New family centre aims to reduce child welfare referrals
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A new collaborative initiative from the United Way, the City of Kingston, and Family and Children’s Services of Frontenac, Lennox and Addington is hoping to reduce referrals to child welfare services.
A Great Start For Families: Kahwà:tsire Ronwatiyenawá:se Centre, located at 263 Weller Ave., opens to the public on Saturday and will provide families with young children in the community with a one-stop shop to access community services and resources.
According to Sonia Gentile, executive director of Family and Children’s Services, the centre will be home to more than 40 community services and resources, all in one convenient location with a dedicated child-minding centre to allow parents to access services without worrying about their children.
The initiative is a pilot project funded by the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, which is aiming to transform the child welfare system in Ontario.
This model of service aims to prevent future incidents that may result in families being investigated by the child welfare system.
According to a news release issued by Family and Children’s Services, last year alone approximately 1,250 child welfare referrals were investigated in the region.
Gentile explained that the majority of referrals are related to mental health concerns of parents, drug addiction and intimate-partner violence.
“The majority of our referrals come from families who are struggling,” she said in an interview with the Whig-Standard.
Now, families experiencing these issues will be able to access a holistic range of services, including drug counselling services, mental health concerns and community programs such as mom and baby yoga, health cooking classes and well-baby checks.
The centralized and relaxed nature of the centre is also crucial in minimizing barriers to access, Gentile explained.
“Sometimes people are not comfortable going into an office and sitting down — it can be a bit overwhelming and intimidating. The intention here is that this connects you with a group of peers who are also working with a number of collaborative community providers,” she said.
In addition to addressing the social, mental and economic challenges that many families are facing, family doctors onsite within Kingston Community Health Centres have offered to provide health care to families that don’t have a doctor.
“They were actually excited about (this project), because they say it serves as a means of early intervention as well,” Gentile said. “The doctors actually reached out and said, ‘We’d really, really like to see some of these people who maybe don’t have a doctor and aren’t getting frequent pregnancy care or baby check-ups.”
As a pilot project funded by the Ontario government, Gentile says provincial funding has currently been secured until March 2023, and the team at A Great Start For Families: Kahwà:tsire Ronwatiyenawá:se Centre are already preparing a proposal to have funding extended beyond that date.
While the centre is not open to the public until Saturday, Gentile could already see how access to services can reduce referrals to child welfare and improve the lives of families in the community.
“Not too long ago, a woman came in (to Family and Children’s Services) after having a conflict at home (about a lack of food). She met with a supervisor, who suggested a number of different services and provided her with a grocery gift card. That conflict might have turned into a child welfare referral, but by having the concrete resource of the gift card, and getting connected with those services, it didn’t,” she said.