2024-03-28 11:16:36
An educator from the Estrie Youth Center and the union that represents her are launching a heartfelt cry. Overcapacity, lack of staff, use of independent labor; According to them, the work context would endanger the development and safety of children.
“Difficult, disorganized, no support and a lot of overload.” This is how an educator from the Estrie Youth Center describes her work, who spoke to TVA Nouvelles on condition of anonymity.
Last week, four teenagers took control of a unit and committed several misdeeds, even attempting to set a fire. The police had to intervene. “It could have gone very badly, young people or employees could have been injured,” said the employee.
An unfortunate event, but unfortunately not isolated according to her. “We see physical and psychological violence, sexualized behavior or self-mutilation regularly,” she assured.
The educator places the blame largely on the lack of staff. “We are so overloaded that we don’t have the time to invest as much as we should in developing a relationship of trust with young people and allowing them to develop to their full potential. I find it sad because basically, I love my job.”
The current occupancy rate at the Estrie Youth Center is 150%. On the other hand, 47% of educator positions are uncovered. A formula which obviously does not swing. “Shifts are often filled by workers who come from private agencies and who have no knowledge of young people and the issues here,” said the educator.
To try to retain and attract the workforce in youth centers, the new collective agreement ultimately provides for a maximum salary of $94,000 for educators and $114,000 for social workers. “These are considerable improvements which, we hope, will attract future workers and keep our experienced workers on our teams,” said the Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant.
And in the short term, the president of the Alliance of professional and technical personnel in health and social services of Estrie, Danny Roulx, is asking for more listening from management. “It takes managers who will be closer to the field, it takes listening on a daily basis to the things that are denounced. Sometimes, these are minimal requests from employees, but which are not implemented. This, on a daily basis, must be activated.”
The director of the youth program at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS, Geneviève Chabot, is more than open to ideas that come from the field. “I really believe in collective intelligence. I believe that it is really my teams on the ground and the union too which has great experience and a contribution to make, that it is all together that we will find these solutions to deal with the shortage of workforce.”
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