Submission for Child and Youth wellbeing plan
Our input on the Child and Youth Well-Being Plan and Outcomes Framework for the Ministry of Child and Family Services.
Little kids in gumboots at red hats look at the camera.
Sent by Chantelle Spicer on August 10th to the Ministry of Children and Family Services
We at the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition appreciate the opportunity to provide comment on the Child and Youth Well-Being Plan and Outcomes Framework.
The BC Poverty Reduction Coalition (PRC) comprises over 70 organizations, stakeholders, and people with lived experience of poverty. Collectively, we advocate for an end to poverty, homelessness, and inequality in British Columbia through public policy. We recognise the many strategies that must be implemented to address well-being for families and children in the province, including access to stable income, food security, and ending gender-based violence.
Over the last two years, our Coalition and community partners have been reviewing progress toward the 2020 basic income expert panel recommendations, many of which have shaped programs in MCFD since the report’s release, including the creation of SAJE and unconditional income supports for youth leaving government care. Through this review and our participation in West Coast LEAF’s Family Well-being Coalition, we have come to better understand the system of family policing in practice at MCFD and inconsistencies within the delivery of SAJE programming that result in additional harm to youth experiencing government care.
Families in poverty often face stigma and punitive practices in places that are meant to help: schools, clinics, welfare offices, and child protection systems. Single mothers, Indigenous families, parents with disabilities and historically discriminated groups report judgment and control that erode trust and agency when accessing public services. Sometimes this culminates in poverty-driven family separation – which causes lasting emotional and social harm to many children and caregivers.
The dominant system we have in place is overseen and managed by BC’s Ministry of Children and Family Development, which connects families with social workers and services. But as our coalitions and families across this province know, the hard truth is that the MCFD’s main objective is to investigate families and assess their parenting. These investigations are often decontextualized from structural issues like colonization, poverty, and disability—meaning that reporting to the Ministry is not a guaranteed pathway to supports for families, and processes can be stigmatizing and shaming for families who are doing their best to provide care. Reaching out for support can open a file that is later weaponized to paint parents as unable to provide care.
Although we appreciate a cross-Ministry approach envisioned by the document, our concern is that systems that heighten surveillance of low-income families will create even more stigma, anxiety, and the reality of children removed due to poverty. Families shouldn’t be forced to parent in fear that their poverty can trigger an investigation and child apprehension. It's not enough to say that the government will not conflate poverty with neglect—the government must alleviate this poverty and address the structural issues that force families into deep levels of poverty. What is being proposed through the Child and Youth Well-Being Plan is a cultural shift in purpose, program development, and service delivery for MCFD.
What stands out to us in the Child and Youth Well-Being Plan is something we see across government at this time - the use of language that signals understanding and an interest in moving toward systems of real care and support, with very little in the way of the actual plan to get there. We agree with the principles and vision laid out in this document, but are unable to comment on a plan that has not been presented.
Here we point to principles from the United Nations for building family well-being and economic justice:
From control to care: Design services that start with trust. Reduce punitive conditionalities, streamline documentation, and prioritize respectful, person-centred interactions.
From surveillance to support: Rebalance investments away from monitoring and removal toward family-strengthening services: income support, quality childcare, adequate housing, mental health care, parenting support, and access to justice.
From top-down to co-created solutions: Involve families living in poverty at every stage—assessment, design, budgeting, delivery, and evaluation—so policies reflect real needs and constraints.
Through our project to review the basic income panel recommendations, we have prepared priority areas for action that fall within the scope of a more refined plan for creating family and child well-being in BC.
For youth aging out of government care
In moving forward with full implementation of the expert panel’s recommendations for a strong social safety net for youth and former youth in-care, we lift up youth and advocate calls for:
We call for the full implementation of the expert panel recommendation for financial supports that reach the MBM. Since its implementation in 2024, inflation and increased cost of living mean that the unconditional income of $1,250 is not able to provide the essentials youth need to ensure their well-being. Better housing supports overall that offer financial support over longer periods of time and rates of support that take into account current rental prices.
Advocates and youth recognise the need for a longer duration of unconditional income support. Programs should recognize that youth have a longer time period of transition, with advocates calling for an even longer period of support than the 2020 expert panel’s recommendations. Alberta’s Child and Youth Advocate has called for income supports to continue to the age of 24 or 26. Federation of BC Youth in Care Networks offer many kinds of support until age 28.
Improved access to rental supplement. This support is promised in SAJE through two intakes per year. However, there has been no access to the program in the past 12 months, demonstrating a gap between legislative intent and on-the-ground delivery.
Address inconsistencies experienced by youth trying to access supports they are entitled to by implementing the systemic recommendations proposed by the BC Ombudsperson.
Improve the transition from youth mental health to adult mental health through increased funding and making it easier for young people over 19. Further, youth aging out of care should have the agency to continue seeing the mental health professional they were seeing to ensure a trauma-informed and relational practice.
Extend access to SAJE Guides beyond age 25 in recognition of longer transition periods for some youth.
Improve relational support through ensuring sustainable worker caseloads and staffing levels. Recommendation 62 of the expert panel speaks to the need for Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction staff to have lived experience and to fund non-governmental organizations to provide additional services to overcome lack of trust of the ministry and of program staff. This recommendation could be extended to MCFD and SAJE workers, which youth and community partners also recommended when the funding for SAJE was first announced.
For ensuring families and youth can leave domestic violence
As part of our 2027 Budget Submission, we urged this government to action a primary recommendation from the 2020 BC basic income expert panel to create a targeted income for people fleeing domestic and intimate partner violence. Ensuring that women and gender-diverse people can leave violent relationships and build safe lives is a matter of public safety, equity, and community well-being. BC’s social safety net is meant to support people experiencing a transition in their lives, but a critical gap exists for people leaving domestic and intimate partner violence. When people and families are undertaking such a significant and dangerous shift in their lives, having agency and access to funds ensures they do not have to return to violent homes. A targeted income support could simultaneously be part of the province’s efforts to prevent violence and support survivors who have experienced violence.
In terms of eligibility for targeted income, frontline service providers stated that many people or families are accessing government or organisational programs, including through BC Housing, through their own referral system.
In terms of the rate of the proposed income support, it was agreed that the one-time lump sum recommended by the UBI expert panel (equalling 3-4 months of Income Assistance for a total of $2,840 for the single parent category) was paltry compared to the kind of financial need victim-survivors experience when leaving a violent relationship or home, as well as not reflective of the significant cost of living increases since the release of the recommendations in 2020. However, all agreed this was more supportive than what was offered in other jurisdictions.
In terms of duration, participants in our discussion spoke about the need for both a one-time lump sum as recommended by the panel, but also ongoing income supports. This is due to the expenses of one-time costs that add up quickly for people or families fleeing violence.
From 2025-2026, our team consulted with anti-violence organizations across BC to learn how that income support could be built in survivor-centered and trauma-informed ways. This briefing was supported by 16 organizations in May of 2026.
Ending legislated poverty
Despite incremental increases to social assistance rates since 2017, current rates are forcing people into inadequate living situations and insecure food access. There is no way around the reality that income and disability assistance rates are abysmally low and have the effect of legislating deep poverty for recipients - including many families. By raising the rates to at least the poverty line, people receiving BC disability and income assistance would be better able to meet basic needs, instead of choosing between essentials like food, medication and health supplies, rent, and utilities. Raising the rates of disability and income assistance has long been a call of anti-poverty activists, policy organisations, and those with lived and living experience in poverty.
We call for MCFD to work with MSDPR to advocate within government for:
increasing social assistance and disability assistance rates to the poverty line (Market Basket Measure);
recalculating the Market Basket Measure within the PWD to account for the additional costs incurred by people with disabilities;
indexing Income Assistance benefit levels to inflation, as measured by changes to the Market Basket Measure thresholds, with regular annual increases required in legislation.
Ensuring access and navigation within social assistance programs
We understand that MCFD and MSDPR are currently involved in the work of better understanding relationships between services and supports that households access to improve efficiency. This is work we commend and have long advocated for. The punishing bureaucracy of the social safety net includes multiple often inaccessible applications, navigating sometimes contradictory definitions of poverty or disability, short-term programs, and onerous eligibility requirements alongside the experiences of stigma many face in accessing support. The recommendations we have identified for this section will not solve these issues, but we believe they collectively would make great strides in efficiency, accessibility, and navigation for those accessing the system.
In the basic income panel and the related Income Assistance and Indigenous Peoples in BC report, experts recommended increasing staffing resources, in particular Community Integrated Specialists. Their recommendations further included ensuring they are hiring more Ministry staff with lived experience related to poverty to reduce stigma and discrimination.
Securing investments to properly fund SAJE. Underinvestment has led to strain on government employees and harmful experiences for youth in and transitioning out of care.
Providing technical assistance through technical support workers.
Create a moving off-reserve program for Indigenous people to address payment lag periods as they move between federal and provincial systems.
Simplifying program information to clearly and concisely express terms of eligibility, the role of the program, and what it does for the recipients.
Reforming the PWD application to more accessible and less stigmatizing. We have created a fulsome list of recommendations to achieve this to MSDPR, which can be found here.
Better orientation for people new to the system to provide guidance on starting points and recommended next steps to access services for effective navigation.
Translating information and applications into a variety of languages and formats for increased accessibility for newcomers to Canada.
Providing services in low-barrier or community spaces that are more comfortable for people accessing services and creating more welcoming, positive spaces for those seeking assistance.
Improving continuity with case workers and follow-up to minimize trauma and stigma.
We thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this process and are eager to learn more about ways to be further involved with this significant transformation for MCFD and families across the province.
