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Office of the Auditor General - Children and youth in care may not be receiving services that meet their needs because the ministry hasn’t set sufficient quality standards


JUNE 19th, 2019:  We've released a new report: Oversight of Contracted Residential Services for Children and Youth in Care. Overall, the Ministry of Children and Family Development wasn’t providing effective oversight of contracted residential services.

Children and youth in care may not be receiving services that meet their needs because the ministry hasn’t set sufficient quality standards for contracted residential services and doesn’t adequately monitor the quality of care that contractors provide.

The ministry is also struggling to match the specific needs of individual children and youth to appropriate contracted service providers. For example, Indigenous children and youth can be in placements without an Indigenous cultural component. This is happening in part because the ministry had not assessed the need for placements in contracted residential services or created a plan to provide the right amount and type of these services.

We found that contracted residential services have evolved on an ad hoc basis to respond to individual and emergency situations as opposed to the ministry defining what they should look like or when to use the services.

Finally, the ministry does not have an effective contract management framework in place. As a result, ministry staff responsible for managing contracts do not have the right training or support. This has led to contracts between the service providers and the ministry that are not focused on outcomes for children or youth; also, the contracts are not appropriately monitored.

Our report includes four recommendations to improve the ministry’s oversight of contracted residential services so it can better meet its obligations to children and youth in care. The ministry has accepted all of our recommendations and has begun to take action to improve its oversight.


NOTE:  Contracted residential services provide housing, food, and other supports for some of the most vulnerable children and youth in care, including those with highly complex needs. These services are typically the most intensive and expensive of all care options. In 2018, approximately 1,150 children and youth in care spent time in contracted residential services.

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