Day care services | One report of child sexual abuse every two weeks

(Quebec) A new case every two weeks. In Quebec, such is the frequency of reports of sexual abuse committed against children entrusted to daycare services, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press from the Ministry of Families.

Over the past ten years, we can therefore say that nearly 300 helpless children aged zero to five years have been the subject of a report or complaint of a sexual nature in a daycare service in Quebec, according to the data collected. And may have been abused there.

Behind these figures, there are vulnerable children who have been able to slip through the meshes of the safety net provided to protect them, particularly in the family environment, where the majority of reports occur.

The phenomenon seems stable, neither increasing nor decreasing, with an average of nearly thirty cases per year.

Several questions remain unanswered: What was the follow-up given to all these reports? What percentage of them were founded? How many childcare providers (RSG) have lost their jobs and ended up behind bars? How many daycares have had to close their doors because of sexual assaults within their walls?

No one in the government has seen fit to collect all the information, from filing the report to closing the file. All the actors involved, and there are many of them, operate in silos, surrounding each reported case with the strictest confidentiality.

” The Ministry [de la Famille] does not hold any information relating to the status of complaints and reports”, indicated the person responsible for access to information at this ministry, by way of answers to these questions.

After studying the question in 2017, the Ministry of Health, which reports to the Directorate of Youth Protection (DPJ), “concluded that it was impossible to match the data”, indicated the Ministry of Health. in an email exchange.

No one in government would comment on the matter. The Minister of Families, Mathieu Lacombe, refused a request for an interview. The minister responsible for the DPJ, Lionel Carmant, also declined, as did the national director of youth protection, Catherine Lemay.

Of the total individuals reported, two in three (65%) worked in a home daycare setting. It is often the spouse of the manager, or one of his children, teenager or young adult.

The leaders of these daycares are not above suspicion: during the decade, there were 15 home childcare providers and 6 license managers associated with reports of sexual abuse. In other cases, they are staff members (educator, janitor, cook, etc.).

The nature of the alleged acts is not documented. It is necessary to be content with trial reports or judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec (TAQ), in the event of a challenge to a closure, for example.

We could multiply the examples that have occurred in recent years, each more sordid than the other, such as the little girl who confided to her parents that a gentleman from daycare had asked her to “lick the finger” between her legs or the case of this educator caught taking advantage of the children’s afternoon nap to attack two little girls.

Variable geometry

As soon as a report is made, a mechanism is set in motion. All the players involved (Home Childcare Coordinating Offices, DYP, police, etc.) must apply the government’s “multisectoral agreement”, a document that describes the intervention procedure and the obligations of each.

However, the problem is that this agreement is applied “with variable geometry”, deplores the director general of the Quebec Association of early childhood centers (AQCPE), Geneviève Bélisle, the organization which oversees and supervises the coordinating offices. .

The sharing of information between the various stakeholders, which is “encouraged, but not compulsory”, is also “with variable geometry”, especially if the report is not retained, adds M^me Belisle. This results in a “vagueness” in the application of the protocol.

The Laurent report, written following the tragic death of the martyred girl from Granby in 2019, noted the “deficient communication between the partners” responsible for applying the agreement, an objective described as “difficult”.

M^me Bélisle also insists in an interview on the importance of better training home childcare providers to periodically remind them of their obligations in the event of a report, according to her a major shortcoming. “We can do really better and really more,” she says, pleading for mandatory annual training.

Tighter supervision could also prove useful. Coordinating offices only visit family daycares three times a year.

In its flowery language, the Ministry of Health is reassuring: “The monitoring of the application of the multisectoral agreement provides for monitoring mechanisms, both nationally and regionally, in order to escalate and deal with partners of challenges and needs”.

M^me Bélisle believes that “the safety net” has been weakened with Law 15 sponsored by Minister Carmant. She cites as an example the fact that previously a person wishing to become a home childcare provider had to provide a certificate attesting to his physical and mental health. This is no longer the case. The deadline for renewing permits has been reduced from three to five years.

Impediment: 70% of requests for review accepted

The situation in family childcare centers raises the problem of the recruitment by the State of those responsible for these services and the criteria adopted to ensure that they do not present a risk to the health or safety of children.

Recruitment is in itself a major problem, in this era of labor shortages, which could encourage the government to lower the criteria for providing places to parents. It is estimated that there are currently 23,000 places available for children in foster care and left vacant because no one can be found.

Particularly in the field of unregulated child care, some are pressuring the government to relax the rules.

People interested in opening a family daycare must demonstrate that there are no “impediments” making them unfit to care for young children. The certificate of absence of impediment is issued by a police force, for the responsible person, those who reside at the same address and his employees.

Except that the person with an “impediment” can contest the decision. Since 2018, the ministry has received 540 requests for review and the vast majority of people, 380 (70%), have been successful.

An “impediment” can be a criminal or penal act, but not necessarily a major or sexual crime, specifies the ministry in an exchange of e-mails.

“It may be a mistake of youth [ex : vol de voiture à 18 ans]lack of judgment [ex : conduite avec les facultés affaiblies] or even a more difficult moment in life [ex : vol à l’étalage] “, explains the Ministry of the Family to justify the decision in several cases to pass the sponge on the impediments identified.

Regarding the current form of impediment research, “we consider the procedure adequate,” said the Ministry of Health.