Kerri Irvin-Ross, Manitoba’s Minister of Family Services at her office in Winnipeg Manitoba, October 15, 2014.Lyle Stafford/The Globe and Mail
A Manitoba legislature committee has been told that a growing number of after-hours child welfare crisis-line calls in Winnipeg and area are being picked up and relayed by a private answering service.
The committee, which is examining the spending estimates of the Family Services ministry, heard Tuesday that the line is increasingly unable to respond to calls directly.
The 24-hour service, provided by the Child and Family All Nations Co-ordinated Response Network, responds to emergency calls and child protection referrals.
If all child and family service workers are occupied, calls are picked up by TigerTel, which relays messages to CFS workers.
But MLAs were told that over the last four years, the amount of time the private service has spent taking calls has grown nearly seven-fold.
Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross told the committee that she will look into the matter.
In 2011-2012, TigerTel spent an average of 152 minutes per month taking calls when ANCR had no one to answer the phone. Usage has steadily climbed since then to 1,162 minutes per month in 2014-2015.
The after-hours program operated by ANCR is supported by 20.8 staff positions, including two supervisors, an administrative assistant, two case aides as well as full-time and part-time social work staff, according to the agency's 2013-2014 annual report.
Progressive Conservative family services critic Ian Wishart said he's concerned the dramatic increase in the use of the messenger service is a "symptom of a system that is over-stressed."
Irvin-Ross stressed that TigerTel only does telephone answering and message-taking for her department.
"It's not making any judgments or assessing the case or the circumstances," she said. "What it does is as soon as it gets that information, it is relaying that information directly to the (CFS) workers who are the professionals in the field." (Winnipeg Free Press)