Province, Agency Failing Children as Windsor CAS Lays Off 10% of Frontline Workers and Closes Essex-County Service Location

WINDSOR, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On March 19, the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society laid off 26 workers – about 10 percent of their non-management staff, putting the safety of children at risk, say CUPE members working at the agency.

The CAS also targeted their Leamington Office for closure at the end of this month – an additional blow to the Essex County area.

“This is a betrayal of the community we serve and the CAS’s mandate,” said Craig Hesman, president of CUPE 2286 “This provincial government’s continued underfunding and ignorance of the complex needs of youth coming into CAS care has created this horrifying crisis. With the loss of these dedicated workers, an already bad situation is going to get dangerously worse.”

The CAS is forecasting roughly a $10 million deficit. However, says Hesman, some of the positions eliminated are ones that help to keep costs down.

For example, the agency cut positions in the family wellbeing classification. These are people who work to support families so that children do not have to come into protective programs, which are comparatively expensive.

“The benefit and value of this programming transcends more than just dollars and cents. There is a human cost. This is gambling and the stakes are family unity and childhoods of youth,” said Hesman.

Part of the reason for the CAS deficit is the agency places an unusually high percentage of children and youth in unlicensed facilities such as hotels, motels, and event CAS office space in addition to other non-traditional housing instead of into foster homes or licensed group homes.

The agency’s cuts included the adoption department and the “family finder” position, which is tasked with finding other relatives to place children with. The agency even eliminated a position that was funded mostly with grants from the Dave Thomas Foundation.

Other cuts include nine family service worker positions – people who do core protection work – as well as a communications worker, administrative support staff and people who coordinate volunteer drivers and community initiatives.

“The plan presented to us leaves the agency without enough front-line staff to handle the existing caseload much of the time, even if everyone is working with a maximum caseload,” said Hesman. “Any increase, be it from sickness, economic instability or population growth, will mean workers will experience more burnout and leave children and youth without a safety net. It’s just not right.”

CUPE 2286 is calling on the agency to immediately reverse the layoffs and for the province to intervene with immediate adequate funding to protect families, support children and youth in the region, and to ultimately address the crisis of unlicensed placements.

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