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Durham Children’s Aid Society will receive $686,000 of the $26.9 million announced recently by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. The Ministry announced the money as a “one time additional funding.”
“While this additional funding is a step in the right direction, we must emphasize that it is a band-aid solution” says Durham CAS Executive Director, Wanda Secord. “This first step will merely delay some potentially devastating cuts, and it in no way begins to address the fundamental flaws in the funding framework that put us in this situation in the first place.”
The provincial deficit is $54.9 million therefore this additional funding represents less than 50% of the provincial deficit. For Durham, this money covers approximately 16% of the deficit of $4.2 million.
Durham CAS has implemented strategies to reduce the deficit, and committed to a target in excess of $1 million dollars in cost containment in 2009/2010. So far there have been no direct cuts to services or staff, but senior staff are concerned that continuing these cuts may ultimately impact negatively on the quality of services.
“Direct cuts to services and staffing will put children, youth and families at risk,” says Secord “and with only 16% of our deficit covered, we cannot ignore the fact that without proper funding we will be forced to consider such cuts.”
Over the last few months, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services has called on CASs to ‘focus on core services.’ CAS’s mandate is to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect, provide care for those children in need of protection, and the “prevention of circumstances requiring the protection of children.” CAS maintains that all services fully and fundamentally do support this mandate.
“The bottom line is that the government needs to recognize the full cost of child welfare services, and fund it accordingly.” says Secord.
Watch interview on Rogers TV News (Durham). (minute 5:25)
Wondering about how old your child should be to stay home alone? Or how old your child should be to babysit? Check our Supervision Guidelines.
Every year at 'back to school' time, we receive many inquiries about our Supervision Guidelines. They are available online, feel free to print them -- and share them with your friends and family.
The spring 2009 issue of our newsletter, Community Connections is now online.
Hard copies of the newsletter are available and are currently being distributed throughout Durham Region. If you are able to help distribute some copies (for example, if you have an office or store where we could leave some copies for your staff or the general public) please contact Andrea Maenza, ext. 2364.
We are seeking Treatment Foster Parents to support our work with children in our Mixed Modality Program.
Mixed Modality is seen as a bridge between traditional treatment foster care programs and staff modeled settings. The caregiver and the child are at the centre of the treatment.
Read more...
For more information, please contact the
Treatment Foster Care Program at 905-373-0522 admin@treatmentfostercare.ca
www.treamentfostercare.ca
We are pleased ot announce that we are joining forces with several community partners to form the Durham Economic Downturn Task Force (DEDTF). The Task Force is a multi-sectoral group of leaders from key human service providers covering the fields of social services, health care, police services, education and training. Its mission is to raise awareness, advocate and strategize to support those services, which assist Durham residents during this economic downturn.
For more information please read the press release and the full report, Unraveling Ontario's Social Safety Net, that was presented to area MPPs on February 27, 2009.
Thank you to everyone who has sent us receipts from Boston Pizza. Keep sending them... we are still collectig them.
Boston Pizza will donate 10% of the bill (pre-tax) to the Durham Children's Aid Foundation.
Currently there are three locations participating:
75 Consumers Drive, Whitby
20 Taunton Road East, Whitby
8 Salem Road South, Ajax
Please tell your friends, family and colleagues. If you know someone who has a location where they can post a flyer and help us promote this exciting partnership, let us know and we can send them a poster.
You can mail your receipts to Durham Children's Aid Foundation, 1320 Airport Blvd., Oshawa, Ontario, L1H 7K4.
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