Human Resources Committee on April 19th, 2010

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

We will share our time, since I'm the adopted member of the committee for the day.

I find what you have done to be very interesting, and no doubt you will have answers to the questions that I am about to ask you, although I am a little skeptical. After reading the documents, a number of warning bells went off in my head. Given that 30,000 children are awaiting adoption, I'm concerned that a photo exhibit like this one will turn into a kind of market. No doubt when it came to photographing some children as opposed to others, you followed certain criteria. And no doubt that you will follow certain guidelines when the time comes to select the photographs of children that will be one display—I'm somewhat uncomfortable with that expression— in the exhibit. I'm sure that other criteria apply to the opening of the exhibit. As everyone knows, some spots on the exhibition floor are more important or popular than others. Not all exhibit spaces are of equal value. No doubt you have had to comply with the photographer's requirements, whether it be in terms of colour, or black and white photographs, size, and so forth.

I would like you to reassure me a bit on that score, since I'm concerned that the exhibition will be a little like the classified ads. I'm very skeptical about the whole process. That's my only question.

[Barbara MacKinnon]

The challenge with doing a recruitment strategy like this is that you have to find the balance between making sure the message gets out there, which is that there are children who are looking for families, and creating those personal connections that will draw people in, and maintaining the integrity and privacy of the individual without putting anyone at risk.

The gallery we have is very beautiful. There is that kind of a mix, so I'm not quite sure if you're speaking of what we're doing... That's what we feel the major process is really about: what you do to prepare the children for it and the inclusion of them in that process. It's similar to what we do to include children in their journey towards adoption. It's a piece of that, to include them in the process, and to prepare them for the eventuality.

As well, a lot of it is about making sure that you do appropriate screening and have the checks and balances in place to ensure that it isn't a marketplace, that it really is more of a drawing of attention to a critical issue. But it's a constant balance that we take at the society, knowing that we could have more children adopted if we were farther out there in terms of trying different strategies, but wanting to ensure that every child does get adopted. Research shows that these methods are very effective at being able to do that.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

First of all, thank you very much for coming here.

I think it's a little hard for us to envision this photo gallery. I'm concerned that families who claim to be interested... I don't quite see the difference between adoption, in your case, where you become a host family... However, if I understand correctly, you would like host families to be there permanently.

Are you not worried that all kinds of families might show up? What procedure will be followed if a family expresses an interest in adopting a child? What steps will be taken to ensure that this is a safe family for the child?

I would also like to know if you are satisfied with Mr. Watson's motion. Putting it another way, would you like the committee to bring in measures to encourage other families to adopt?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

I'll answer the question about what happens once somebody identifies an interest.

We have an extensive screening process and an education process that families go through to ensure that they are ready to adopt. It ensures that they have a full understanding of the complexities and challenges of adopting older children and that they recognize the importance of respecting the child's history and where they have come from. It's an extensive training program as well as a screening program. All the appropriate checks and balances are in place in terms of safety and security issues, records checks, interviews, and resumés. It is a very challenging process.

The second piece is a really important piece. You can have people who are available and interested in being parents, but the most important piece is making sure that this parent matches that child and will be appropriately supportive in the development of the child, based on the needs and wants of that individual child. It's not just about having people come in the front door. There is extensive screening to make sure they are able to parent. Then there's another round of decisions about who they would best parent. Then there is the process of introducing them to the children and the children deciding whether these people are appropriate.

Compared to an international adoption, this is a much more intrusive process, here in Canada, that has a number of checks and balances in place.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

What is the failure rate?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

Excuse me?

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

What is the failure rate?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

We have a very low failure rate of adoption matches. We have approximately 80 to 100 adoptions a year. In a year, we may have one to two adoption disruptions that occur here in Ottawa, and they're not necessarily disruptions in the adoptions done that year. It's a very small number.

[Laura Eggertson]

Madam Chair, I could answer the second part of the question, if you like, about how we feel about the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Sure.

[Laura Eggertson]

We'd be very happy to work with the committee, as I said, and we're very supportive of the motion. We think there are a number of areas where the federal government could be active in terms of supporting adoption and adoptive families, including the EI issue, but there are many others.

In fact, we think it's important for the federal government and federal politicians to show some leadership and work with the provinces. For instance, it's much harder right now to adopt interprovincially, from one province to another, than it is to adopt internationally, and we think that's really unacceptable. We'd like to see a memorandum of understanding worked out among the provinces to lower some of those barriers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Martin.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

To follow up on that question and answer, are there other things that happen in this country--federally, provincially, or interprovincially--that get in the way of your work in terms of matching good parents with children? Those are the kinds of things that I would see us looking into and maybe uncovering. Then we could come up with some responses that would be helpful.

[Laura Eggertson]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Martin.

We see a number of potential barriers to adoption. I speak also as an adoptive parent and an adoptee. I adopted two older children through the Children's Aid Society here in Ottawa.

Awareness is one of the biggest barriers. As was mentioned, lot of people don't know how many children are available for adoption in Canada. They don't know the ages. They don't think that it necessarily would be possible for them to parent an older child. One of the issues is post-adoption support. There are ways... We have a couple of different adoptive parents support groups in Ottawa that are just volunteer-run groups, but they're doing a lot of parent-to-parent education. That kind of support, more widely available throughout Canada, is very helpful. Various supports in terms of...

We're not asking for special supports for adoptive parents in terms of EI. We would like equal supports for biological and adoptive parents. That means we would like to see not just the parental leave that adoptive parents can now qualify for, but also to have adoptive parents be able to qualify for the same number of weeks, because of some of the attachment issues that I think you've heard a little about. We can talk about that more at a later date.

Just the awareness, though, just promoting adoption as an option... When we talk about permanency, we're talking about legal adoption, but we also may be talking about kinship care among the aboriginal communities, legal guardianship, and custodial care. We have a number of options, but the intent is that children do not have to be moved from foster home to foster home throughout their time in the child welfare system.

Again, we have a number of areas where we think the federal government could be helpful, even just with a national campaign that would raise awareness of adoptive families, of people who have adopted and how successful that's been, to show that it is an option at different ages and stages.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Okay.

I'm sure you're aware of this as well. One of the issues that often comes into my office is the issue of kinship adoptions, where a grandparent, for example, will take on responsibility for a grandchild, but with very little support. If those children went into care, a whole lot of support would go along with it. When the grandparents decide to do so in Ontario, they have to apply to welfare for support, and it's really significantly less. Is supporting kinship adoption something that you at the Children's Aid Society are behind?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

Yes, just to add, in response to your question... These are critical issues, because for us, for these children or sibling groups, what we see is that it's a spectrum of permanency we're looking for. One thing that could happen through this committee is to really look at creating a level playing field across the country as it relates to adoptions or legal custody arrangements with kin family.

For example, a grandparent may take on the challenges of taking care of that grandchild, or an aunt may do it, but except for intermittent supports there aren't mechanisms to provide ongoing support for the role they play. That means we end up having children languishing in care because of those issues.

So we would really see it as a benefit for this committee to look at the differentials across the provinces, because there are other provinces recognize the importance of kin adoption and legal custody.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

In terms of creating a bigger pool of people to find and take in children, are there any written or unwritten rules, for example, in the case of single parents or gay couples or those sorts of cases? What has been the experience there? Would that be worth looking at?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

Yes, very much so. We are open at the Ottawa Children's Aid Society and recognize that it's about who is the best parent and what the parent can offer, regardless of their sexual orientation or whether they're a single parent. So we have been very successful. You'll see that the studies really reflect that in terms of the openness of different groups being able to parent well.

But again, it would be a similar issue. At this point, it's defined and studied at a local level, and having some provincial or federal guidelines would benefit and open the door to more options being available for the children.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

We'll now go to Mr. Lobb, please.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you. I'll share my time with Mr. Vellacott.

How many children over the age of 13 are looking to be adopted at any one time in Canada?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

As we mentioned earlier, we don't have the specific numbers because the numbers are difficult to say... But I think that if we look at the figure of 30,000 who are waiting, I would say that probably at least 60% to 70% of them would be older children over the age of 9 or 10--as an estimate.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

This leads to my second question. We're studying poverty right now in this committee. Have there been any studies done of these children, of that 70% of the 30,000? What is their success rate if they aren't adopted? What's their history or what does their future look like?

[Laura Eggertson]

I can answer that. There have been some studies. The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy has done some recent studies. Being in the child welfare system is a huge risk factor for dropping out of school, for having to rely on social assistance, and for teenage pregnancy. That's only one study that looked at it in Manitoba. Being in the child welfare system was one of the factors that influenced those outcomes, but there have been numerous studies. B.C. has done one about young people coming into the criminal justice system who have been in foster care.

It's not just... I'm sorry; I should distinguish here. It's not the fact that these children are in foster care that puts them at higher risk for these problems; it's what they've suffered before they came into foster care and the fact that they don't have permanency that make the difference.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That leads to my third question, and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Vellacott, but I guess that's what we could all deduce there.

There's a huge cost once your kids get into their teenage years, with driving and with college or university, so obviously an adoptive family would have to be willing to make those financial commitments. Are there any provinces that recognize the financial commitment that would take? If there are, it would be great to hear about them. Or would it be a useful suggestion to take a look at that?

[Laura Eggertson]

That would be extremely useful, because the different provinces have different ideas about subsidies. There is nothing standardized across the country. Even within some provinces, there's nothing standardized.

For example, Ontario has no guaranteed subsidies if you are adopting a child with special needs, or an older child, or anything... In fact, I think Barbara will say that the children's aid societies do not have a budget per se. They do not have a budget item to provide those kinds of subsidies or post-adoption support. They kind of cobble it together sometimes, out of their own budgets, where it's needed.

But some other provinces... Alberta, I believe, has a guaranteed subsidy, for example, for parents who are adopting children with particular needs. One of those needs may simply be being an older child or in a sibling group.

So yes, there's a wide range of options across the country. In fact, Ontario had a report that came out this summer and looked at those issues. It's called “Raising Expectations”. It speaks to the issue just in Ontario, but it would be very helpful to know what the situation is in each province and to look at ways of equalizing that support.