At a recent gathering hosted by Fairness for Children Raised by Relatives earlier this month, Mitzi Dean, the Minister of Children and Family Development (MCFD) provided a video making an exciting announcement we’ve been waiting to hear!
At the Aging and Kinship Care Gathering, she announced that finally, after years of essentially being overlooked and under-supported, families receiving financial assistance through the Child in the Home of the Relative (CIHR) program will receive a new annual affordability payment as of the summer of 2023.
We at F4CRR consider this significant success as this inequity has been one of the primary issues we have been advocating for. First submitted last year to the Minister of Finance Standing Committee for Budget 2022, our formal written submission outlined the inequities in the Child in Home of Relative (CIHR) and 54.01 and 54.1 programs.
Child in the Home of a Relative (CIHR) is the provincial kinship support program that both time and MCFD have forgotten. The program was discontinued in 2010 and those previous recipients were grand parented. On March 31st, 2019, there were still 740 children receiving these benefits and as of November 2021 there were 353 children. Our children have not received a single rate increase in the 12 years since the program ended in 2010, and the amounts they receive are drastically less than any other MCFD family support program.
Although this affordability payment is very welcome and will help the families affected significantly, there is still more work to be done! In the meantime we are very grateful to know that our words are being heard – and we are making a difference in the lives of families raising a relative’s children.
Read the “Letter to Advocacy Organization” from Keith Godin, Assistant Deputy Minister, Finance and Corporate Services, MCFD.
