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An interview with Dave Hancock, Alberta’s Minister of Human Services
David Hancock, Alberta’s former education minister, discussed his new portfolio as minister of Human Services with Kim Dewar, ATA administrative officer, Public Relations and Communications. The following is based on an interview conducted in December. Content has been edited for style and readability.
ATA Magazine: Premier Redford tasked you with leading the “development of a social policy framework to guide the alignment and redesign of social policy and programs to achieve better outcomes for children and families.” What new programs or policies do you plan to develop?
Minister Hancock: Developing programs and policies would be premature—the idea of a social policy framework is to understand broader questions: What kind of society do we want? What is needed to ensure that every Albertan has the opportunity to live in dignity and that every child has an opportunity to grow, develop and be educated so they can live and work in Alberta and participate in community? We need to ask: What is the overarching policy framework that is necessary to ensure that we have the right programs and the right roles and responsibilities? What is the role of community? What is the role of government? How do we assist community? Those are the pieces we must deal with before jumping immediately to program and service delivery. We must look at our programs and deliveries to see what we’re achieving and what government needs to do versus what the community needs to do.
ATA Magazine: What are your personal priorities for the new portfolio?
Minister Hancock: A number of priorities fit well into what we’re talking about. From the government’s perspective, we should look to the future and focus on how to ensure that our children have an opportunity to grow, develop, be educated and succeed. Some children need protection; they’re vulnerable, they’re in bad situations and we need to support them. Some families have children with special needs or disabilities, so how do we help them get the necessary skills to get the job they need to support their families? All of it builds around that. Then there’s the economic side of workplace standards and occupational health and safety. How can we ensure that people are treated fairly at work and go home to their families after work? How do they recover and get back to work if they’re injured on the job? It all links together.
Another important piece is that our economy will improve. Current projections indicate a shortage of about 114,000 workers over the next 10 years. What does that mean for how we work with people who aren’t able to participate at the same level as others? We need to focus on Aboriginal youth and families, in terms of support for families, job skills and educational opportunities, so they can participate fully. We need supports for people with disabilities who can and want to participate more fully. That’s one of the priorities. Next, we need to make Alberta a destination for people we need in the job force who want to find a great place to live and work and raise a family. Family violence and bullying are key areas that must be addressed. Dr. Fraser Mustard’s research shows the effect of family violence on a child’s ability to develop, grow and learn. Family violence affects the community as well.
We want a society that we’re proud of, where all people have the opportunity to live with dignity. We’ve made a good start on this in partnership with our municipalities and communities, but that’s an area that needs work. Also, in the area of early childhood, we had good partnerships when I was education minister. We developed partnerships with Children’s Services and Health and that work continues. We must help families with young children. Evidence suggests that if children under the age of six overcome barriers, they will have a better chance of success.
ATA Magazine: How will this new ministry be better able to support the delivery of services to children?
Minister Hancock: The new ministry is designed to improve the delivery of services by having departments move outside their silos and becoming more collaborative. We’re already seeing better working relationships between areas in the department. To ensure that children are successful means looking at everything holistically. It means supporting the family, it means helping people improve their skill sets and helping them participate in society to their full potential. It means ensuring safe workplaces and focusing on fairness and standards in the workplace. That’s how children will have the base they need to succeed.
ATA Magazine: What is the role of the child and youth advocate?
Minister Hancock: Alberta has a very good child and youth advocate program, and we’re hoping to improve it under the new act by setting it up as an independent office of the legislature. An independent office doesn’t change the advocate’s authority, but it does broaden it. He has the mandate to advise and investigate systemic issues and incidences—the new act clarifies that mandate to say that the advocate has the full authority, including the powers of a public inquiry commissioner, to look into any serious incident or death. The advocate has full authority to advocate on behalf of children in care, children receiving services from the government and children involved with the criminal justice system.
ATA Magazine: Why is it important to establish the child and youth advocate as an independent officer of the legislature?
Minister Hancock: We hope it will provide a public assurance role that gives Albertans a greater sense of comfort. The advocate’s authority comes from legislation, and he is accountable to the legislature for the province’s children. Although the office of the child and youth advocate has worked well in the past, there was potential for a perception of bias based on a belief that he was part of the team he was reporting to.
ATA Magazine: Your ministry is responsible for ensuring that information sharing practices between the government and service agencies support the best decisions possible for children and families. Has exchanging information been a problem in the past?
Minister Hancock: One problem we’ve had relates to Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) legislation, which ensures that personal information is protected. In some cases, however, FOIP has had a chilling effect when people did not share information that they needed to share. When dealing with the health, education and safety of children, we need everyone working together and sharing information. The schools may need information that is only available from the criminal justice system. The child welfare system needs to provide information to and receive information from schools. In some cases this works well due to trusting relationships built between schools and agencies. But in some cases it’s not shared. We’re all working together in the best interests of the child. It’s important that we share the information that’s appropriate to be shared, both for the child’s protection and to enhance the child’s development.
ATA Magazine: The premier has also tasked you with creating the Alberta Interagency Council on Homelessness to end homelessness in Alberta within 10 years. Are there plans to develop an initiative that will focus specifically on homeless youth?
Minister Hancock: Yes, that is an important part of homelessness. Previously, we’ve had a successful collaboration with the province’s major municipalities. We have the Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness. In the first three years of operation, the secretariat developed the Housing First plan. The secretariat has achieved good things and is ahead of schedule. The next step is to work on a new model of governance with social agencies. A new model would move from the planning and policy stage to the delivery stage. Next, we need to ask, Who are we dealing with here? And now that we have a platform that’s working, where are the pieces that must be included? Youth homelessness is important to us; we are responsible for providing child protection to youth under the age of 18. There’s still a role for us in a child’s life.
