A former Community Services employee charges that high caseloads are negatively affecting both service to clients and staff morale. The employee worked in the child welfare division as a caseworker and later as a frontline supervisor. She left her job in frustration after well over a decade with the department.
A Community Services presentation suggests that the proposed revamp of social assistance may result in some clients receiving less than they do now. Not to worry, it’s only a scenario for consideration, says the department.
Shall I go or shall I stay? Poverty advocate Kendall Worth feels he has to choose between what is perhaps a brighter future in Ontario and the Nova Scotia that he loves, home to his beloved niece and nephew, his family, friends and fellow advocates. We at the Nova Scotia Advocate hope he decides to stay. We need more fighters like him, not fewer.
Another inventive suggestion by our regular contributor Kendall Worth. Why not give that $2 million Community Services spends on consultants to the group he chairs? They are better qualified to make recommendations on how to fix social assistance than anybody. After all, it’s the life they live. And they could use the money.
A year ago contributor Tim Blades sent a letter to the Minister of Community Services with some pointers on what needs fixing in her department from the perspective of somebody on social assistance. It’s as relevant today as it was a year ago.
A private member’s Bill in Ontario wants welfare rates to be set by an independent entity, based only on the cost of living. Nova Scotia would benefit from a similar approach.
Reporter Tim Blades wonders how come single parents on welfare see their child support clawed back in Nova Scotia, yet British Columbia has done away with the practice, and Ontario is soon to follow. And then there are some other policies that make the lives of single parents on welfare and their children particularly difficult, and sometimes even dangerous, Tim reports.
Kendall Worth on the important work that the Benefit Reform Action Group does for people on income assistance in Nova Scotia. Organize, don’t agonize!
“What do I miss most about the place? The fun and the beauty. It used to be a very beautiful place,” says elder Molly Denny of Pictou Landing First Nation. Boat Harbour, or A’sek, Mi’kmaq for the other room, is a documentary about the transformation of Boat Harbour from a beautiful body of water, great for swimming, fishing and hunting, to a poisoned dumping ground for first Scott Paper, and now Northern Pulp.
Kendall Worth, who struggles to make ends meet on social assistance, comes out in favour of an annual guaranteed basic income. Not surprising, if you see your benefits shrink, your special needs ignored and you have to face a patronizing bureaucracy on a daily basis.