More work needed to improve child, family services in Nunavut: Auditor general
Followup on 2023 auditor general’s report says staffing additions, policy changes have enabled some improvements
Deputy auditor general Andrew Hayes speaks to reporters in Iqaluit Wednesday on his office’s followup to a 2023 report on the Department of Family Services. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Nunavut’s Department of Family Services has not significantly improved its services for the protection and well-being of vulnerable children in the territory, the federal Office of the Auditor General has found.
But increased staffing and changes to workplace policies have enabled some improvements to be implemented, says deputy auditor general Andrew Hayes.
“The bottom line is that while initial actions and steps have been taken, they have yet to produce appreciable changes to outcomes for vulnerable children and youth,” Hayes told reporters in Iqaluit Wednesday, following the release of the auditor general’s followup report on the department’s work.
The report looks at how the Department of Family Services takes care of hundreds of children who are in foster care for reasons such as abuse, harm and neglect.
“This means that children and youth in Nunavut still remain at risk of not receiving the protections and services that they require and that they deserve under the law.”
The report, tabled Wednesday in the legislative assembly, is a followup to auditor general Karen Hogan’s 2023 audit on child and family services in Nunavut. In that report, Hogan cited problems involving care and oversight and called her findings “an urgent call for action.”
Wednesday’s report was the fourth of its kind by the federal auditor general. Previous reports were conducted in 2011 and 2014.
One of the key findings in this report was that the Department of Family Services was able to provide the exact number of children in Nunavut’s foster care system — something the department was unable to do two years ago.
That number is 533 — including 444 in the territory — Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk’s staff told reporters Wednesday.
“It required a lot of manual effort for them to identify where the children and youth all were, but they were able to do that,” Hayes said.
The department has implemented a new information management system to track those numbers although not all staff had been trained on it, the report said.
The department has also begun updating policies for responding to and investigating suspected instances of child abuse, the report said.
Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk speaks in the legislative assembly Wednesday. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
As well, the department increased its number of community social service workers. However, a lack of staff housing continues to limit that progress.
“The department needs to invest in their staff, and that will also produce better outcomes for people,” Hayes said.
Speaking to reporters, Nakashuk called the report “a very good followup” that shows where her department needs to continue making improvements.
Family Services has a lot of “capacity” issues that affect staffing and staff housing. But the department continues to fund more staff positions, she added.
“Of course, things are a bit slow, but we’re just talking about a very short timeline here,” Nakashuk said of the progress made since the auditor general’s 2023 report.
“I think the more we continue, there’s goals that we have to do and we have to ensure proper data is there as well, so there’s a lot of work to be done yet.”
Wednesday’s report did not include any recommendations for Family Services.
Hayes said he expects his office to produce another follow-up report within two years.
Ah yes, another audit confirms what we already know—Family Services still fails vulnerable children. But don’t worry, they’re making ‘progress’ by hiring more non-Inuit to serve Inuit communities. Meanwhile, qualified Inuit applicants? Ignored. I sent my resume to the Deputy Minister and the Corporate Director, only for it to be dismissed entirely—just shoved aside like it didn’t matter. No response, no acknowledgment, nothing.
It’s almost as if they’re very careful about who gets to work in Family Services. Because despite having a clean record, a strong work ethic, fluency in Inuktitut, and a solid track record of actually wanting to help my community, I wasn’t even given a chance.
Meanwhile, others seem to have a much easier time getting in. Almost like there’s a preferred hiring list—but hey, that would be favoritism, right? Surely not!
“I sent my resume to the Deputy Minister and the Corporate Director, only for it to be dismissed entirely—just shoved aside like it didn’t matter. No response, no acknowledgment, nothing.”
Because that’s not how the hiring process works in government…A Deputy Minister interfering a job competition would be called – get this – favouritism!
Is having “a clean record, a strong work ethic, fluency in Inuktitut, and a solid track record of actually wanting to help my community” what makes you a qualified candidate?
How about a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work? If so, there are Community Social Service Worker positions advertised online right now. Please follow the process shown on the GN Job Listings page, and keep your emails out of the DM’s inbox.
Oh wow, I had no idea Family Services was a social worker-only club! Who knew they didn’t need admin staff, finance teams, program coordinators, or anyone else? Guess I’ve been living under a rock.
Funny thing, though—I’ve personally seen resumes being hand-delivered and calls being made for casual and relief work. But of course, Family Services strictly hires only through the Department of HR and follows the rulebook to the letter… right?
Currently the only positions listed are CSSWs and a Regional Director of Income Assistance, so they’re not currently hiring any of the positions you listed. However, I was asking what else makes them a qualified candidate. A degree in Finance? A diploma in Office Admin? A high school diploma? They did not list any of that.
And yes, the department does only hire through HR. They have to. If they don’t, they can’t pay the person because that person won’t have an employee number (created by HR).
Can the department call for Casuals and Relief? Yes, they can. But those employees also have to go through HR. You have to submit your resume to HR to be considered for Casual or Relief employment. Again, not by submitting to the DM or Directors.
All good qualities of a hard-working employee. However, your self-appraisal ignored one thing – your formal education. Are you a qualified social worker? And another poster is correct. Send your resume to HR, not the DM or any other director,
…and from whom are the children apprehended? Bringing the playing cards into the post doesn’t help. If you have the required education or acceptable experience AND you follow proper hiring protocol (HR), you will be in the first hiring stack, assuming you are Inuk. For a short while, the three hiring stacks were changed to 2.
It’s very basic:
– Read the job advertisement
– Ensure you have the education/experience
– Create a Cover Letter
– Update your Resume
– Submit this package to the HR email address
– The hiring committee will review the submissions and determine if and who of the submissions are from Inuit
– Wait for a phone call or email for an interview
– If you have the qualifications/experiences, you will be asked to participate in an interview
– The Interview is rated per answer; the highest score will get the job.
– If there are no Inuit who applied for the advertised job, stack 2 will be looked at
Good luck, but follow the process
Guess your qualified to know how the hiring process works too eh. Next time skip the Deputy Minister and just go straight to the Minister 😅😅😅
Why would you think that your resume would even be looked at? You demonstrated that you can’t follow instructions and follow the process to apply for a job.
Your story cries entitlement. “I’ll just submit my resume directly to the Deputy Minister and bypass all of those pesky procedures”, you know, those ones that are designed to prevent nepotism and favouritism.
It is hard to have any sympathy for you.
You must be sure the DM of Family Services and the Corporate Director (who should have no involvement in the hiring process) are seriously hard up right now for employees who are not interested in following the GN’s basic human resources policies and more keen on bypassing rules altogether… Properly submitting your resume to a job competition should get you an interview… expecting the highest levels of authority to ignore the rules and then getting publicly miffed that they didn’t break them for you is a red flag.
The fact that this isn’t a national scandal shows how little we value the wellbeing and safety of Nunavut’s children.
As bad as the auditor general makes things look – it is so much worse.
GN needs to start taking responsibility instead of making bogus excuses and talking about all the great things they are changing that amount to diddly squat for kids and families. Nunavut kids deserve so much better than this.
The AG already called this a crisis. How much worse are they willing to let it get before they take this seriously?
This, 💯💯💯💯 this!!!
If we only think of this file in terms of the quality of support provided for children who become part of the foster-care system, we’d probably only scrape the surface of the Department of Family Services’ (DFS) mandate. That aside the number of kids in foster care (533) seems extraordinarily disproportionate to the number of young children in Nunavut. I’d roughly estimate that there are 8,000 children under the age of twelve in Nunavut.
To have one in fifteen of those children removed from their home seems way out of proportion. Children move in and out of foster care, so the 533 is probably half of the number of children who are living in such troubled circumstances that DFS intervenes. Now one-in-seven compromised. There’d be children whose poor circumstances are overlooked, in which case DFS is unaware and does not intervene. One-in-five compromised?
WHAT IS GOING ON?
It’s children that have been removed from the parental home. Because of neglect or abuse. These children are helpless. Arguing over whose qualified to be
hired as asocial worker. Is nonsense. Here some news. You are not qualified if you don’t have a degree in social work.
All applicants need to have a four year degree from an accredited social work program. They also should belong to a professional association and are good standing.
Even better you should have experience working in child protection.
The protection of that child any child. Should be essential to all cultures. The care and security of that child. Should be provided by qualified individuals, no matter the color, gender or creed.
Hiring of social workers that protect children. Should not be decided by some unqualified bureaucrat. Who wants curry favor with friends or family. If that is happening .It’s goes far beyond being unethical.