deal with child protection, who deal with families –

MS JOHNSON: No, Social Worker I is the front line –

MS JONES: No, originally.  You are telling me you changed the job, I am trying to find out what it was before you changed it.

MS JOHNSON: What Sheree just explained is what a Social Worker II does now in terms of the co-ordination piece.

MS JONES: Yes.

MS JOHNSON: Our new organizational chart will bring those Social Workers II back to the front line, which is what the Social Workers I do right now, is the front-line piece.

MS JONES: Okay.

MS JOHNSON: Salary was mentioned.  We should also point out that while their role will be changing, their salary will remain the same.

MS JONES: Yes.

A couple of times you talked about the organizational model and I know that when you were in Corner Brook at the press conference, you talked about the organizational model.  I have not seen that structure, I do not know if it is available to the public, but we certainly have not seen it.

MS JOHNSON: We have a copy here you can have.

MS JONES: Yes, we would like to have a copy it, if we could.

In terms of the regional health authorities, you talked about the Central Newfoundland one.  Will that one be the next health authority that will see a full transition, or can you give me an update as to where that is?

MS JOHNSON: I missed the first part of your question.  Are you talking about Central?

MS JONES: Yes.

MS JOHNSON: Central is next.  We are hoping the end of June for Central.  Then for Eastern - it is a lot bigger one - we are hoping November; then Labrador, we will have complete before the end of the fiscal year.  They will all be within our department by the end of the fiscal year.  That is the goal.

MS JONES: Okay. 

Government announced a steering committee for Child, Youth and Family Services in Labrador going back to the fall of 2010.  Can you tell me what that group has done?  Are they still active?  What were their responsibilities?

MS JOHNSON: Do you want to get into that one?

MS MACDONALD: We had an original meeting of that group to set the direction.  We had representation from the Aboriginal groups and from Ministries of Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, Health and Community Services, and Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs to set the direction and to identify what a working group would do to bring that model forward.  We asked each of the representatives from the Aboriginal communities to provide us with names for a working group to actually do the design of the model to bring back to the steering committee.

Over the last couple of months we have been working through that with our partners in Labrador to identify the members of that working group.  We will be meeting with them either the end of this month or early June to start the process of designing a model for Labrador and that working group will report back to the steering committee.

MS JONES: I am assuming the working group would be people who work within the system right now, is it?

MS JOHNSON: Not necessarily.  Do you want to answer that?

MS MACDONALD: They will be some people who work within the system but some of them will work with the Aboriginal governments or there might be key people from other systems, like the health system in different areas in Nunatsiavut or Nain.  It will depend on who the Aboriginal groups themselves want to represent them at that design model.  It will not necessarily be people who are working in Child, Youth and Family Services right now, but there will be some of those there.

MS JONES: Okay.  Obviously, you are into that process now but you are still hoping to have the transition done by the end of this year.

MS MACDONALD: Yes.

MS JONES: Okay.  Have you had any luck in filling a lot of the social work positions in Labrador?

MS JOHNSON: We are currently at the highest level we have ever been.  So I guess that is fortunate, but there are still a couple of vacancies in Labrador.  I do not have them specifically.

MS MACDONALD: We can get them.

MS JOHNSON: We can get them for you specifically, but it is the best it has ever been.  There are still challenges with Labrador, of course.

MS JONES: Yes.  Actually, we would not mind having the list of vacancies from across the Province, if you could provide it to us.

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  I think there is, on average, about thirty across the entire Province.  While ideally we would like to have them all filled, it is getting better than it was.

MS JONES: I do not have any other questions on the transition.  Well, maybe I could ask you about the training unit before I move on to another question because I am aware that you are doing something there with the College of the North Atlantic.  Do you want to explain to us what you are proposing there?  How that is going to work, the training module that you are proposing?

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  Well, the training is mandatory for all social workers.  There is pre-core for new social workers who are hired in our department.  Then there would be core training, which is made up of eight modules, and there is also training for the supervisors which I believe is five or six modules.  So, all 400-plus social workers would go through that training.  It would take probably over a year period to complete, because obviously we want to take people in from different parts of the Province and we do not want to have the regions left unstaffed.  It is also an opportunity for behavioural manager specialists to get training in things like non-crisis violence prevention.

We partnered with the college because they have expertise in training, and Stephenville is the home of the campus that develops training modules.  Also, it was beneficial for us in that they have seventeen campuses throughout the Province and part of the agreement is that we can use any of these campuses.  While Stephenville is certainly the base, it is not to say we could not have one in Central, or Eastern, or Western, other parts of Western, anywhere really throughout the Province where they have a campus. 

What else is there to add?  Anything specific?

MS JONES: No, I am just wondering how many sessions you have done to date.  What is the time frame around – you said within the next year you were hoping to have all 600 employees go through the program.

MS JOHNSON: Yes, September is when we hope to have the training unit up and running.

MS JONES: Okay, it has not started yet.

MS JOHNSON: Right now we are dealing with the PSS on classification of positions, having to go back and forth there.  Once that issue is resolved, then there is nothing from the college side and nothing else from our side really holding that up, other than getting those positions classified and posted and hired.

MS JONES: Yes.  So, am I to understand then that all the workers will not have to go to Stephenville, that the Central people will be able to do the programs at their own Central regional colleges, the same thing with Labrador, Eastern?

MS JOHNSON: If we see efficiencies, then certainly we could move it to other parts of the Province, but it is very unlikely you are going to have all of Central doing training at the one time because that would leave offices unstaffed.  So, realistically, you are going to be pulling people from all throughout the Province.  If we see that you are pulling people mostly from Eastern, which is a big zone, then we could look at that, but really we are spending the same amount of money.  Our Budget did not change, and we are actually going to be able to get more training done.  There are a lot of efficiencies already found in doing it through the Stephenville campus.

MS JONES: Yes.  What kind of feedback are you getting from your employees?

MS JOHNSON: In terms of the training?

MS JONES: In terms of the whole piece, the training and the transition.

MS JOHNSON: Actually, to be completely honest with you, I think it has been absolutely fabulous.  They are really welcoming it.  They are anxious to get it done, no doubt.  It has been very positive.  There is almost relief that is felt because they see now they are going to get the supports that they have been asking for.

Government has put $33 million over the last two years alone into the department.  Most of the money since 2006 has been spent on positions.  Even though we put 223 new positions in the system in 2006, things still did not change.  Now they see with the new org chart that this is what they asked for during the consultations with Minister Burke.  So I guess relief and excitement, and really looking forward to getting the service they asked for and getting the support they asked for.

The biggest thing, honestly, from what I can see in being there is – and it is not to say they do not do a good job because they do - coming out of university, fresh out of university and taking on a difficult case like child protection.  What they do is run by their managers and supervisors, no doubt, but it is a lot to take on.  Any training you can get to help with that and any extra support you can get from your supervisors, I think they are really looking forward to that and really looking forward to working in a team setting with 1 to 6 and ratios of 1 to 20.  I think they are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sheree, you have been around longer than me, if you want to comment on that, by all means.

MS MACDONALD: Yes, I think you summarized it well.  What we are hearing is people can see a plan.  So while there might have been resources put in at different years and different strategies shown at different times, they can now see a vision of where we are headed.  While it is an incremental process and we have said it will take three to five years, we are two years into that now.  People can see the plan, and they can see how we are going to get to the plan because we have explained the steps.  I think that is making a huge difference.

There are individual impacts along the way.  It is not to say 100 per cent of your staff is happy 100 per cent of the time because change is difficult and some people's jobs are changing.  That piece, some individuals are finding difficult.  Overall, people can see that vision.  They can see how we can get there and they can see that we have made actual concrete steps toward that; it is not just all talk.  So that is making a difference.

MS JOHNSON: I think one of the things that I heard loud and clear is that they were so appreciative of being consulted every step of the way.  There were lots of e-mails around that piece.  The other thing that they are really relieved about is the funding for the new CRMS.  It is very frustrating; it is out of date and when it works, it is not great.  So they are really looking forward to that being up and running, which is critical to the work they do. 

CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

We might change it up here now with the committee members. 

Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

I would like to ask a further question with regard to what is happening with your organizational model.  Obviously during the consultations, I think we are all aware that social workers do talk about their caseloads, and the things that they requested had to do with their caseloads.  Is it your hope with the plan that with the model that you are putting in place now with more supervision and the changing role of supervisors - because it is obviously new job descriptions in there - and the clerical assistants that the heavy caseload is going to be totally taken care of?  I know there are also new social workers and that is not totally in place yet either, but how long are you giving yourself to sort of assess how the new model will deal with the caseload issue? 

MS JOHNSON: We have been doing the workload analysis in Western.  That has given us some really good information and that will continue in each of the regions.  I guess the best way to explain it right now is the way it works is that you have Youth Corrections on one side and then you have Adoptions and you have Child Protection.  Usually, it is the Child Protection side that is going absolutely crazy; they never get out of the office some Friday afternoons.  It is not to say that the Youth Corrections people are not busy either, I do not want to leave that impression but, typically, the workload and the situations get a lot more difficult at certain times on the Child Protection side.

What is currently happening now before the transition is they would do their own thing, Youth Corrections would do their own thing, and Adoptions would do their own thing.  The new model is working in a team setting so that if Child Protection is going crazy over here, that manager or that supervisor will share the load and say the people over here are going to be taking up more of the caseload.  So, you are going to try to even it out over the whole system. 

I think the greatest advantage overall is that you are not going to have one group of social workers doing much more work than another group and it is going to be shared overall.  That comes back to the whole Social Worker II, Social Worker I piece; it is getting people back to having the overall expertise in all the areas to help out if need be.  It is not to say that there is still not going to be some specialization because sometimes specialization is required and needed.  I guess it is balancing the load all around within team to team but throughout the whole Province too.

MS MICHAEL: One of the aspects of that - you know it as well as I do - is the heavy load of you are not just dealing with the case and dealing with the children and their families, et cetera, then it also the whole thing of maintaining the accurate records of each child. 

I have spoken to social workers who have said me: At 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, if I have an emergency and I do not have something written on paper about what has happened that day I have to deal with the child, I do not deal with paper.  There have been criticisms by the Auditor General, I think, of inaccurate or insufficient reports being kept on the cases.  When I speak to social workers, it is not that they do not care and they do not think they have to keep the records, because as you know, the caseloads are so heavy they do not have the time.  Sometimes, they are 10:00 o'clock at night in their homes trying to do that paperwork.

I am just wondering how the new model deals with that particular issue because they obviously have to be the ones who do those records.  They know their work.  That cannot be done by somebody else, can it?  It has to be done by the social worker.  That certainly is one of the big concerns that I have heard. 

MS JOHNSON: I hear you.  While the risk assessment piece is being done – and that is critical – direction has been given that documentation absolutely needs to be kept.  There is no point in you going to the doctor, having an emergency situation and the doctor not writing down what the issue is for the next time you go.  How do you quality check that work?  That is not acceptable and it has to be done. 

Having said that, there is certainly lots of work and it is crisis mode in a lot of cases.  As I said, with the new org chart you will see more supports for the social worker.  Sometimes the social worker is not always doing their core basic work, which is the work of social work, and sometimes they are out doing things that a social worker assistant could be doing, helping a client purchase groceries, or whatever the need may be, taking them to a doctor; those are things that can be done by a social worker assistant.  That is why, in this new org chart, for every team of six social workers you are going to have one social worker assistant and one clerical support because social workers are also doing clerical work too.  So, if they can get back to the basics and focus on their core, then the documentation piece, it is not should be, it will be better because it has to be better.  Then, around the training side there is a whole training section around documentation and the importance of it.  One of the things that Susan Abel said in her clinical services review is the documentation absolutely has to be key.

With the supports that we are putting in place, it will be better but the direction is given in the interim that you have to keep documentation. 

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

It sounds to me like you have a very good plan in place and, obviously, there are going to be moments all the way along the plan of re-evaluating all of these steps, I would assume. 

MS JOHNSON: You will see with the new CRMS that one of the things we will be putting in place is weekly reports on documentation, and on who has what case and who is on holidays when.  There is lots of detail going into that.  It is critical that we check all of this.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you.

MS JOHNSON: It is building from the ground up and it is a really exciting process actually.

MS MICHAEL: I think I will just pass back to Ms Jones for the moment.  I was going to go into a new topic, so I will just pass it back to her.

CHAIR: Okay, sure.

Ms Jones.

MS JONES: I would like to pick up on the Auditor General's piece that Lorraine just mentioned there.  I know one of the concerns that he had was that 90 per cent of the risk assessment were not being done or the clinical assessment process that the social workers were supposed to be using.  You are saying that you have made it mandatory that they do this documentation.  What process do you have in place to ensure now that it is being done? 

MS JOHNSON: The first thing we did was we hired five or six new people to get at the backlog of these cases.  That was done maybe in February or March, shortly after the AG's report.  I think they have 900 files that they have closed off on.  I guess I should back up a little bit.  While these risk assessments instruments were not being done, it did not mean that risk was not being assessed, this is one tool in it all.  As Lorraine just said, they are out dealing with emergency situations, so it does not mean that the risk assessment was not being completed.  It is just the proper documentation was not being done.  We do not want to leave the impression that people were going to be at risk because of this, or more so at risk because of this. 

In the interim before this new CRMS is up and running, we do have key indicators that we are asking for now in terms of how often these reports are done.  That is the new role of the zone managers that are in place now.  No doubt, it will be much easier to track when the new system is in place, but in the interim we are asking for key indicators and how they are matching up with what we expect.

MS JONES: What about the family centered action plans because you indicated that 94 per cent of them were not being followed up on or completed?

MS JOHNSON: The same issue, yes.

MS JONES: We do not know today that it is being done.  There is no measure of it today.

MS JOHNSON: I can tell you today that the ones that were identified in the Auditor General's report, I made sure each and every one of those were looked at and, in most cases, a lot of them were closed off.  I guess, again, it is coming back to dealing with the next emergency, but when we looked at them all, most of those files were closed off in any case and there was not any issue there.  It is just getting around to doing the documentation.  As I said, we hired the five or six extra people to deal with the backlog.  It is not going to be all done tomorrow but we are working toward getting it complete. 

MS JONES: One of the other things they identified was the monitoring and evaluation.  I know part of it was the managerial oversight.  I guess the new structure that you are proposing is intended to deal with that aspect of it, is it? 

MS JOHNSON: The managerial piece? 

MS JONES: Yes.

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  Under the old structure there were five regional directors and they had the authority, under the legislation, for when a child has to come into protective care.  We have now expanded that to thirteen zone managers who have that same legislative authority.  There will be three zone managers for each region of the Province, with the exception of Eastern, will have four. 

MS JONES: There were concerns raised as well about the long-term care and the potential provincial protection plan that was being looked at.  The Auditor General outlined a number of concerns around those particular issues and reports that would allow the provincial director and I think the regional health authorities to monitor whether these long-term plan standards are being achieved or if they are not and how that is going to measured. 

MS JOHNSON: I am just trying to think.  Was that this most recent Auditor General report or is that one from before? 

MS JONES: Yes, it was.  He said the provincial director did not regularly review or evaluate all of the Regional Health Authority plans, and files and information and stuff like that. 

They also talked about insufficient staff, resources and all of that, but one of the big issues was the fact that a lot of the reviews of the files were not being done.  You talked about the ones that he identified.  You went back and redid all of those and made sure they were closed out and all of that stuff, but there was a bigger question, a broader question that he raised in his report.  It was around the entire process and the fact that no one was doing that aspect of it.

MS MACDONALD: I think what you are referring to is the provincial oversight component that he criticized the provincial director for not fulfilling the role that legislatively was there for them and maybe there were staffing concerns at the provincial office in that regard.  Again, the new model that has been put in place in that area - the provincial director of in care and protection originally had responsibility for adoptions, youth corrections, training, and quality.  The new model that has been put in place separates those functions out so that the provincial director who has the legislative mandate only has responsibility for in care and protection so that their monitoring role can now focus on that.  Now that you have become a line department of course, that oversight is much more direct than it would have been under the agency in terms of relationship from the Department of Health to a regional health authority.  That direct monitoring now will take place in a much more specific way, which is what the Auditor General was referring to.

The key indicators that the minister mentioned, as we roll in each regional health authority we are putting in place key indicators that they have to report to the provincial office on.  Where are you with your risk assessments?  Are they up to date?  Where are you with your family-centered action plans?  Where are you with your children who are in continuous custody, deciding whether they are going to be placed for adoption or what their long-term plan of care?  Those reports now will be coming on a regular basis to that provincial director, which was not happening before.

The second piece we were doing is setting up a quality unit.  Do you want to speak to the quality unit, Minister, that is being put in place?

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  We will be announcing a quality unit probably within the next month or so.  I guess that will speak specifically to the fact that the oversight was not in place as it should be, but there will be specific people who will be quality checking file audits.  That will be another piece which will help us ensure that this work is being done.

MS JONES: Okay.  Obviously, you guys feel pretty confident right now that all these reporting mechanisms are being responded to and that these documentations are being done.  Is that what you are telling me?

MS JOHNSON: No, what we are saying is as we go forward and as we bring each region in we are improving the system.  We can never make sure people are doing this.  We can only put a system in place that will arm the people with the tools to do this.

Susan Abell herself said this is going to take three to five years.  We have tackled each issue and we have put the systems in place so that they can do it.  Certainly as each region transitions, we are going to put those key indicators in place and it will be quality checked with our quality unit, but in the interim, no doubt, there are still issues within the department.  It is not all within Child, Youth and Family Services yet, and the regional health authorities do oversee Eastern Labrador and Central still.  We know what we have in place for central and we believe it is what is required to make sure that all of the work is done in the proper fashion.  We can quality check that, but it is going to take time to get it all in place for the entire Province, no question. 

MS JONES: I am just wondering, why wasn't the paperwork done to ensure children were properly assessed, especially children who were in long-term protection?  Why would that not be done?  I see that as being the primary role of a social worker who has a child in custody in this Province.  What feedback did you get from the system, from people who work in the system as to why those things were not done? 

MS JOHNSON: That is the exact same question I had when I first came there.  I could not grasp the fact that you go do a visit to a family and you do not write down, family visited Thursday, May 24, everything okay or not okay.  I cannot explain it to you because it is just really hard to grasp, but what they say to me is they are just overworked and busy and they are in crisis mode.  While they are about to do their notes for that, they get a call, a referral on somebody else.  It is all about prioritizing, or the day they go to sit down to do all their notes the system crashes, the CRMS.  Those are the two biggest things that I have heard.  As I said, our social workers do great work and they are special people for what they do but it is a hard one to grasp sometimes.  The direction has been given to certainly document what you do now. 

MS JONES: The new case management system you are talking about or refer to, can you give us an update on where that is now in the system?

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  We committed $15.4 million in last year's Budget.  The first piece was doing the consultation with the staff to see what needed to be in it and consultation with people who will be checking the quality to see what reports need to come out.  What are the tools, the inputs that you need to get the outputs that you want.  That piece has been done. 

We also went out to tender, or we also hired Deloitte to help develop the tender package for what it is we want, and that tender should be going out very soon – it is not gone yet, is it?  Very, very soon the tender will be going out.  Once the tender is complete then it will take some time to put the system in place, but hopefully this time next year. 

MS JONES: Okay.  So, you are looking at about a year? 

OFFICIAL: We have a year gone; we set it to three years.

MS JOHNSON: We did say in the beginning, when it was announced, three years, but certainly if we can do it sooner than that, then that is the goal. 

MS JONES: Okay.

MS JOHNSON: These IT systems are never straightforward to build.  Not that I am a programmer, but there is a lot that - you want to make sure you get it done right so you can get the information out of it that you want. 

MS JONES: I am just wondering about some statistics actually, and maybe we can move onto that.  How many children are currently in care in the Province, and can you give me the breakdown by region? 

MS JOHNSON: I do not know if I have the breakdown by region here but we can certainly get it for you. 

The latest numbers I have, as of February 28 of this year there were 8,592 children receiving services across the Province from this department, and of this there were 739 who are in our care.  Just to compare that for you to April, 2010 when our strategic report went out, there were 7,758 on our caseload and 644 in care.  So we have 11 per cent more now receiving our services and 15 per cent more in our care. 

There are all kinds of suggestions as to why, but certainly we see more drug abuse, more family violence, perhaps more awareness around the new department and the new legislation that came into effect last June.  You are certainly seeing a lot more referrals.  I cannot really pinpoint exactly what it is. 

MS JONES: Can we get the breakdown by region as well and probably get the stats from last year so we can see where the increases are in the Province? 

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  You say wow, and it is amazing, but I always say it is better to have them in our care than to not know and have them back in a situation where they are probably not safe. 

MS JONES: Yes.  Oh no, I agree. 

What about in foster care?  We know the number was rising and falling for a period of time and we know there was some trouble with trying to track foster homes for a lot of these children.  Has that issue now been resolved?  Do we have a good complement of foster homes in the Province now?  How many do we currently have, I should ask? 

MS JOHNSON: Well, we currently have 581 foster homes; 134 of those were created just in the last year-and-a-half alone.  I guess that is the good news, but there is always room for more.  No doubt, we would much prefer to see children in foster homes than in ALAs.  Certainly with our continuum of care that we are working on, the goal would be to move those children from ALAs to foster homes.

We recently did a research piece with the Foster Families Association in terms of a survey with the current foster homes we have, in terms of what they may need for better support, financial or otherwise.  Mostly otherwise, because they seem to be happy with the recent increases that we provide to foster homes.  Once that survey is complete and we go through all of our policies and procedures, the plan is then to do a campaign around attracting more foster families.  There are lots of things we can do in our continuum of care.  While that is not announced yet, I think there will be good things to come for that to attract more foster homes.

MS JONES: How many children are in foster care right now in the Province?

MS JOHNSON: Five hundred and eighty-one.  I think there are 557 homes in the Province and 581 in care.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Yes, but how many are in foster homes?  Is it 557 homes and this is how many are in homes?

We will have to verify the number for you.  I have 581 foster homes but there could be more children than that because some homes have two and three.  I do not have that number right here offhand but I can get it for you certainly.

MS JONES: When you get that information for me, could you also give me the breakdown of foster homes in the Province and also what the age variations are of children who are going into foster care?

MS JOHNSON: The age would be zero to sixteen.

MS JONES: Yes.  I am thinking, is it mostly kids between eight and ten years old, kids under five years old, things like that?

MS JOHNSON: Yes, we can get that for you. 

I do have the number of children in care by region here.  Sorry, I did not realize.  In Eastern we have 311, certainly the biggest by far; in Central, seventy-two; Western, 127; Lab-Grenfell, 126; and Lab-Grenfell in the Innu zone, 103.  We can put all that in the facts for you.

MS JONES: Okay, yes.  What about the ALAs now?  How many children do we have in the system?

MS JOHNSON: We currently have forty-eight in ALAs right now.  It is down significantly from where it has been because we put a team in place.  Every Friday they meet and every Monday they report to me in terms of utilizing all of our group homes, trying to get more family, more kinship onside.  While we would like to see that number much less, it is down significantly from where it has been.  At one point last year I think there were seventy-two, and as you move those out there are more coming in.  So it is hard to get ahead but we are doing better than we were, just because there is a focus team on that solely.

MS JONES: Obviously, the concern we have continuously raised with your government is the fact that there are no regulations, policies around ALAs and independent living arrangements in the Province.  What is your intention?  Are you going to bring in proper legislation to regulate that kind of a service for children?

MS JOHNSON: When ALAs were brought in, I guess ten years ago, it was done on an emergency basis and we still see it as an emergency basis.  My goal would be to have this number go as close to zero as I could possibly get it.

While there are no regulations, it is not to say that things are not overseen.  Even caregivers, they require certain requirements of their workers in terms of criminal checks, CYFS checks; the fact that you have to have two years post-secondary, and the fact that our social workers are in there visiting.  I always say to people, if you have an issue with any ALA, certainly call our office or call me directly and we will look into it.  While there are no regulations, it is not to leave the impression they are not being run properly and people are not being cared for.

The other thing I would say is I would rather have them in an ALA than back in a home where the children may potentially be at risk.  To be quite honest with you, I do not see bringing in regulations for something that I am trying to phase out.

MS JONES: Well, I guess the difference is that caregivers is an organization that has taken a lot of pride in their corporation in doing a lot of this stuff on their own, not because they were required to do it.  My concern was that as the growing number of children going into ALAs and ILAs in the Province continued, obviously people were seeing it as a business and not just as a service.  When you start having that without regulation you could run into issues.

In addition to that, maybe you did not receive any complaints but we certainly did and we brought them to the House of Assembly.  They were complaints around having people unqualified working in a lot of these ALAs.  Even university students themselves contacted me, who were hired to work in those ALAs and felt like they were way in over their heads.  They were hired and they were put in a position where they had no training or experience to deal with the children who were in their care.  They found themselves dealing with kids who were often very violent, had all kinds of anger management issues.  They had no training or background to deal with any of those things.  Almost every shift, for some of them, on a weekly basis they had to call in higher authorities to be able to deal with the situation that they were placed into.

We are aware of those issues and the concerns that went on; I am surprised that you guys were not aware of it.  As I said, we did bring it to the House and we did raise it publicly.  Whether this is temporary, whether it is going to be phased out is irrelevant in my regard.  What I am looking at today is that you are using this service.  This has become something that you have based your services on and it has become something that you have become dependent on as a route of last resolve for many of these children.  In that case, I think it deserves to have proper regulation.  Whether that regulation is only going to be there for a year because we are only going to use it for a year, or whether it ends up being ten years like it has been in the past, I think it needs to be looked at more seriously.  I do not think you can throw it aside and just say because I am going to phase it out I am not concerned about it.

MS JOHNSON: First of all in terms of what you raised in the House, I did read Hansard as soon as I came into the department of past questions that were raised, and I recall the issues being around the criminal checks being done.  I did check that and all of that was fine; they all were done.  If there are any other issues, by all means, bring them to my attention.

For me, there is so much going on in the department that we need to prioritize our time and focus, so I am going to focus on the continuum of care and I am going to focus on finding more foster families, finding more therapeutic homes, whatever the case may be, to get these people out of ALAs.  If you have to choose between focusing on the continuum of care and doing this and getting it done right or developing regulations that may only be in place for a very short time, then my focus is going to be on the continuum of care.

MS JONES: In terms of children being sent out of the Province, can you give me what the numbers are on those?

MS JOHNSON: We have forty-three right now out of the Province.  This is as of February 28.

MS JONES: Okay.  Is that the normal percentage?  Is it up or down?

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: I am told it is about regular.  It can go anywhere from thirty to forty-eight, forty-nine.  We can do a check over the past years for you and provide it to you.

MS JONES: The children who are going out of the Province now, where are most of them going to?

MS JOHNSON: I do not want to guess.  I know where some go, but I do not know where all go. 

MS JONES: Can you also give me the breakdown from what regions of the Province most of these out-of-province referrals are coming?

MS JOHNSON: No doubt, the majority have been the Eastern and Labrador, but we will get that for you. 

MS JONES: Okay.

When we did the Estimates last year, the minister talked about therapeutic foster homes and how government was pursuing that idea.  Again, we raised that several times in the House of Assembly.  They said that they were planning a pilot project.  That was over a year ago.  I am just wondering if you ever went ahead with the pilot project, or if you can tell me where it is and what has been happening.

MS JOHNSON: The one model that I am certainly looking at and I was quite interested in and pleased with: We provide funding to Waypoints.  They started a therapeutic foster home.  A fabulous couple, I went and visited the home.  He was a social worker, or social worker assistant, I believe, working with Waypoints and his partner works.  They had all the proper training and they have three children in their care.  His partner recently had a baby and everyone stayed as they are.  There are now four children in that home.  It is absolutely a fabulous setting; one that I think will go a long way in terms of just talking to the children themselves.  They said they were being bounced from group home to group home, foster home to foster home, now they believe they really have a family.  So, we are looking at those types of therapeutic foster homes throughout the country.  The training is critical, but it could be a retired nurse, it could be a retired teacher, people with sociology backgrounds, social sciences background, those kinds of things, but I think it is the answer to a lot of our issues, particularly for the ALAs. 

MS JONES: Okay.

Can you tell me what you are doing?  A year ago you said that you were on the road to doing that.  You have Waypoints that are doing this one home.  Have you contracted them to do more?  Are you looking at doing more as a department?  What kind of time frames are you building around it? 

MS JOHNSON: We funded Waypoints to do that one.  We like what we see.  I plan on putting it into my continuum of care package that I am going to bring before Cabinet.  There will be announcements later on this year on that piece, but it is definitely something that I want to do more of. 

MS JONES: Okay.

CHAIR: Do we want to change up the Committee member now, maybe go to somebody else?

Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

Many of the questions I had are being covered so I will not be repeating anything, but I do have similar concerns as to some of the questions Ms Jones asked and, of course, anything that she has requested, information wise, I would like to receive as well.  I think you know that, but I am just putting it on record.

MS JOHNSON: Sure.

MS MICHAEL: I am going to turn now to a straight Budget question.  You will need your salary details, please.

MS JOHNSON: Is it 1.1.01?

MS MICHAEL: Yes, 1.1.01 - probably all of them.  We will do them one by one.  I am just curious as to the permanent employees and temporary breakdown throughout.  In 1.1.01, for example, the $241,700 is broken down into one permanent position: $54,000; then $178,600.  The balance of the money is in temporary and other employees.  Could I just have a breakdown of what those positions are?  I would have thought that all of the staff in the minister's office would be permanent positions as long as there is a ministerial office.

MS JOHNSON: Just give us one minute, please.

MS MICHAEL: Sure.

MS MACDONALD: Yes, you are right, Minister, that is only your salary that is in there.  They were in the process of transferring mine in.  As you can imagine, the corporate resources were all temporary in our original years because the first funding was called transition funding; I think we had $2 million originally.  That was distributed to start forming our corporate structure and so those funds just have not been transferred in the permanent.  We have actually just gotten our last two assistant deputy ministers in place in the last couple of months: Lori Anne Companion, who is sitting behind me, and Wanda Lundrigan.  Those positions, one was not filled and the other one was filled temporarily.  They will be in the process of being transferred up but that is just part of the transition process.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  Would that be the same thing with Executive Support?  Because the same way there, there seems to be a fair amount under temporary, $234,800.

MS MACDONALD: Absolutely.  Yes, the only position now in kind of the Executive Support that will remain temporarily is the project manager who is supporting us with the design, the action plan for how we move the transition process.  That position will probably be in place for another year.  That will not exist in the permanent structure once the transition is complete.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  They were the two that were really curious for me. 

MS MACDONALD: The other one I should mention is we only have temporary approval at this stage for our HR structure.  All other corporate structures for finance and IT will become permanent.  We have to actually go back to Cabinet on the HR structure because as you know in government we have shared HR units for a number of departments.  The social sector HR department covers Government Services, Municipal Affairs, Health, a number of departments. 

They knew in the initial years we would need a lot more HR support because of the transition and the negotiations with the union.  Whether we will need a permanent HR structure in the future, that is yet to be determined, or whether we would be rolled in with the social sector.  Those are the only ones right now, apart from the project manager, that their temporary permanent status has not been determined. 

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  So you would expect before next year's Budget, the temporary and other employees would be very much reduced from where it is now?

MS MACDONALD: Absolutely.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  Thank you.

Again, still on line items; going to 1.2.03. Program Development and Planning.  Once again it is the Salary line 01.  The budget for Program Development and Planning last year was $2.1 million, the revised was $1.5 million, and this year it is $1,427,600.  Why the big difference last year?  What exactly is included under Program Development and Planning?  A bit more detail than just a description under the heading.

MS JOHNSON: Okay.  It was down last year due to the delay in filling positions.  We had our program manager, a program consultant, two program and policy development specialists, two practice analysts, a statistician and a program consultant for Aboriginal, a researcher and two Clerk Typist IIIs.  There was a delay in filling those positions.  We brought that salary down by about $600,000. 

Then, for this year's budget the Salary estimate is down because we re-profiled the salaries.  They have moved from Program Development and Planning to the Corporate Services piece.  So if you flip over to the other section on the Corporate Services piece you will see that up there. 

MS MICHAEL: Yes, I do.

MS JOHNSON: I can list off all those that we have re-profiled if you want. 

MS MICHAEL: No, I do not think I need to hear the list of the re-profiling if that is the explanation. 

MS JOHNSON: Yes.

MS MICHAEL: That was what I was wondering because it was the same way that Corporate Services was up by about $2 million there.  I am presuming the re-profiling meant that people going to Corporate Service just did not come from Program Development and Planning, they must have come from a couple of other places too because it is almost a $2 million…

MS JOHNSON: They could have, yes, and some of them are new. 

MS MICHAEL: Some are new, okay.  How many new would you have hired under Corporate Services?

MS JOHNSON: Thirteen permanent and two temporaries. 

MS MICHAEL: What area exactly are they working in, (inaudible) the specifics? 

MS JOHNSON: We have a new Assistant Deputy Minister, that is Lori Anne, and a secretary. 

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible) Wanda.

MS JOHNSON: Oh, sorry.  That is Wanda, Regional Services.  We have a Clerk Typist III; people in Finance, five in Finance; Occupational Health and Safety consultant; HR consultants.  For the Policy and Planning Division we have a Clerk Typist, a program consultant for Adoptions, and a Clerk Typist III for Adoptions. 

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  Thank you. 

MS JOHNSON: We will send it to you just in case I left out one. 

MS MICHAEL: Okay, thank you very much.  That would be helpful. 

I am coming over to 2.1.01 now.

MS JOHNSON: This is where you will really see the transitions upfront. 

MS MICHAEL: That is right, and I just want to put it on the record this really is where the transition takes place.  These salaries, of course, are all departmental salaries. 

Under Grants and Subsidies though, the Grants and Subsidies have gone from $152.3 million down to $145.8 million.  Why would that have happened?  What would be the change and what is not now being covered under Grants and Subsidies if that is what it is? 

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  Because as Western transferred in, which it did, and we are also reflecting in this budget that Central will be fully transferred.  Those grants and subsidies are going to be rolled up in items 01 to 09 in the appropriate areas where they need be, the salaries.  You will see that.  Then, as we transfer in Eastern and Labrador, you will see grants and subsides eventually go to zero and you will see lines one to nine increase.  That reflects the transition of Western and Central.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  You made a slight allusion to that when you opened up.  I did not get the detail of what it is.  So that is what is happening.

MS JOHNSON: Yes, I did have the detail but…

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

Under 2.1.02. Support to Community Agencies, I think $309,000 is the foster parents association.  Is that correct?

MS JOHNSON: Sorry, $309,000?

MS MICHAEL: Under 2.1.02. Support to Community Agencies, Grants and Subsidies, I think that $309,000 is the foster parents association?

MS JOHNSON: Foster Families Association. 

MS MICHAEL: Yes, Foster Families Association.  There was no sense of their need to be any increase at all in that grant to them this year?

MS JOHNSON: Well, we are in a transition period.  Even with the regional health authorities now there are lots of grants and subsidies that are provided to many different organizations.  I wanted to take the time to look at each one of them to see what services we need, see how it can best be delivered, and I explained this to every organization that we are really going to take a look at this over the next year.  Perhaps in next year's Budget you will see changes but for this year I wanted to keep it as it was. 

I am just told they did not even request a substantive increase anyway. 

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  That includes, I think it is three positions that we fund.  It includes salaries for that, their annual meetings, and they are having a conference which they asked - when I met with them they asked if I would support that.  I think it was the first time in, they told me, I do not know if it was eighteen or nineteen years.  There is funds in there to help assist with that as well. 

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  Are they involved at all in a consultative way with you in the work that you are doing with regard to first of all the therapeutic foster families and the plan for foster families?

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  They have been involved with the survey particularly, helped us out a lot with that.  They are involved with the continuum of care piece that I am doing.  I have had them in and we have had many discussions.  They are a critical piece of that in terms of being able to tell us, because oftentimes the foster families call them up.  They are a critical piece in telling us what supports we need to put in place to make it easier on foster families; just little things they explained to me.  Like, if you need to take your foster child to a doctor's appointment you have to call up and get approval for a taxicab.  Maybe things that they suggested, just having a block of funds for that so it would cut down on the administrative piece but it would let foster parents feel like foster parents and not being treated like you are a part of the system; you are being treated like you are a family.  We have had some great discussions with just fabulous people there, with Diane, and they are definitely going to be in a major role consulting with us as we go forward. 

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

I have no more questions on the budget line items.  I have questions I want to ask under child care, but I will hold those off until I see when other members of the Committee are ready to move into the whole child care piece, rather than going into that item at the moment. 

CHAIR: Okay.

Ms Jones.

MS JONES: I have some questions on the staffing as well and I have questions on child care too, Lorraine.  I will do the staffing ones and then I will turn it back to you. 

First of all under the Regional Services, there is revenue there from the federal government.  Can you tell me what that is for?  Is that some kind of health transfer?  Where does that come from and what is it for?

MS JOHNSON: That is mainly the child care piece, but also the Indian and Northern Affairs revenue. 

MS JONES: What is the child care piece? 

MS JOHNSON: That is the transfers that they give us in terms of – do you want to get into it, Ros, the specifics?

MS SMYTHE: That would be the federal transfers under the Early Childhood Development Initiative, the Early Learning and Child Care multilateral, and also the Child Care Spaces Initiative.  Is that what you are referring to?

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible) would you like to clarify it, Paul?

MR. GRANDY: The two main revenues there are: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, when Innu or Inuit children are taken into care, they fund the cost of that care; the other major part is if we take a child into care, the department receives $85 a month child allowance. 

OFFICIAL: So, that is the two –

MR. GRANDY: That is the two.  It is around $3 million. 

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MR. GRANDY: No, the thirteen - it is almost $9 million that comes from INAC, close to $9 million. 

MS JONES: Okay.

If we have 700 children in care in the Province, the federal government pays the provincial government a rate per child, is it?

MR. GRANDY: Yes, pays the department.

MS JONES: The department.

MR. GRANDY: Yes.

MS JONES: Okay.  They consider that their Child Care Benefit.

MR. GRANDY: That is right, yes.

MS JONES: Okay.

What is the provincial revenue?  What do we make money on there?

MR. GRANDY: I think the provincial revenue is mainly the Child Youth Network; CYN funding that comes from one department to another.  HRLE provides the department with an amount of money for CYN, Child Youth Network, is that correct?  I do not know if it is under the National Child Benefit.

MS JONES: Yes, it says the provincial revenues: $1.65 million.

MR. GRANDY: Yes, that is what it is.

MS JONES: Okay, so it is just a transfer from one department to another?

MR. GRANDY: That is all it is right now.

MS JONES: Okay.  Why would it be there then?

MR. GRANDY: It is mainly there because the regional health authorities recorded it as revenue and this sort of reflects what will be transitioning to us.  Whether or not that continues, I guess, is a decision that we will make at some point in the future.

MS JONES: Okay.

Again, under Regional Services, I think there were thirty-eight positions in the department.  Can you tell me if there were any new positions created or was it all transfers from the other department?

OFFICIAL: New positions created this year, last year?

MS JONES: We are dealing with this year's Budget, so it is this year, 2011-2012.

MS JOHNSON: I mentioned the thirteen permanent that were created and the two temporary.

MS JONES: That was Corporate Services you were talking about then.  I am talking about Regional Services, under 2.1.  It is showing in your staffing Estimates thirty-eight positions.

OFFICIAL: What page are you looking at?

MS JONES: Page 132.  It is thirty-eight positions; it is showing that it is up by six over last year.  What I am wondering is if it is all new positions or if it is all transferred positions. 

MS MACDONALD: There are some new positions that were redeployed in the Regional Services.  Most of that money was secured last year, and we are still redeploying it.  So, all of the funding that you will see, increase in funding for this year, went to completing our corporate structure, and the money that we received last year we are still deploying in the regions.  I do not have that sheet that shows exactly what came out of the budget, but for last year we can show you what the regional services were.  We had a number of positions in the regions that we redeployed, so in other words, like the Social Workers II we talked about earlier, we are changing what those positions will do and putting them on the front line.  There were a number of other positions that we also redeployed differently in that org structure, and then there were some that we added for regional services.  We got the money for those in last year's budget, but they were not all redeployed.

So that will start to increase; the zone managers, you are correct, have been put in place in Western.  We still have to put those in Central, Eastern, Labrador, and then there are some new corporate positions at the regional office level to run – HR and HR Administrator and those types of things.  Those are new structures that we had to put in place in the region because, of course, we do not have the support of the regional health authorities to run some of that administrative work on the ground.  So there will be a number of front-line positions for social workers, there will be that new management structure to fill out those zone managers, and there will be some corporate regional positions.  All of that will come from funding from last year, and the redeployment of positions. 

I am not sure if that answered your question?

MS JONES: No, not at all.

MS MACDONALD: Okay.

MS JONES: Let me try again.

Under section 2.1, page 132, under Regional Services, you talk about you have four Regional Directors, thirteen Regional Managers, one Senior Program and Policy Development Specialist, three Program and Policy Development Specialists, four Regional Administrators, you have four Information Management Analysts, you have four Information Management Technicians, you have four Clerk IVs, and you have one Clerk III.  What I am asking you is how many of those positions are new this year, and were they transferred from another department, or were they new hires?

MS MACDONALD: Okay, thank you for that clarification.

These positions are primarily new, to answer that question.  So, the regional director positions are quite different than the regional director positions that were there previously.  As the minister indicated – and this is why I kind of probably did not answer your question correctly in the first place, because are they new positions?  Yes.  Are they all new money?  No.  The regional director positions are quite different.  These are administrative positions that will run these regions as opposed to what was previously there in the org chart, which were positions that had the authority under the act.  The money from those previous positions has been used to create these new regional director positions.  They are all new positions in the sense of new to the org structure, but are they all new money?  Not necessarily, because some of the money was re-profiled previously.  We can give you that list if you would like to have it.

MS JONES: Yes, please. 

Can you tell me in total, of the thirty-eight positions, how many of them are new positions that were created this year? 

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible) new money.

MS MACDONALD: She is asking new positions, not new money.  They would all be new, not necessarily new money.

MS JONES: Okay.  No, I am not asking about the money.  They would all be new and they would have all been - they are not all transferred in.  Some of them are new hires, right?

MS MACDONALD: In lots of cases there were people who - their positions were closely related to these that we have re-profiled the money.  If you were in a bargaining unit position in particular, we would have used the Public Service Commission restructuring policy to transfer you into that position as we move into the new org chart. 

The person who came over in say a Clerk II position will get moved into the Clerk Typist III position.  There are some of these positions that we have run competitions for, like the regional director and the zone managers because they are key leadership positions.  We have run competitions for them but some of these, people came over in different positions but in doing the reemployment policy that the PSC uses in government, we are going to be able to match people - thank you, minister, for that word - to some of these positions.  Some of them will be new hires but many of them will be, because their position disappeared in the old structure are being matched to these positions in the new organization.

MS JONES: So they are not all filled yet then?

MS MACDONALD: They are not all filled yet, no, absolutely.  Because the four regional administrators, we do not have any of those.  The regional directors, we have three of those announced; one on a temporary basis, two on a permanent basis and still one to fill.  We have three zone managers in place.  Some of them are filled, some of them are not. 

MS JONES: Again, under 1.2.03. Program Development and Planning; they are saying sixteen positions approved in the department.  Last year I think it was twenty-seven positions.  I am just wondering why there was a change and what positions were taken out?

MS JOHNSON: Are you asking why 1.2.03.01. Salaries are less than the budgeted amount last year?  Is that essentially it? 

MS JONES: Last year when we did the Salary Estimates - if you look in the Estimates binder it showed under this section - twenty-seven jobs was the intention to be hired, this year it is showing sixteen. 

OFFICIAL: Those are the re-profiled positions.

MS JOHNSON: Yes, those are the ones that I mentioned to Ms Michael.  Paul, you can verify me if I am wrong, but those are the ones we re-profiled from this division to the Corporate Services division.  There would have been an Administrative Officer, Training and Development Supervisor, four Program and Policy Development Specialists, Clerk Typist III, Departmental Program Coordinator, Information Management Technician, two practice analysts and a statistician, so there are eleven there. 

MS JONES: Okay.  That is the ones you transferred to Corporate Services? 

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  Is that right, Paul? 

MR. GRANDY: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: Yes.  The other positions in Corporate Services, were they also transferred in from other departments or were they new hires? 

MS JOHNSON: Very few came over from the health authorities.  Most of them are new, but again, the cascading opportunity was there. 

MS JONES: Yes, but can you tell me how many are new? 

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible). 

MS JONES: There was none last year, I do not think.

OFFICIAL: Yes, they are mostly all new.  There are a couple of clerical positions.

MS JOHNSON: Mostly the corporate (inaudible).

OFFICIAL: They are new, yes. 

MS JONES: Okay.  I think that is all of my questions on the salaries. 

CHAIR: Okay. 

Thank you. 

Ms Michael.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you. 

Some questions now on the child care program, which of course comes under - the general heading is under Regional Services but my questions are fairly specific. 

With regard to the child care program budget, obviously, we do not get a breakdown in the overall budget.  Would it be possible to get a break down of how much money is subsidy to parents?  Does the subsidy to parents come from Child, Youth and Family Services? 

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  The subsidy to parents, the salaries for child care staff, the RHAs to child care staff, the grants to associations and agencies.  The break down of the budget that actually goes to child care, because there is no indication here obviously of how much money goes into the child care program.

MS JOHNSON: Yes, we can get that break down.  Paul that is under Grants and Subsidies isn't it?  Yes, because we do not know how the initiative we announced in the Budget, how that would play out throughout the Province.  We put it in that one line until we can get a better handle next year.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.

MS JOHNSON: Overall, there is $25 million that goes into child care, and I think $13 million-roughly of that is federal transfers.

MS MICHAEL: Okay, which is the money indicated here under the federal revenue.  Okay, so about $13 million from the feds.  

MS JOHNSON: Is there a specific, like 1.2-something that you are on, or just…

MS MICHAEL: No, because there is no specific - it is under Regional Services that money is allocated for child care.  That is why I am asking for the specifics because there are no specifics.

MS JOHNSON: Right.

MS MICHAEL: I understand why there are not in a general budget, but I know that you do have it.  It would be helpful for us to know the break down, that would be great. 

Another issue – I guess this is more, is this issue being dealt with and who deals with it?  One of the problems parents have with regard to child care is that if an agency decides to up the cost of child care, people who are receiving subsidies can sometimes really be in trouble because the subsidy - in many cases that it has happened, the subsidy is not increased, yet the child care cost is increased.  Is this issue being addressed at the moment, and would it be addressed under Child, Youth and Family Services or would it be addressed under HRLE?

MS JOHNSON: Well, in terms of the subsidies, we increased the subsidized rate back in 2009 because we did see that fees were eroding.  I think at that time we increased it for an infant from $35 to $44, and from $25 to $30 for toddlers.  Some of them are businesses and cost does erode over time, so in terms of our ten-year strategy we are looking at all of that.  I had a couple of consultants in, Kathleen Flanagan from PEI; she headed up the entire program in PEI.  I had a great two-day discussion with her.  She talked about things like regulated rates, regulated wages, those kinds of things, and how they provide operating grants.  Right now, what we do is we have equipment grants, we have subsidies and there is a whole mixed bag of things that we do.  Under the ten-year strategy, we will certainly be looking at every aspect of that.  I do not know how it is going to turn out.  I have had four or five groups in now that deal with child care specifically.  I want to do it that way first because not everybody is on the same page with all of this and then kind of come up with a plan to present to them and have them all in the room to see where they are.  Not everybody is going to be happy with certain aspects, but we have to look at it all. 

In terms of when the rate goes higher than the subsidy, that is certainly not for our department.  There is opportunity through HRLE to be assessed there to see if there is any funding.  I know that was the case with the student who was on radio and that was resolved and assistance was provided.  Certainly, HRLE would be there for that, but the subsidized rates that we provide are the subsidized rates, we cannot go any higher than that right now.  How it will look in the future, I do not know. 

MS MICHAEL: Right.

Mentioning that particular case, not to go into the case but the systemic issue around it, where the child care attached to the school was basically for infants up to two range.  Is there anything that can be done about that?  It seems to me that was a systemic issue.  There has been a band-aid solution for this one case.  If we are going to have child care attached to a school, one would think that the child care program in the school would take care of the child care issue until the child actually enters Kindergarten. 

MS JOHNSON: We have a capacity initiative fund, it is $1.6 million.  Certainly if any school, not only that school, but if any school or not-for-profit organization wanted to apply, particularly that school if they wanted to apply to expand the years of service that they provide then they can certainly do so because right now we fund that 100 per cent.  They did not have to pay any child care expenses for the first two years of that child's life, which is a great benefit and, no doubt, absolutely needed because there are lots of other challenges, I am sure, for a teenager with a child in school.  It is critical that they finish their education.  If the school wants to apply, we do have a fund that they can certainly apply under.

I guess the school would have to look at the need.  It is very rare that we see a child go beyond two.  They may go a little bit beyond two, and our legislation allows for three months leeway.  Usually that takes care of it all because most – I should not say most, I do not have the stats on it, but for mostly what we see is that two years is sufficient when you look at the age.  If a teenager is pregnant in school, it is typically not much less than fourteen or fifteen years old.  Not to say it does not happen because it does, but that generally takes in the majority of them.  Again, if the school wanted to apply to go beyond that, they could but they would have to look at the need as well I am sure.

MS MICHAEL: The overall policy is a government policy based on the fact that it looks like the norm would be two years.  They can apply for an exception to that basically.

MS JOHNSON: No, they can apply to have a toddler room if they want to.  It is totally up to them which would take it then to two to three years old.  There is nothing –

OFFICIAL: Licensed for two (inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: That is right, we licence them so there are legislative requirements on how many early childhood educators you can have in terms of ratios to children.  Then once you go beyond the infant age, you are required to have one early childhood educator to three infants.  Once you go beyond that, you have to have another early childhood educator and you have to have another room.  It is really about proper development of the child in an appropriate setting.  So a room that is appropriate for age zero to two may not be appropriate for children aged two to three.  Those are the things that they would have to look at.

MS MICHAEL: I guess the issue would be, again systemically, that the whole principle of having the care attached to the school is, one, it gives the young mother totally free child care.  It would seem to me to be important that that principle would be maintained so even if somebody has to put a child into the toddler stage because the mother is still in school, the principle of free should still be there.  Would you agree with that and is that what happened in this case?

MS JOHNSON: I do not want to say upfront it would be totally free because there is an assessment process we have to go through.  It is based on need and, no doubt, the need will be that the child needs free child care.  The school would have to look at the space because it is the school that is responsible for running this.  We license it and monitor it, but it is the school's responsibility to run it.  By all means, I have put it out there.  If they want to apply, they can certainly apply but there are certain things they would have to look into themselves. 

MS MICHAEL: Is this kind of thing being discussed under the ten-year plan?  I think one of the things I would hope the ten-year plan is going to have as a goal is going to be an overarching policy that would cover all situations around child care.  While I understand that there is a responsibility on the side of the school to identify the need, I also think there needs to be a policy direction from government with regard to what the priorities are and also what the standards are that government would be expecting.

MS JOHNSON: Anything and everything is going to be looked at under the strategy, but I do not think you will see us coming out saying there will be ten schools in the Province that have child care.

MS MICHAEL: Oh no, I do not mean that.

MS JOHNSON: As long as the children have quality spaces that are available to them - I do not know how it is going to end up.  It might be not-for-profit; it could be private still, because we have a huge private sector component in this Province.  The goal is to provide quality, affordable child care spaces.  So, personally, I like the idea of it being in a school, because that is where the child is going to end up anyway.

MS MICHAEL: That is right, exactly.

MS JOHNSON: Surprisingly, there is a lot of resistance from schools around that.  Whether it is a space issue or what, some of the things that I am seeing for myself are that there is resistance around that.  To me, it makes all kinds of sense, but I am not sure where it will all end up.

MS MICHAEL: I guess my big concern is the need for seamlessness for the sake of the child and the parents, so that that kind of situation does not ever happen, because the system recognizes everything that is needed for the seamless movement and care of their children.

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  Around that piece, we are going to look at the legislation too, and the age requirements that we have and the ratios that we have right now.  Because some early childhood educator said to me you have the cut-off at twenty-four months.  Well, maybe it should be thirty months.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

MS JOHNSON: So, those kinds of things, we are going to look at all that too.

MS MICHAEL: Okay.  I guess that was what I was trying to get at.  There is a cut-off point, and so changing that cut-off point would be probably an important thing to look at.  Okay, so you have gotten at what I was concerned about.

Statistically, some more information –

MS JOHNSON: Just, if I could, maybe the cut-off point might stay the same, it might be thirty months.  Even if thirty months, there is probably still going to be somebody out there who will need it at thirty-two months.  There has got to be a cut-off somewhere.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

I guess all I would be wanting is that the information should be there for a parent to know that if it looks like there needs to be an exception or the cut-off age is not working, that the system allows for the person to have somebody to talk to, to get that issue taken care of.

MS JOHNSON: Definitely the case in the three schools that we have now.  These parents knew long before the date was up that their children had to be removed.  That is part of what we do is help them with the planning to move them on.  No question, that is there now.

MS MICHAEL: Right.

There is just some statistical information that I would like to have.  I guess somebody will take notes, because it is the number – I can pass it in writing, if you want – of centres and family daycares by region; the number of spaces by region under family and centres; the number of spaces by region; the number of new spaces created last year and the number of children receiving subsidy.

MS JOHNSON: Okay.

MS MICHAEL: I am sure you have all of that information.

MS JOHNSON: Not before me by region, I have it on the provincial basis.  We can get it for you by region.  In terms of the number of children receiving subsidies, I think it is currently 1,902.  That is up 72 per cent since 2003. 

MS MICHAEL: Seventy-two percent? 

MS JOHNSON: Yes.  I do not know if you had the opportunity to sit down and look at it but it is quite amazing.  The more I talk about it to my friends; they did not even realize they could avail of it.  Like I said in Question Period, you can have two people working for minimum wage with two children and they basically have to pay about $100 a month per child which I think - it is still a cost to people but it is very affordable. 

MS MICHAEL: For people on minimum wage that is prohibited.

MS JOHNSON: That is less than what they charge in Quebec a day. 

MS MICHAEL: I know that, but for people on minimum wage that is prohibited. 

MS JOHNSON: I guess there are lots of things that are prohibited.  I am not going to get into that debate but parents have to prioritize and child care is critical, no doubt. 

MS MICHAEL: We will not go into that here. 

MS JOHNSON: It allows you to do your job. 

MS MICHAEL: We will not go into that here. 

MS JOHNSON: No.

MS MICHAEL: It is prohibited. 

I think that covers all of my questions at this moment, something else might get (inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: I have the provincial numbers here if you want them or if you would rather wait and get the break down by region. 

MS MICHAEL: No, I would like the break down by region, please. 

Thank you very much. 

You could read out the provincial ones, just so we hear them.

MS JOHNSON: Okay.  The total child care spaces provincially - again, this is as of February - is 6,574; in child care centres, that would be 6,071 and ninety-six of them are in individually licensed homes; 407 are in agency approved homes.  That is still family homes but they are approved by an agency as opposed to individually by the department.  There is 181 child care centres, there are seventy agency approved homes and there are sixteen individually approved homes, but with our budget initiative we hope to see that rise.  The amount of calls that we have gotten so far and the interest in it, I think we will meet our goal.  We will see how it goes.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Who is next for the committee?

MS JOHNSON: Just for interest, the majority of those child care spaces would be for the two-to-five-year range.  Yes, a major shortage was there too, a major shortage with after school programs.

MS JONES: I have some questions on the child care piece as well.  First of all, some questions around the announcement you made in the Budget.  You were talking about a two-year pilot project that would create 400 new spaces in regulated family child care.

First of all, I want to ask: Based on the research you have done in your department, how many infant spaces are needed to meet the current demand in the Province today?

MS JOHNSON: Infant spaces, right now there is less than 2 per cent available of what is needed.  So we have a long ways to go.

MS JONES: Yes, but what is the need right now?  Is there a need for 1,000 spaces?  Is there a need for 5,000 spaces for infant care?  What did your numbers show you?

MS JOHNSON: Let me think.  We know it is quite large.  We have 49,000 children with parents in the workforce.  Now, that is all children ages zero to twelve.  We know of children ages zero to two, there are only 194 spaces.  I do not have the exact number as to how many of those 49,000 children are in the infant age.

Ros, I do not know if you know offhand, but it is a significant chunk.  While we have announced this initiative in the Budget, it is nowhere going to come close to the number of spaces that need to be.  It is fair to start with 400, but we need to even do far better than that.

MS JONES: Yes.  I am just curious because there is a need, as you have already admitted, for child care spaces in all different age groups.  I am not denying there is a need for infant care because I know very well there is.  I am just wondering why you chose that program as opposed to any of the others.  That is why I ask for your research on it, your statistical information that tells us what the real demand is out there for infant care spaces. 

MS JOHNSON: I do not have those numbers here but we did go through all of that before we went forward with the budget initiative, and I certainly had it for the budget defence in terms of what the estimated need is, so I can get it for you.  If memory serves me correct, it is quite large and that is why we focused – the greatest need is with infants.  In all of our numbers that we have, that is where the greatest need is and that is why we focused there.  As I told you, I met with Lana Payne on some other things and she said if there is anything you can do, do something for infant care.  Obviously, with 194 spaces out of the 6,500 that we have, we have tremendous room to grow. 

I guess with the ten-year strategy we will be setting targets as to where we want to be and looking across Canada and what targets they have set.  I cannot recall the target for infant spaces but something tells me around 30 per cent.  If we are at less than 2 per cent, we have a long ways to go. 

MS JONES: Yes, you can get me the information.  That is fine.

MS JOHNSON: Yes.

MS JONES: I know you would like to see 400 new spaces created from this pilot project.  What is your realistic target in the department?  What do you see being able to create other –

MS JOHNSON: That is the realistic target because I did not want to set a target that we could not reach.  We really hammered it out and said how many would be just infant homes and how many – that 400 is not just infant spaces, I should clarify, that 400 includes zero to twelve.  The focus is on infant spaces and the subsidy of the $200 a month is for infant homes only. 

We said for anybody who wants to start up a family child care home we will give you $5,000, but if you want to set up a family child care home for infants only, we will give you $7,500 plus $200 a month.  Those 400 spaces includes up to age 12.  How many specific are potential for infants is - in year one we said realistically, if we really push this, we could get fourteen infant homes open across the Province.  So, at three infants in a home, that is forty-two.  Then in the mixed age group where you are allowed six children, we expect to get twenty-six of those homes; and in those twenty-six homes, you are allowed two infants and then four over the age of two.  Twenty-six times two is fifty-two, plus forty-two is ninety-four in year one, we think, has the potential to be infants and then the other 106 will be two to twelve and then the same for year two. 

I did not want to set a goal that we could not meet.  Maybe we will not meet it, but I wanted it to be at least realistic from the start.  We talked to Family and Child Care Connections, had them in after, and they are really going to help push this for us as well.  We already had lots of calls, over a dozen calls as to homes that may want to start up, so hopefully we will surpass our goal. 

I made the commitment that if we do better than 400, then we will try really hard somewhere in the department to find the money because you are not going to be turning down family child care homes if they want to open up.  We will shave it somewhere else. 

MS JONES: You talked about PEI because we are all aware of the program that was done there, and you said you had meetings and so on.

MS JOHNSON: Yes.

MS JONES: One of the things in PEI was they set a maximum rate on child care.  I am not sure, maybe $150 or $160 a week on infant care or something.  I am just wondering if your government is planning on doing the same thing: to set a maximum rate parents can be charged for that kind of care in the Province. 

MS JOHNSON: I think PEI, Ros, was $30 a day for infants and $25 a day beyond two.  PEI is very interesting to watch unfold and to speak to the consultants that helped develop it.  They are very different than us in the aspect that they have excess spaces; they have more spaces than they have children.  It is not a bad place to be.  We are definitely not there.  That is the big difference.  The other thing with PEI, they were mostly not-for-profit.  They had very few private operators, whereas we have 70 per cent private operators in the Province, and here in the city it is 90 per cent private operators.

Those are two big differences with PEI but, no doubt, under the strategy we will be looking at regulated wages - because they have regulated wages as well - and we will be looking at regulated rates.  How that will all pan out at the end when we go forward with the strategy, which we plan to have done by the end of this fiscal year and I need to have done by December to get in for budget submission, I do not know where it is going to end up.  We are having those discussions now.  I had the private operators in, I had the family child care people in, had the not-for-profits in, and had PACAL in.  We are never going to get full agreement from all of them. 

In PEI the government I would not say bought out the privates but they proposed another option to them, that if they wanted to be an early child care learning centre - I think is what they called them - then you come under this system and government will provide an operating grant.  It definitely has merits, but I do not know where it will end up.  There will be major consultation along the way. 

I know it is your opportunity to ask questions, but I do not know where you are on terms of regulated rates per day.  If you do not want to say it now, you can provide me feedback as part of my consultation; that is fair too.  It definitely has some merits, it depends on -

MS JONES: I think they have to be regulated, to be honest with you, in order for it to work properly.  Of course, when government gets into the game of regulation then we also get into the game of meeting what the financial responsibilities are going to be to provide the care at the end of the day.

MS JOHNSON: I guess one of the things that comes up along the way in terms of regulating wages or rates is then you are regulating them for everybody so that whole question of needs assessment needs to be asked.  Does somebody who makes $500,000 a year need the regulated rates, as well as somebody who is making minimum wage or anywhere in between?  That is the question that we are grappling with too along the way.  A regulated rate, no doubt, will require a subsidy from government.  So, do you give subsidies to people who do not need them?  Not that they do not need them, but can afford to pay for the full rate, not the subsidized rate.  That is the fundamental question where we are. 

MS JONES: I guess there are arguments to be made for either side.  There are two lots of precedents already set in the Province.  If you look at health care, it is provided to everyone.  If you look at senior care, it is mostly provided to everyone. 

MS JOHNSON: Education.

MS JONES: Education is provided to everyone, so there are fundamental social programs that fall in that line.  I certainly think that most of society would expect that child care falls in that category as opposed to the other category, to be honest with you. 

MS JOHNSON: That is good to know because some people I talk to say: Well, why are you going to subsidize this certain group in this tax bracket?  Then I have heard - and PEI heard this too - that there are some parents who choose to stay at home and be stay-at-home moms, and rightly so.  They are saying: I do not want my tax dollars to subsidize some other child going to child care.  So you hear it all.  Anyway, that is a discussion for another day, but I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

MS JONES: Do you expect the greatest take up in this program to be in the rural areas or the urban areas?

MS JOHNSON: I think it will be in the rural areas, absolutely.  That is another reason why I went with this one.  In the very short time I was in the department, the budget was due; budget submissions were due within less than a week of me being there.  I thought this is something that could easily work for rural Newfoundland.  I am very familiar with child care in rural Newfoundland. 

In some places, yes, the demand and the need is there to put up bricks and mortars but in most cases it is not, and in a lot of cases it is seasonal employment.  So to open up a child care centre and to have it close down for the winter months if people are working in the fish plant or vice versa, I think this is definitely part of the answer for rural Newfoundland.  That is why our $200 month subsidy - I did not say that you had to be there for the entire year because not everybody needs child care for the entire year in rural Newfoundland, so it is $200 per month, not $2,400 per year.  Actually, a lot of the calls that I have received are from rural, but there are some from the St. John's region as well. 

It is for rural or underserviced.  Certainly, the capital is underserviced as well if there are not enough spaces.  It is wherever spaces need to be created; if we can help, we will do that.

MS JONES: One of the things that were pointed out to me is that in the regulated daycare centres in the Province children have to be cared for by early childhood educators.  That will not be the case in the model that you are proposing now.  I am just wondering why there would be two different standards and what has been the feedback around that because I do not know.

MS JOHNSON: Yes, well we have not changed the standard.  In fact, what I did was I kept it status quo.  Family child care centres have been around since 2000.  What has been required for family child care educators is that they do the forty-hour course and that they are required to do the thirty hours of training over a three-year period.  That is how it has been since 2000.  I did not want to change that now knowing in a year from now we will be announcing our ten-year strategy and all sorts of things could change under that.  So it is status quo, as it has always been.  Child care centres have been around since 1975, so they really advanced a lot further along than family child care centres that have only been around since 2000.

One of the things I am looking at under the strategy, and do not even really necessarily need to wait until the strategy, is just looking at the whole curriculum.  It is a fabulous curriculum, and I would not want any less standard for people who are caring for our children, but it is equivalent to getting a university degree in terms of the number of courses.  So, we are going to be talking to the college, and they are already doing a review.  Maybe things can be done more in terms of an apprenticeship way, in terms of you get some of the training on the job.  Again, it is not to lessen the standard at all, it is probably to make the whole educational piece more efficient.  That is one of the things Lori Anne is working on right now for me.  While it will form part of the strategy, if there are things we can do in the interim, we will certainly do that as well.

That is feedback from the stakeholder groups that I have met with along the way.  Issues in terms of getting the Level I equivalency; you could be a nurse and it may take two years to get the course done to be equivalent to a Level I.  Well, that does not make a whole lot of sense.  If you are a nurse or a teacher - and I know you need that early childhood development piece, but let us get it to them quicker than two years, so that they can become a Level I.

MS JONES: One of the big concerns, as you know, that has been raised by the child care centres, in particular, is the fact that they need more early childhood educators.  There are centres crying out for them, there are spaces in their centres that are not open.  There are many of them that could expand their services, they cannot because they cannot find the staff.  So, is there any plan by your department to deal with that need that is out our there right now?

MS JOHNSON: That just builds on what I just spoke about, and that is exactly what they brought up with me.  They have a lot of people who are not Level 1 or Level II, but very well could be.  As I said, they have nurses, they have teachers, but they are not considered to be a Level I, because we require this course, and so we should, in terms of early childhood education, but it is not readily available.  If you miss that time that it is offered at the College of the North Atlantic, then you have to wait for almost two years, in some cases, to get it done.  So, I committed to it then that we would look at that, and if there is any way we can improve that.  The subsidies that we provide, if you are a Level I, you get $3,330 more dollars a year; that is attractive.  Then if you go on to the Level II, it is $6,660.  So, if there are roadblocks in what we are doing in terms of the education side of things in getting to be a Level I or Level II, we need to look at that because then that gets the qualified people that they need in their - I say classrooms because I call it school, but in their rooms.  I always refer to it as school.

MS JONES: What are the times frames around looking at some of that?

MS JOHNSON: We are looking at that right now.

MS JONES: When do you think you can have something in place because it is a major problem right now?

MS JOHNSON: Yes, no doubt.  I cannot give you a timeline right now, but it will not be any longer than the strategy piece, which is a year.  If we can do it sooner than then, if there are obvious things that come up along the way, I have told Lori Anne, let's not wait for the strategy.  If some of this is common sense, then let's just do it now.

MS JONES: Yes.

MS JOHNSON: It appears that some of it is common sense, that we can do it now.

MS JONES: I just want you to clarify for me because the numbers that we had indicated there were roughly 50 per cent of early childhood educators that do not have formalized training.  In the House, you said that that number was 73 per cent.  Can you tell us where you got that number and can you give me the breakdown by Level I, II, III and IV?

MS JOHNSON: Yes, we can give you that breakdown.

Under the legislation, it says that you can be a Level I or a Level II or you can be an entry level working toward that.  So as long as you are taking a course or two in some cases, then under the legislation you are still entitled to be qualified.

I guess where the operators were coming from is that they believe it only should be Level I or Level II and if you look at that side of it, that is where it is 50 per cent, that they are only Level I or Level II.  What I have said is that they are qualified and under the legislation qualified means entry level working toward Level I as well.

MS JONES: If they are in school, they are counted as being qualified?

MS JOHNSON: If they are in school working toward Level I you are allowed – Ros, correct me if I am wrong – except in the infant room because in the infant room you are absolutely required to have at least Level I, but –

MS JONES: Unless you are in a family centre, you are not.

MS JOHNSON: That is right and that too.  If you are in the toddler room or the kindergarten, pre-kindergarten room you are allowed, under the legislation, to have an entry level who is working toward a Level I and under the legislation that is termed to be qualified.  They believe that they should all be Level I or Level II and that is where their numbers are coming from.  We had this discussion last week when I had them in, but if you look at our act and the legislation and the regulations - I think I said 77 per cent because I thought it was 77 percent, I think you just said 73 per cent, but I thought it was 77 per cent.  Anyway, it is higher than 50 per cent, and under the legislation they are deemed qualified.

The other question you had, the early childhood educators in child care, we have 850 certified.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Sorry.  Currently we have 1,655 ECEs who are certified as entry level or above.  Entry level 783; Level I is 112; Level II is 616; Level III is seventy-one; and Level IV is seventy-three. 

MS JONES: Back in 2007 there was the IAS report that was done.  I think there was something like twenty-two recommendations in that report.  Did you ever implement any of those recommendations?

MS JOHNSON: We had that group in, I guess about two weeks ago now, and they have the report in draft form.  They were looking for funding to put it in final form and to release it publicly. 

MS MACDONALD: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Yes, thank you, Sheree. 

One of the pieces they did under the IAS was the HR manual and that is what they are looking for to release and that was one of the recommendations.  So we are working on a plan with them to get that released. 

A lot of the other recommendations, I do not have them before me but a lot of them were implemented already in terms of the supplement.  I wish I had them in front of me but I do not.  A lot of them have been acted on.  I do not have them in front of me but that is one of the things they even said in the meeting, a lot of these have been acted on.  No doubt, there is room for improvement but a lot of them have been acted on.  This HR piece is one we are going to work with them to act on now as well.

MS JONES: Yes, well maybe you could give us an update on the twenty-two recommendations and what was done.

MS JOHNSON: Yes, that is no problem.  Yes, there is an actual report on that.  I just saw it in my briefing note two weeks ago.  It just escapes me at the moment.

MS JONES: You do have briefing notes do you?

MS JOHNSON: On a daily basis I get briefings all the time. 

MS JONES: No, but you have briefing notes.  You just said it was in one of your briefing notes.

OFFICIAL: You have the report.

MS JOHNSON: The report itself is what I read in terms of – I think that was their document actually, not even ours.

OFFICIAL: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Yes.

MS JONES: So you do not have briefing notes?

MS JOHNSON: I do not know when I got a briefing note, if ever. 

MS JONES: Okay, that is all my questions.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you. 

Is there anything else from the committee?

MS JOHNSON: Oral works best for me.  There are enough written reports in the department that I do not – it is a lot to keep you going.

CHAIR: Okay.  I will ask the Clerk to call the subhead, please.

CLERK: 1.1.01 to 2.1.02 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall 1.1.01 to 2.1.02 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 2.1.02 carried.

CHAIR: Shall the total carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, total heads, carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Om motion, Estimates of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services carried without amendment.

CHAIR: The committee members should have before them the minutes of the Social Services Committee date April 20, 2011, Department of Municipal Affairs.

Could I have a motion to accept the minutes?

So moved by Mr. Ridgley, seconded by Mr. Parsons.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: Thank you.

MS JONES: I just want to thank the minister and her officials for their time this morning and for answering the questions that we posed. 

Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you very much.

MS MICHAEL: I second that.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Again, for the Chair, on behalf of the Committee, I thank the minister and your staff as well for participating here today.

With that, I will ask for a motion to adjourn.

Mr. Cornect, seconded by Ms Michael.

Thank you very much.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.