By Cecilia Nasmith
Jen Glover of Northumberland County Community and Social Services reported Wednesday on provincial initiatives that are lightening the administrative burden for their Ontario Works program to free staff to spend more time on the clients instead of the red tape.
Glover gave her report at the first of the monthly Social Services Committee meetings, set up by county council and chaired by Councillor John Henderson.
By mid-February, she expects a launch of a centralized provincial intake that will take away much of the administrative work (including employment outcomes) from county-level workers with the aim of giving them more time to focus on the client.
This is part of the new Recovery and Renewal Program, Glover said - they were expecting a Renewal Program, but the changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic made it a Recovery and Renewal version.
In fact, according to her report, Ontario Works cases did increase in March and April before falling off by August.
“It is anticipated that, as the Federal benefits wind down by March 2021, that the caseload will return to the 2019 average of approximately 700 cases,” her report said.
Glover spotlighted the new Employment Services Transformation initiative being undertaken in partnership with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services with Fleming College as the Service System Manager. With employment services transferred to Fleming, the college has contracted services to three providers – Watton Employment Services, Career Edge, and Port Hope Employment Services/Durham College.
Glover is looking forward to the Centralized Intake implementation.
“This aligns with the modernization plans and enhancements to the delivery of social assistance and moving forward with the digitalization, more digital access and more self-service options to access social assistance without the need of the heavy administrative burden,” she said.
“We are working with our ministry colleagues on how to measure outcomes, as we will not be measuring employment outcomes anymore. We will be focused on self-advocacy for clients.
“We will be working with the ministry on developing service plans, as a transition plan for this year as they build the baseline data for those measurements and those outcomes.”
