Issue of Child Poverty in British Columbia

Question: Discuss about theIssue of Child Poverty in British Columbia. Answer: Introduction: Provision of various social programs and services in recent times has benefitted British Columbians in many ways. There are improvements in the fields of legal and immigration services, health, education, care for the senior citizens and various others. However, despite these positive changes, British Columbia still need to upgrade their social policy framework in order to make further progress in areas where they are lagging behind. Compared to other jurisdiction, British Columbia faces greater social policy obstacles in relation to child poverty, food insecurity, low-income rate, violence and property crime and mental health needs. Improvement in these areas leads to the growth in social capital, which is an integral part of economic growth. The issue of child poverty remains persistent in British Columbia; even though reports suggest that, there has been a significant decline in child poverty rate in British Columbia between the years 2003-2008 (Tarasuk, Mitchell, Dachner, 2014, 3-19). British Columbias relative ranking still remain the same when compared to other provinces and this brings into question the effectiveness of social policies of British Columbia in addressing this issue (De Leeuw, 2014, 59-78). This paper firstly examines the existing social policies and services in relation to child poverty and low-income rate in British Columbia and then it goes on to analyse its effectiveness in dealing with the issue and the ways in which the policies could be improved. Social Policy Challenge: Over the last fifteen years British Columbia has faced various significant and constant social policy obstacles that have resisted their efforts and have failed to tackle the issue. Some progresses have been gained in many of these problems but those achievements are not consistent and cannot fully be attributed to provincial policies. Child Poverty: The rate of child poverty is higher in British Columbia than compared to national average, as reported by coalition of national advocacy group. According to the report presented by First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition, the provincial child poverty rate of 2014 was 19.8 percent, which is much higher than the national average for youth at 18.5 per cent. Moreover, according to the B.C. Child poverty report, the total poverty rate of British Columbia in 2016 was 20.1 per cent ("Rural and single-parent families are most at risk, says First Call coalition" 2017). According to Adrienne Montani, the provincial co coordinator for the coalition, along with the increase rate in income inequality there are several other factors leading to increase child poverty. In addition to this, she has also highlighted the fact that they have failed to collect revenues, share the accumulated wealth with people through wages and effective social programs, and at the same time British Columbia lack a decent child tax policy ("Rural and single-parent families are most at risk, says First Call coalition" 2017). According to the last years report the percentage of children living in poverty in British Columbia has slightly decreased from 20.4 percent, however the percentage of children affected by poverty living in single parent family has remained the same at 50.3 per cent (Seed et al., 2013, 30(3), 457-470). According to the report, British Columbia has made no considerable progress in reducing the high poverty rate among children from single parent families since 2006 and in fact it has increased since 2009 (Glouberman Millar, 2003, 93(3), 388-392). Addressing Child Poverty and The Issues Related To It: One of the most important goals of the Social Policy Framework is to reduce the rate of people living below the low-income level and child poverty among British Columbians. In order to achieve this objective a collaborative effort is required involving many stakeholders. These stakeholders include but are not limited to the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation, the Ministry of Children and Families, BC Housing, the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills, municipal social planning offices and family providing social services (Holyk Harder, 2016, (74), 82). An all encompassing frame work is required to indicate the governments priorities in relation to social policy issues, which will help in the formation of a collaborative and integrated policy in order to tackle the problem of low-income level and child poverty. Consistent and standard social reporting also helps considerably in dealin g with the social issues of low-income and child poverty. On the other hand, food insecurity, housing instability or homelessness and income are connected. Thus, in order to tackle the issue of food insecurity one needs to deal with shelter, income and access to nutrition simultaneously. Health authorities and regional food banks, along with data meal assistance programs contributed by school boards, could collect ratio of food insecurity. A social policy framework would help in providing a proper guideline in order to address issues of shelter, income and access to nutrition. Long-term unemployment rate could be dealt through multifaceted approach, which includes skill training, access to education and basic literacy along with policy linked to economic and labour market plans. Developing reliable, consistent and standard measures for evaluating the changes in long-term unemployment in British Columbia would enable the government to develop the most suitable approach in dealing with such a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted issue (Merz Steinberg 2014, 57(03), 65-70). Impact of Social Policy Framework: Many persistent social problems is faced by British Columbia and the development of social policy framework helps in dealing with these issues by improving the processes of social policy which includes formation of policy, delivery and assessment processes. Processes of social policy development in British Columbia lacks consultation, consistency and collaboration and these challenges could be tackled with the formation of a social policy framework, which will increase the horizontal alliance between different ministries on social policy development. A social policy framework could also deal with issues related to uncoordinated policy delivery and implementation by increasing coordination between different government departments and by increasing unification between government and social services sector (Riches Silvasti 2014, 42-56). Conclusion: Thus, it can be concluded by saying that the social policy framework would enable British Columbia to deal with many persistent and long-term issues. Social policy framework helps substantially by contributing to each stage of policy making process. The issue of Child poverty and the factors related to it is still very much prevalent in British Columbia and in order to tackle these serious social problems, the government immediately should generate a proper social policy framework. References: De Leeuw, S. (2014). State of care: The ontologies of child welfare in British Columbia.cultural geographies,21(1), 59-78. Glouberman, S., Millar, J. (2003). Evolution of the determinants of health, health policy, and health information systems in Canada.American Journal of Public Health,93(3), 388-392. Holyk, T., Harder, H. G. (2016). Aboriginal child welfare in British Columbia and unequal power relations: A Critical Discourse Analysis.Canadian Review of Social Policy, (74), 82. Merz, C., Steinberg, M. (2014). Applying a Political Economy of Health standpoint to traditional food acquisition practices and the inequitable prevalence of obesity and diabetes amongst First Nations peoples in British Columbia.Environmental Health Review,57(03), 65-70. Riches, G., Silvasti, T. (Eds.). (2014).First world hunger revisited: food charity or the right to food?. Springer, 42-56. Rural and single-parent families are most at risk, says First Call coalition. (2017). CBC News. Retrieved 13 February 2017, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-poverty-youth-1.3865191 Seed, B., Lang, T., Caraher, M., Ostry, A. (2013). Integrating food security into public health and provincial government departments in British Columbia, Canada.Agriculture and human values,30(3), 457-470. Tarasuk, V., Mitchell, A., Dachner, N. (2014). Household food insecurity in Canada, 2012.Research to Identify Policy Options to Reduce Food Insecurity (PROOF). Toronto, 3-19.