El
gobierno Ecuatoriano debería aceptar la decisión del informe anual de EE UU, sobre
violaciones a los derechos humanos. Es innegable y se puede probar con
evidencias, que la corrupción y complicidad en crímenes de estado, sigue adelante
y es latente en varias carteras e
instituciones del estado Ecuatoriano. “El controvertido e inmundo sistema de
justicia Ecuatoriano,” debería ser investigado por organizaciones internacionales
de derechos humanos, para que se dé la debida protección a niños, madres y
personas incapacitadas.
Children’s aid societies in Ontario have
launched a major reform of training for child protection workers,
setting province-wide standards designed to eventually have workers
regulated by a professional college.
“We want to make sure that the people who are
doing the work have the very best training and competence to be able to
do it,” says Mary Ballantyne, CEO of the Ontario Association of
Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS).
But the union representing child protection
workers is firmly opposed to oversight from a professional college, and
the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which regulates and funds
child protection, is so far staying out of the fight.
The reforms begin with a pilot project in May
for a new “authorization” process to be implemented next January across
Ontario. This part of the plan has union support.
New recruits will have to pass eight
standardized courses — and a final exam — during a four-month training
period before they are authorized to fully perform child protection
duties, including apprehending children suffering neglect or abuse from
their parents.
That’s a significant change from the current
practice, in which workers are authorized to perform all duties the
minute they are hired. This has long left children’s aid societies open
to complaints from parents questioning the competence of the workers
that enter their homes.
Ballantyne notes child protection workers
already receive training after being hired by Ontario’s 47 privately run
societies. The new authorization program revamps, expands and
standardizes that training province-wide, from how to conduct abuse
investigations to how to assess whether parental neglect is hurting a
child’s development.
“We’re taking it up to that next level so that
the public has confidence that when someone knocks on their door they
know that they have met these minimum requirements,” says Ballantyne,
whose association represents all but three of Ontario’s societies.
The authorization process was recommended by
an inquest into the death of Jeffrey Baldwin, a 5-year-old who starved
to death in 2002 after being placed with his abusive grandparents. The
Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto failed to perform record
checks on the grandparents, who had prior convictions for assaulting
their own children.
Sheryl Jarvis, co-founder of Community Action
for Families, a Toronto group supporting mothers involved with the child
welfare system, describes authorization as long overdue.
“The situation now is horrible,” Jarvis says.
“Who else does things this way? Imagine being in an industrial workplace
and they train you on how to use the machinery only after you have
already been using it. It’s a backward and dangerous process, and in
children’s aid you’re dealing with people’s lives.”
The key is for training to focus on getting
families the supports needed to stay together, particularly when parents
are struggling with poverty, mental health issues or addictions, Jarvis
adds. In 2014-15, an average of 15,625 children were taken from parents
and placed in foster care or group homes.
The next step, Ballantyne says, is to have
Ontario’s estimated 5,160 child protection workers registered and
regulated by a professional college. Fifty-five per cent have a
bachelor’s (BSW) or master’s degree in social work. A BSW is the minimum
required to join the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social
Service Workers, which is discussing the registration process with
societies.
The college, which regulates more than 17,400
people involved in social work, should be ready to register child
protection workers with a BSW “within the next year or so,” she says.
For those without the degree, the college and OACAS are working to set
up training and courses that would equal one. Ballantyne expects this
process to be complete in three or four years.
Once registered, child protection workers
would have their practices, standards and ethical code regulated by the
college. The college would have the power to investigate complaints from
parents and to discipline workers for professional misconduct or
incompetence.
Ballantyne flatly states those who do not register with the college will be unable to perform child protection work in Ontario.
But Nancy Simone, president of the Canadian
Union of Public Employees local representing 275 workers at the Catholic
Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, argues child protection workers
already have levels of oversight that include workplace supervisors,
family courts, coroners’ inquests and annual case audits by the
ministry.
“Our work is already regulated to death.”
Protection workers, she adds, are overworked,
which is made worse by ministry budget cuts. That’s usually why
standards aren’t met, she argues. “Our concern is that the college will
focus blame on individual workers rather than system-wide issues.”
Simone notes several collective labour
agreements prevent children’s aid societies from obliging workers to
join a regulatory college unless required by law. The ministry
sidestepped a question emailed by the Star on whether it would impose
the requirement, stating instead that it is funding the authorization
process.