Social workers to take to Vancouver streets Wednesday
Posted November 9, 2013 8:43 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s been a difficult year and a half for social workers who work for the Ministry of Children and Families, and they plan to take their frustration to the streets of downtown Vancouver on Wednesday.
For the last 18 months, the people in charge of protecting BC’s most vulnerable kids have been grappling with a hiring freeze and a computer system that has even drawn criticism from Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, the provincial children’s watchdog.
Paul Houle with the BCGEU, which represents workers, says staffing levels have hit a crisis point and has had a serious impact on social workers’ workloads.
“There are literally hundreds of cases sitting on wait lists. One worker may have up to 40 cases,” he points out.
“It puts us in a position of not being able to respond. For example, if police are going into a situation where there is serious domestic violence and they need a social worker to attend, we may be slow in our response without adequate staffing,” he says.
He notes frustration continues to simmer about the Integrated Case Management project, which includes a new computer system that he says has been draining the ministry of money and exhausting social workers’ patience.
He says they’ve chosen to demonstrate in front of Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan’s Yaletown constituency office, because it’s close to rapid transit and enables social workers to quickly congregate during their lunch breaks.
