In Port-Cartier, a child in local foster care learned that he had lost his youth protection worker (DYP) last week. She came from a private agency. The conditions of the offer she was offered did not convince her to stay.
In 9 years of placement for this child, this was the 13th speaker on his file. She is in charge of his psychosocial follow-up. It is to her that he can turn in case of emergency, or to talk. It is she who, in theory, must meet him once a month to follow up on his file, with whom we hope that he will develop a bond of trust. Already, these meetings do not always take place, due to lack of staff. The DPJ must focus on emergencies.
“Things are bad and the government has made things worse by taking this decision [fin de la main-d’œuvre indépendante]. Already, the DPJ is lacking resources. It’s going to be catastrophic,” said Sylvie (fictitious name), who has the title of local host family, which means that unlike regular host families, she has a “significant link” with the child she is hosting and who was taken out of his family environment by the DPJ.
She is not the first nor the last to whom we have made, or will make this announcement of the loss of an intervener in the file. The health crisis hitting the North Shore in hospitals is also attacking social services. Like nurses in hospitals in the region, DPJ Côte-Nord workers often come from private agencies. Several are under the same type of contracts which are subject to the imposition of maximum prices by the government, which wants to eliminate this workforce to encourage a return to the public.
“I think of all the children who have just lost a service. These are children who have very little in life. Very few people to turn to, it’s awful, it’s really catastrophic,” reiterates Sylvie.
At home, the situation is going well for the moment. “We’ll manage,” she says, even though the child she’s fostering no longer has a caregiver for an indefinite period. “It’s going well, but that doesn’t mean that next year, or in a few months, that will be the case. Maybe we too will eventually need (…) We will turn to the emergency service. »
It should be noted that there is another team of social workers who are responsible for supporting the “parents” of the host family. No independent workforce is assigned to this center of activity of the DPJ Côte-Nord which is rather stable, according to the union.
“The fire is contained”
“The fire is properly contained,” commented the national and North Shore president of the Federation of Host Families and Intermediate Resources of Quebec, Mélanie Gagnon. “It’s felt. For young foster families, it is difficult. We welcome a child and we have less support than normal, because the caregivers are overloaded. »
In recent weeks, several host families have contacted him because they were told of the immediate or imminent loss of a worker on their file, as in the case of Sylvie.
“By removing the agencies that came to give us a little breathing space, we have just been put on an artificial respirator, and in that, it is the children who pay, because they do not receive adequate follow-up in their situation,” lamented Ms. Gagnon.
For her, the North Shore should have been subject to an exemption from government measures, at least for the time to set up flying teams. In Forestville, for example, there are no resource workers for host families, according to Ms. Gagnon. There is a position, but it is not filled. It is therefore a worker from Baie-Comeau who is in charge.
“Instead of having 20 or 30 families to manage, she gets stuck with 50, 60. That doesn’t make sense. »
