In an interview they gave to The gallery in April, Dr. Stéphane Tremblay, CEO of the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS, and Karine Duchaineau, deputy director general for social and rehabilitation programs, were unequivocal: rapid improvements needed to be made in Val-du-Lac d’ here June.
This followed the numerous outings of employees in our pages after the disorganization and attempted mutiny of a group of young people at the end of March.
As we approach the end of this deadline, different stakeholders we spoke to take a nuanced look at the progress.
“Intervention agents have received more suitable equipment for runaways and dangerous situations, for example,” explains a worker, who notes that efforts are being made by managers to make schedules more efficient.
But “problematic situations” still occur, she said, specifying that it still happens that an employee finds himself alone on the floor with disorganized groups.
For her part, Karine Duchaineau mentions that the stabilization of the workforce and the effective tools of intervention agents are among the four priority projects identified by the CIUSSS for Val-du-Lac.
We also find the expansion of worker skills for youth supervision measures and continuous improvement.
The most voluminous project is that which tackles the stabilization of the workforce. Having teams that are “stabilized, very well trained and in sufficient numbers will always be a very big challenge,” notes Ms. Duchaineau.
“Schedule templates have been thought out and they are in the process of passing the reality test. […] There is also the whole aspect of training to support our young employees. A lot of work has been done so that each person can have training before the summer,” she says.
Karine Duchaineau (Jean Roy/Archives La Tribune)
Listen to workers
In order to tackle these priority projects, a committee of employees was set up in Val-du-Lac to monitor the progress of the work.
This initiative is viewed favorably by a stakeholder we spoke to, who specifies that follow-up meetings are held every week with employees. Another, however, says he has not seen any concrete improvement to date.
In all cases, Karine Duchaineau insists that the end of the crisis in Val-du-Lac requires the involvement of employees and managers on site, as well as the sustainability of the progress made.
“The way of operating that has been put in place will be able to last and be sustainable. It will ensure that we will continually be able to make improvements,” she emphasizes.
In the days following the attempted mutiny, workers’ grievances focused mainly on feeling ignored by their employer. Should this process of listening to workers have been done before a crisis hit the youth rehabilitation center?
“The growth of the last year probably had more difficult effects than we had imagined, with the increase in the needs of young people and the transfers we received from Montérégie. Could we have analyzed the impacts differently during? Probably yes. We try to learn from all that,” recognizes Ms. Duchaineau.
In the last year, the CIUSSS had to receive 26 users from Montérégie in its youth program as part of the transfers of service between these two regions since the integration of the RLS of La Pommeraie and Haute-Yamaska in Estrie.
Combined with the basic growth observed in the population’s needs in terms of youth rehabilitation, this reality meant that in April, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS had 171 young people housed in Val-du-Lac for a theoretical capacity of 126 places.
The CIUSSS will launch a call for tenders shortly to regularize the overflow units at the Bowen site. (Jean Roy/Archives La Tribune)
Waiting for financing
And the money didn’t necessarily follow. In the last financial year, the CIUSSS notably asked the Ministry of Health and Social Services for 10.5 million to develop new places after the transfer of young people in difficulty from Montérégie and another 6.8 million to cover the costs. incurred by the opening of numerous overflow units in Val-du-Lac.
However, none of these requests were approved.
“We are no exception, as an establishment, having to develop services which are not yet funded, but which perhaps will be,” affirms Karine Duchaineau.
She explains that transfers from Montérégie come with an envelope, but that the services that the CIUSSS must create or adapt to properly receive these young people are not funded.
Ms. Duchaineau, however, assures that communication is good with the Ministry.
The CIUSSS is also preparing to loosen its purse strings to make permanent the four overflow units located at the relocated site on Bowen Street, in Sherbrooke.
Among these are the Equinoxe, a unit which experiences many problems with runaways due to its proximity to the city center, as revealed The gallery recently.
Despite everything, there is no question for the CIUSSS of abandoning this site, confirms Ms. Duchaineau, for whom the city center is a “naturalizing” place for young people.
With Lilia Gaulin and Delphine Belzile
