Auditor general 'disappointed' by Nunavut's lack of progress to protect children and youth

Canada's deputy auditor general says he's "disappointed" the Department of Family Services in Nunavut hasn't made more progress fixing the care it provides to vulnerable children and youth. 

A new report from Auditor General of Canada Karen Hogan, tabled at the territory's legislature on Wednesday, is a follow-up to one released in 2023, which found that the department was failing to protect vulnerable children and youth and to provide support to families, front-line workers and communities.

"The bottom line is that while initial actions and steps have been taken, they have yet to produce appreciable changes to outcomes for vulnerable children and youth," said deputy auditor general Andrew Hayes at a media conference in Iqaluit on Wednesday. 

"This means that children and youth in Nunavut still remain at risk of not receiving the protections and services that they require and that they deserve under the law." 

The new report finds that the department has taken steps to improve staffing, training and supervision of its workforce. Most of the work, however, is in its early stages and "substantial work" still needs to be done. 

The family services department has also developed a wide-ranging strategic plan with 80 items to improve its services, but the report found that the plan "lacked targets and baselines needed to measure progress, specific timelines and clear accountabilities." 

Ongoing issues

One of the ongoing issues, said Hayes, is how the department responds to reports that children might be at risk of harm and investigations that it should be carrying out. 

Hayes said one of the most concerning findings of the 2023 report was that the territory didn't know how many youth and children it had in care. Now, nearly two years later, he said it has a "picture" of those numbers — but it required a lot of manual work to figure out. 

The Department of Family Services said there are 444 children within the territory receiving services, and 89 outside the territory.

Of those in the territory, 246 are in the foster care system. The remaining 198 are in alternative placements, which includes things like group homes and medical care.

The report found that the data also contained inaccuracies and inconsistencies around things like where the kids were and what their birthdays were, because a new information management system introduced in November 2023 isn't being used by all community social services workers.

Some of the actions the territory has taken include giving social service workers new training on how to handle child abuse, harm and neglect, carrying out in-person safety checks on children and youth, and working on inter-jurisdictional agreements for kids placed outside of Nunavut. 

Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk said she thinks the department has done a lot to improve its services, but there is a lot more left to do.

"I think it's very good follow-up feedback," she said of the report.

"I think when we're talking about the lives of the children and supports for the families, we do have a lot of capacity issues, we have staff changeover, we don't have staff housing, we don't have enough offices."

She said the department is expecting more resources in the 2025-26 budget that will help close some of those gaps.

Nakashuk said the department is training its staff to use the new information management system, is working to better support kids in care outside the territory, and is also wanting to support staff in small communities.

"We want to ensure that we continue to have the staff that we need in the communities, because that's very important no matter what the positions are," she said. "Most importantly ... we need healthy staff, we need good supports in that area."

Staffing

The report said the department had also received $3.1 million in the 2024-25 budget to create 31 new positions, including 21 community social services workers. 

The report found that as of the end of last October, Naujaat, Whale Cove and Kugaaruk didn't have a permanent or casual social service worker — which was chalked up to a lack of staff housing. 

"There aren't many areas that we've identified where no action had been taken, so that is a positive note right off the bat," said Hayes, when asked how serious he felt the government had been taking the auditor general's concerns. 

"[It] shows a willingness to try and act," he said. 

However, he urged the department to prioritize steps that would have the most impact for kids and their families.  

Wednesday's report is the fourth the Office of the Auditor General has done on the department since 2011. It released one in 2011, one in 2014 and another in 2023. 

The office said the findings of its 2023 report were the result of insufficient funding, staffing, housing and office space as well as training for staff and poor information management. It also decided not to make more recommendations for the department at that time, because its earlier recommendations still needed to be carried out. 

Hayes said his office had committed to following up on the issue, and hoped to see "better outcomes" when it returned to Nunavut in the next 18 to 24 months.