Families furious over treatment of foster children in Kinngait, Nunavut
Families, former staff say Nunavut Family Services isn't meeting the needs of kids in care
Some Kinngait residents and former workers with Nunavut Family Services say they are furious over the treatment of foster children in the community and allege the government department isn't meeting the needs of kids in care.
CBC has spoken to several families with children in care, as well as three former workers, who all say the conditions at the Family Services facility in the community are terrible. Former employees said in interviews that children end up being kept at the Family Services office for a variety of reasons, including because of a lack of foster placements or lack of daycare space when foster parents have to work during the day.
Workers said Family Services is currently putting the children in a boardroom in one of their offices.
To help care for those children, the department hires babysitters like Monica Manning. Manning went public on social media last month about the conditions she says she saw at the facility.
In an interview, Manning told CBC News she quit after two months on the job, due to the conditions at that facility. She said the department didn't provide healthy food, toys, activities or fresh air for children in its care. Some children, she said, even had to nap on the floor because of a lack of bedding and space.
"I was feeling uncomfortable every day when I got home, knowing they're going somewhere else," she said.
She said some department employees end up taking foster children home with them at night because there aren't enough foster parents in the community.
Jane Bates, Nunavut's representative for children and youth, said she visited the Kinngait office in March 2024 and noted similar concerns.
"It was just a very chaotic environment. It's not a well-kept building, it's in disrepair," she said.
At the time, she said she raised concerns with the department's deputy minister, Jonathan Ellsworth, who told her the plan was to move Family Services into the community's old health centre once it was renovated.
In an interview, one family member of a child — who the family member said was at one point cared for by Family Services during the day — said that the child would sometimes return home with unexplained injuries.
"[They] would always leave my door clean, come back with bruises and dirty scratches," they said.
CBC is not identifying the families who agreed to interviews, because doing so could identify children in care, which is illegal.
The family member said when they tried to address the issue, Family Services employees "would always just end up calling the cops on me because I would just get angry and frustrated."
They wanted to become the child's foster parent, but they allege Family Services wouldn't allow that, because the department didn't file the required paperwork in time. As a result, the child was sent out of Kinngait because there was no foster parent placement for them.
However, they acknowledge that a social worker went to their house several times with questions, but they refused to answer them because they thought the process of becoming the child's foster parent was already complete.
Building is in 'disrepair'
Family Services has refused multiple requests for comment. It cited confidentiality reasons under the Child and Family Services Act, and referenced previous reports on the state of the department's operations.
Through an access to information request, CBC has obtained communications related to the past five years of complaints about Kinngait's Family Services operations.
In an email exchange dated Sept. 6, 2024, South Baffin MLA David Joanasie forwarded a social media message from a constituent to Family Services Minister Margaret Nakashuk.
Some of the complaints the constituent raised included "expired milk, oversized Pamper [diaper] ... and bite mark[s]," as well as a child being left "sleeping in the truck all alone" on multiple occasions.
Another message from that constituent passed on by Joanasie, dated Oct. 10, 2024, reads: "8 hours a day, 5 days a week in this tiny room at the social services office, without going out [for] fresh air all day long."
-
Two Nunavut mothers outline issues with Family Services' foster system
-
Eight children from Nunavut placed in unlicensed group homes in Alberta
The complaints released to CBC also include an exchange on May 1, which included photos Manning had posted online.
After those images were made public, documents show Ellsworth wrote an internal email asking for the situation to be reviewed.
"I suspect this is a result of low foster parent or day care subscriptions; however, I am concerned with this approach and the publicity it attracts. We need to do better," his email read.
Eleven days later, Nakashuk emailed a letter to Joanasie stating that senior department staff immediately followed up.
"Temporary measures are being implemented to stabilize the situation, including deploying additional staff to the community, reviewing supervisory arrangements, and working with local partners to identify alternative spaces while we await facility upgrades," her letter reads.
Threats against staff
Two former community social services workers CBC spoke to said they are frustrated at the lack of support from the department. They said the lack of a supervisor in the community is a contributing factor.
CBC is not naming them as they now hold other positions related to the Nunavut government.
One worker said they tried raising concerns to higher-ups during the time they were working for the department — but they had little success.
"It felt as though we could never get our point across. We're struggling. We have a lot of kids in care. We don't have any foster homes," they said.
"Their idea of support was always to just send a worker from Iqaluit. But then they would show up and they would have no idea where people live, no idea who is who," they said.
Another worker said staff are sometimes subject to abuse from community members, and they believe people don't want to become foster parents because they fear they will become a target too.
"If the staff are unsafe, I guess the children would also not be fully safe," they said.
At the legislative assembly last month, Nakashuk denounced violence and harassment toward social service workers.
"This is a direct attack on these dedicated professionals and on the values we hold as Nunavummiut," she said.
She also announced a new government client relations office where people can confidentially report concerns about Family Services.
Persistent issues
The lack of housing and office space across the territory was detailed in the 2023 Auditor General report into Family Services. The 2025 follow-up report noted some progress made on the issue with the hiring of a capital planner.
Another persistent issue, outlined in the latest follow-up report, is the collection of data about the children and youth under the department's care.
It said some data — including about where children are located and the date of their birthdays — was inaccurate and inconsistent. That's because a new information management system introduced in November 2023 isn't being used by all community social services workers.
One former community social services worker said the lack of consistent case notes also falls down to employee burnout and people quitting as a result.
"There are some days that I didn't even get to sit down at my desk. So there were all these things happening that were all pretty much crises that needed immediate intervention," they said.
Another worker believes the high staff turnover causes some families to lose faith, because they are forced to continuously retell their traumas to new workers.
Staffing challenges caused closures of family wellness offices in 13 of Nunavut's 25 communities between May 2023 and October 2024.
With the constant change in staff, Jane Bates believes Family Services needs to implement a comprehensive service delivery model, "so that it's very clear the time of case referral to time of case closure."
She said Family Services lacks standards and procedures related to children and care, despite there being more than 500 children receiving their services — with nearly half those children under foster care.
"That's a major issue because how can you expect consistent, ethical, equitable services to be delivered to children and care when they don't have any standards and procedures to govern that?"
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Teresa Qiatsuq