35% increase in young people waiting at the DPJ de l’Estrie

In total, 718 young people are currently awaiting an evaluation or orientation by the DPJ de l’Estrie, a jump of 249 compared to last year at the same date.

As of June 1, it took an average of 95 days to wait to obtain such a service. These delays amounted to 90 days last year and 39 two years ago. The ministerial target is set at 33 days.

While she presented the traditional annual report of her management on Tuesday, the director of youth protection in Estrie, Stéphanie Jetté, stressed that these situations were caused by numerous factors.

She also wanted to clarify that the situation in Estrie is “no different from that of DYPs in other regions”.

“We have to work on several targets. We have worked a lot in recent years to reduce the number of reports made to us by working upstream. I dare to believe that we will reap the fruits that we have sown,” she said.

The number of reports has in fact decreased between the years 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 at the DPJ de l’Estrie, a first since 2011. We are concretely talking about a drop of 2.4%, from 9,347 to 9,126.

“We want to review the organization of work. We also want to integrate our partners into the intervention, so that they contribute,” noted Ms. Jetté.

A “partner” can, for example, be a school or community organization.

“This would allow families to benefit from services as quickly as possible and for us to be able to close the evaluation and rule that the safety of the child is not compromised, because he has the services of a partner,” a- she added.

Stéphanie Jetté also hopes that the new collective agreements will mean better attraction and retention of the workforce. Work is also underway to see how a worker could be released more quickly to assist a child whose safety is deemed compromised after an assessment by the DYP.

Questioned in turn as to why the waiting lists are so imposing and how the CIUSSS intends to shorten them, Ms. Jetté remained within the major themes set out above, not detailing concrete projects currently carried out by the establishment. .

“Being on a waiting list does not mean that children do not have services. […] Links are made with the various clinical services and we work continuously as soon as the report is made to meet the needs of the child and his family,” said Gaëlle Simon, director of general services at the CIUSSS de l ‘Estrie-CHUS.

Domestic violence

This year, the theme of the various reports from the regional and provincial DYP was domestic violence. In Estrie, the number of reports to the DPJ received due to exposure jumped from 855 in 2021-2022 to 1,229 in 2023-2024.

In Quebec, over this same period, there was an increase from 13,226 to 17,193.

“Children who are exposed to domestic violence are likely to develop psychological disorders, characterized in particular by intrusive thoughts and fears,” said Stéphanie Jetté.

There are also risks of depression, physical abuse and difficulty forming relationships with others, in particular.

“We introduced into law, in April 2023, a separate compromise ground for exposure to domestic violence. This allows us to better identify situations involving domestic violence and to add interventions,” said Ms. Jetté to explain this increase.

And on the ground, community organizations are also feeling this increase in cases of domestic violence, of which women are victims in the vast majority of cases.

“We handled 2,650 calls or text messages to help women in the last year and we welcomed 65 women and 55 children to l’Escale and Maison Montigny,” said Dominique Côté, general director of l’Escale de l’Escale. Estrie.

Her organization offers advice, follow-up and first-stage accommodation for women victims of domestic violence.

For her part, Josée Michel, general director of Seuil de l’Estrie, indicated that 946 files were processed by her organization, which helps men and women who subject their loved ones to domestic violence.

“We are experiencing a fairly significant increase,” she said.

Ms. Michel and Ms. Côté were both present during the DPJ press briefing. The general director of Escale also took the opportunity to say that the increase in reports to the DPJ concerning domestic violence was probably linked to better knowledge of this phenomenon among the population and in the social services network.

Other figures

In addition to the data stated above, other statistics were revealed on Tuesday.

• The Estrienne DPJ has 19 more employees than last year, bringing the total to 548. However, there is still a “35%” shortage of workers, according to Ms. Jetté, for everything to run smoothly.
• 28 more Estrie adolescents than last year received services related to the Act respecting the criminal justice system for adolescents, for a total of 556. Of this number, 313 received orientations from the national DPJ, including 202 ended in extrajudicial measures. The crime most committed by these adolescents in Estrie was assault.
• There was a slight drop in children taken care of by the DPJ compared to last year, going from 3,162 to 3,111. 49.3% of them lived in their family environment, 28.2% in child care resources. family type, 16.4% with a significant third party and 6.1% in a rehabilitation center or intermediate resource.
• Of all these children, half were in care due to neglect or serious risk of neglect.
• Of the 9,126 reports received in Estrie in 2023-2024, 2,329 were retained.