Quebec launches strategy to tackle increase in reports youth protection

In order to tackle the growing number of reports to the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ) in a context where front-line services are saturated, the Legault government is launching a new strategy for the well-being of children, entitled “Growing up with confidence.”

Quebec is planning a budget of $34 million over three years for its new strategy. This measure was a recommendation of the Laurent Commission, which looked at children’s rights and youth protection.

In a press release issued Wednesday, the office of the Minister of Health indicated that in 20 years, the number of reports to youth protection has increased by 110 per cent, while “front-line services are still in high demand.”

It is also pointed out that every year “an increasing number of families turn to public services to face challenges such as poverty, food insecurity or psychosocial difficulties”. The strategy aims to focus on prevention to meet these challenges.

Sonia Dugal, Executive Director of Youth Health and Well-Being at Santé Québec, confirms that the objective is to work more upstream of reports to the DPJ. “We are betting on the fact that if we work with parents and children, before the problem is too crystallized or well entrenched, we will unclog the entire system,” she said in an interview.

The DPJ should not be the gateway for families, she says. “If we are able to make the desired shift, to put the required intensity on the front line, at the CLSC, [in the program] Jeunes en difficulté (program), where there are many services that public health departments offer, […] if we were able to raise the level there, young people will seek their services there and […] there should be a lot fewer who go to the services of the DPJ. That’s the bet that has been launched.”

Targets for entire youth trajectory

The strategy is composed of six main directions, including strengthening prevention and front-line services and adapting services for First Nations and Inuit children. We also want youth protection to intervene in situations where it is really necessary.

Three implementation plans will be developed by 2035 and planned initiatives will be detailed in each of them. The first plan runs until 2029. Among the recommendations included in the report are to improve access to CLSC services and to offer a “neglect intervention program to parents upstream and downstream of youth protection.”

Dugal said that there will be a lot of training and tools that will be deployed in the coming months. For example, there is the Being a Parent program, which will take the form of group training offered to parents, which is currently in preparation.

The targets to be achieved have not yet been identified, but eventually, there will be targets for all 40 measures of the implementation plan, said Dugal. “If we have a target just in the DJP, if we don’t work and identify targets on the various promotion and prevention programs on the front line, we won’t reach the ultimate target of improving the health and well-being of young people or reducing the number of reports retained,” she adds.

Several partners will put their shoulder to the wheel to achieve results, including schools, community organizations, educational childcare services and municipalities. “The responsibility to protect children and vulnerable young people goes beyond the health and social services network. That is why I salute the close collaboration of all the partners who are joining us in meeting these challenges,” Health Minister Sonia Bélanger said in a press release.

National director of youth protection Lesley Hill said she has put all her “heart” and “energy” into this strategy in order to initiate “lasting changes in practices and services for children and their families.”

“This strategy consolidates the measures put in place in recent years, following the recommendations of the Laurent Commission, and places these actions in a coherent vision for the future for the well-being of our children,” she said in writing.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews