CAS dealing with more domestic violence cases
By Bill Hunt
Local News - Friday, October 01, 2004 @ 10:00
The number of domestic violence cases involving the Hastings Children’s Aid
Society has been steadily increasing in recent years, according to a CAS
employee.
Melanie Regan, manager of child protection and family services for the Hastings
CAS, told members of Hastings County council Thursday the society is seeing more
cases of domestic violence and drug abuse locally than it used to. Mental health
issues among parents are also becoming more of a problem, she said.
The increase, explained Regan, may be due to greater police awareness rather
than an increase in actual assaults, however.
Regan said later she doesn’t know if the actual number of domestic violence
cases in Quinte is rising or if police are simply notifying the CAS more often
when they become involved in such cases, due to greater awareness on their part
of the impact of such violence on children.
“I’m looking at a fairly steady increase over the last four years. It’s
not a dramatic increase but it’s fairly steady,” said Regan, noting the same
is occurring across the province.
Mental health issues are also increasingly coming to the attention of CAS
workers, possibly due to a decline in the number of mental health services
locally, said Regan. “Certainly we’re concerned that’s one of the reasons
more children end up coming into care,” she said when asked of the impact a
decline in such services could have on children.
Regan was making a delegation to council to ask it to declare October Child
Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month. She told councillors the Hastings CAS
handled 3,600 referrals last year and took 267 children into its care (for a
total of 433 children currently in its care). More than 160 foster families
provided more than 77,000 hours of care to foster children last year, and the
Hastings CAS provides services to more than 700 families at any given time, she
added.
The remarks about domestic violence, drug use and mental illness were made
following a question from Deseronto Mayor Clarence Zieman regarding the level of
child abuse in Hastings County.
Regan didn’t have statistics but following the meeting said a study completed
by the University of Western Ontario for the London Children’s Aid Society
revealed the three above factors, plus poverty and inter-generational cases (in
which foster children grow up to have children who are also taken into care by
the CAS) are the main reasons for increases in the number of children cared for
by children’s aid societies.
There had been an increase in the number of cases handled locally during the
last four or five years, said Regan, but that has subsided recently.
“We have seen a levelling out in the number of investigations we’ve been
involved in,” in the last two years, said Regan, “and we anticipate that
continuing this year.”
Accompanying Regan in the delegation was Angus Francis, manager of children in
care services, who asked council to declare the week starting Oct. 17 as
Canadian Foster Family Week.
Council agreed to both requests.