The facts say children at risk aren't being properly protected

VICTORIA - Child protection is the tough front line for social workers.
A teacher calls and reports a little girl is coming to school on snowy days with no coat. A neighbour reports that a toddler keeps showing up with new bruises. A teen is reported to be using drugs, or in the sex trade.
The ministry has to investigate to make sure the children are safe, and take action if they aren't. It can be risky to leave children in a home; it can be tragic to remove them and send them to live with strangers, or even family
members. There are few easy choices.
By its own standards, the ministry is failing. The ministry's standard says that child protection investigations are concluded "when all the information is gathered to determine whether a child needs protection, and what steps, if any,
are required to address the child's need for protection."
That work is supposed to be done in 30 days.
But the New Democrats released figures for October that showed that barely one in five child protection reports was being completed in the appropriate time.
Almost 45 per cent of cases were still open three months after the investigation started.
The ministry was dismissive, characterizing the issue as one of "paperwork." If there is any indication a child is at high risk the ministry acts immediately, said minister Stan Hagen. And anyway, staffers said, things were as bad under the NDP.
The last observation - supported with several years worth of statistics - is entirely irrelevant. The public doesn't care about politics, or which party has the worst record. They want to know if children are being protected.
Trivializing the problem as one of paperwork seems incredible. The standard, for starters, doesn't say anything about filing reports. It says child protection investigations are complete when the risk is assessed and needed
steps taken to ensure child safety. That's supposed to happen within 30 days, and it's not.
And the observation that the ministry moves quickly when it detects high risk isn't really reassuring. The policy calls for complete, thorough prompt investigations. The statistics suggest that is not happening, and that's bad
news for children.
It's not just the NDP that is raising the concern.
The BC Association of Social Workers says child protection workers are swamped. "The caseloads are unmanageable, there's no support and there are no resources for people." says association head Linda Korbin. Reports of neglect and abuse aren't being investigated because social workers don't have time.
And Susanne Dannenberg, a child protection worker in Victoria, resigned over the issue. It can take months before serious safety concerns are investigated, she said. Dannenberg said the fear that child would die because of something she had been unable to do had become too much.
It leaves you, as the people who have a responsibility to help these children, in a tough spot.
The ministry says everything is fine.
But the statistics and the workers say that is not true. That children are at risk every day because warnings aren't being investigated.
It is another reminder of how badly B.C. needs a Children's Commission.
This is exactly the kind of issue the commission investigated and reported on. The commission would audit a sample of child protection cases, assess the strengths and weaknesses in the ministry's response, and report. It would
follow up, to see if things improved.
If there was no cause for concern, the public would know.
If there were problems, the public could demand that it be fixed - before some tragedy like the death of Sherry Charlie prompted a flood of overlapping reviews and investigations.
British Columbians have lost something very important. We're no longer have the ability to be confident that we're fulfilling our responsibilities to the children who need us the most.
The Liberals say trust us. Everything is fine.
It is an answer they would have never have accepted in opposition. It's one we shouldn't accept now.
Footnote: Hagen accused the NDP of fear-mongering on the issue in a response later posted to a government web site. Premier Gordon Campbell is taking a different approach. Dix and the New Democrats raised issues that needed to be
fixed, he said, and the government will act on them.