NDP backs idea of mandatory licensing for foster homes

“Whether a home is licensed or approved, the license or approved home status indicate to the community essentially that the home meets the ministry requirements,” Huber said. “They’re actually very similar just in terms of the requirements, whether it’s home safety checks, or requirements in training.”

However, even with these similarities, Huber said the ministry isn’t opposed to the idea of foster home licensing.

“Whether to move to licensing of our foster homes is something we are currently examining and certainly open to. It’s part of our legislative review process that is currently underway,” Huber said.

She added whatever avenue they pursue they need to make sure it is better than what is currently being offered. She said they need to understand the benefits of licensing and decide if it’s an improvement.

“We’re always interested, of course, in improving our system; there’s always room for improvement. Anytime a child dies it’s just absolute tragic. I have children of my own and I just can’t imagine a loss of a child as a parent and certainly as a community and citizens of Saskatchewan we don’t want to see any child die in a situation where the death could have been prevented.”

The licensing recommendation comes after the release of a detailed report about a toddler who died in care in 2009.

Bob Pringle with Saskatchewan’s Advocate for Children and Youth recognizes the positive changes the improvements made to foster care regulations since 2009, but said the support consistency level has to be higher.

“It boils down if you got good policies then put those down into law,” Pringle said, adding many other states and provinces, including Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta, have moved to licensing.

“I like the Alberta model. Where the focus is on capacity of the foster families so for example when a foster home gets approved it can have two children, then as you get the experienced and develop your skills and so on, you can go up to four children,” he said. “There are common themes in our review and the common themes are foster families are overloaded, and they’re not getting good communication, they’re not getting as much in-home support as they need.”

He said the vast majority of foster families are good, but usually overloaded. He said he is interested to see the report that’s going to be put out by the government on what’s a reasonable workload on these families.

Most of the calls he’s received from foster parents, he said, have actually wanted licensing as well to ensure they receive more support.

“It enshrines in law the requirements to deal with things … children’s who have been brought into care are vulnerable and deserve the highest level of accountability as possible and in our view it’s about putting those standards of care for children being put into law rather than just policy,” he said.

“The safety of should be paramount and as the ministry continues to provide more prevention services, more earlier intervention services, fewer children will come into care, which is the trend actually,” he said.

No one should feel threatened with higher accountability, he said.

Social Services Critic David Forbes said there have been too many tragedies and he’d like to see foster homes licensed as well.

“We know there’s been 81 kids who’ve died in care … this is just unacceptable,” he said.

“We want to make sure those homes are safe for vulnerable kids and whatever we can do to make that happen we’ve got to do it.”

Forbes said the issue is one that the NDP will press this legislative session.

With other provinces on board he said he feels Saskatchewan is the “odd man out,” and this begged the question of why.

Forbes said it makes “common sense” to license foster care homes and doesn’t know what the drawbacks would. He also couldn’t name the exact reasons why it works better.

“It’s a good first step to having confidence in [foster care] homes.”

According to the minister of social services, Donna Harpauer, the province is consulting with First Nations groups on the idea of licensing, but there is no timeframe on when a decision will be made.

-with files from Nigel Maxwell

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84

by paNOW Staff

NDP backs idea of mandatory licensing for foster homes

paNOW Staff

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