LAKELAND - New changes to Children Services protocols inside Alberta schools will see staff members across Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) take on an investigative role when it comes to reporting and filing abuse allegations, says Jimmi Lou Irvine, the associate superintendent of student services at NLPS.
Division officials recently learned about the additional duties after a recent administrative council meeting on June 14 that saw administrative staff across NLPS and the province discuss changes to educational services ordered by the provincial governments Children's Services .
Not only will school staff — support staff, teachers and administrators — continue to be responsible for educating, but soon they will transition into conducting counsellor and investigating services for low-risk cases, said Irvine. She says the added responsibility is a difficult task for the division to implement on their staff who will now also assess the severity of allegations rather than Child Services officials, who are generally responsible for that process, she added.
“I think the overall, overarching summary is that our staff will be asked to participate more specifically in this intake process including asking very specific questions of children and ranking the environment in regards to danger for that child in-order for that panel to determine how to proceed. Our concern at the admin level is what that shifting of responsibilities or downloading of responsibilities means to educational staff.”
Updating reporting policies
School staff have always been part of the process for some Children’s Services files, responsible for flagging concerns and directing students to either counsellors or contacting Children Services to conduct investigations, said Irvine. But now, in regards to the ranking system, school staff are more involved with low-risk cases. Medium and higher-risk cases will be delegated to Children Services.
“If it’s a low priority, the individual who reports then gets several questions from someone that’s doing the follow up,” she says, which will be assessed by a provincial panel in the department prior to requiring NLPS staff members to follow up.
While the change will reduce concerns that children’s services staff are being intrusive into students’ lives, inserting staff and teachers into more files could jeopardize existing relationships the staff have with students and parents, said Irvine.
“Our worry of course is then we would be the individuals who are mandated to be more intrusive,” she said, voicing a question about the balance between teaching and social welfare. “What impact does this have on the relationships of a school-to-family connection that’s required in order to successfully educate kids?”
The new guidelines will create a reporting system that retired teacher and trustee Lois Philips says “crosses way too many lines.”
“If I’m the intake person that the child has disclosed to, I have to investigate and then still have a relationship with reporting on academics…how in the world would you maintain that relationship with parents and with the community? It crosses way too many lines," said Phillips.
“I thought it was insane to be passing on some of these responsibilities to teachers..."
— Cold Lake NLPS trustee Ron Young on the new roles school staff are to play in Child Services files.
Damaging effects
Trustee Blair Norton feels the added responsibilities would also further strain an already taxed roster of teachers who are stretched thin and in short supply these days.
“If school staff are going to be the counsellors, the home room teachers, the principals and gym teachers, that starts asking some questions which will muddy the investigation of allegations of abuse, “ Norton said during an NLPS board meeting on June 22.
“This is one more thing as a school we’re going to be responsible for,” Norton says while another concern is the limited annual operating budget that might have to see financial resources used to provide adequate training for staff.
“We don’t have the budgets because if we are going to have to do the investigations or potential investigations, we have to have people who are trained to do it properly and they should be a counsellor. I just think this is a slippery slope for our schools to be going down,” he said.
Above teacher obligations
While not only relationships with parents, staff and students are on the line with the new procedures, Cold Lake-area trustee Ron Young added that the changes are not in-line with what teachers are expected to do.
“I thought it was insane to be passing on some of these responsibilities to teachers and then expecting them to be communicating with parents that may be involved in custody orders and they’re conducting investigations, and then to say afterwards, ‘we want to maintain a really good relationship at our school with your kids.’ It’s insane."
Moving forward, the division will be sending a letter of concern to the Minister of Children and Social Services with attention to the Minister of Education,and Alberta Health Services (AHS) about the new responsibilities that are expected to roll out in the coming months.
UPDATE -This story has been updated to correct that the provincial governments Children’s Services department has informed and presented Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) with the information reflected in this article, not the Minister of Education's department . We apologize for the error.
