Drop in reports to the DPJ | Cases risk going under the radar during strike

A month after the start of the education strikes, the number of reports to the DPJ dropped sharply. They decreased by more than a third in Outaouais and Laval and by a quarter in Montreal.

And there’s nothing positive about it, experts warn. Child abuse, violence and neglect may not have dropped: rather, they are flying under the radar due to school closures which, in some regions like Montreal and Laval, will last at least 24 days. .

The graphs from the dashboard of the Ministry of Health and Social Services for the DYPs in the different regions speak for themselves when we compare the data from the first three weeks of the strike and those from the three weeks before the labor conflict.

Why such reductions? “Because it is school staff – especially in primary schools – who make the greatest proportion of reports,” observes Tonino Esposito, professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Montreal. The declines observed at present are the same phenomenon as what we experienced during the pandemic and the confinements. »

The impact of the school “goes well beyond pedagogy. The school provides social support for vulnerable children, notes Mr. Esposito.

Researcher at the Young People in Difficulty University Institute, Sonia Hélie also makes the connection with the pandemic by referring us to the results of the 2021 youth protection directors. It is written there that “the number of reports received between 1^er April and mid-May 2020 is 32% lower than that observed during the same period the previous year, which represents a difference of more than 5,000 reports. From June 2020, the gap between the two years narrows, then reverses.”

In the office of Lionel Carmant, minister responsible for Social Services, no comments were made.

In its June 2020 newsletter, the Young People in Difficulty University Institute underlines, still with regard to the pandemic, “that it is unlikely that situations of physical abuse have really decreased during the period of confinement” and that according to UNICEF and the National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services, “on the contrary, they are more likely to have increased”, we can read.

The drops in reporting to the DPJ are also substantial when we compare the data from the first three weeks of the strike, with the same three weeks in 2022. In this regard, the drop in reporting is then 25% for Quebec and 15%. for Montreal.

“An institution of protection”

“Whether we sympathize with the unions or with the government”, the reality is implacable: “the effects on children are real” and particularly on the most vulnerable, laments psychologist Camil Bouchard, author ofA Quebec crazy about its children.

He also points out that “parents experience a lot of stress, fatigue, exasperation” from juggling idle children while they themselves are most often required to work. And this, adds Camil Bouchard, while the memory of the pandemic is very fresh in everyone’s memory and parents have already been very affected by the confinements linked to COVID-19.

The psychologist also underlines the extent to which the school, like daycare services, plays an extremely important “supervision role”. School staff, in daily contact with children, are particularly able to perceive signs of abuse or neglect.

“The school is an institution of protection, in addition to structuring the lives of children, as work does for adults,” also observes Camil Bouchard.

In recent weeks, the strike “has reduced our capacity to intervene in prevention and to support the development of children,” notes Tonino Esposito.

When the work conflict ends and students return to class, school staff will have to be particularly vigilant to detect any signs of distress, insists Mr. Esposito, especially since except for toddlers, this cohort currently deprived of he school is also one that has suffered a lot during the pandemic.

In the United States, he finally points out, a study by Loc H. Nguyen calculated that over a period of 10 months at the start of the pandemic, some 86,000 children in this country were not able to receive protective measures. (to support poorly equipped parents, for example) from which they would normally have benefited. In addition, 104,000 American children who were assaulted or neglected in their environment during this period fell through the cracks.