DB v. Family and Children’s Services of Waterloo Region, 2024 CFSRB 142

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES REVIEW BOARD

BETWEEN:

DB Applicant

-and-

Family and Children’s Services of Waterloo Region Respondent

DECISION

Adjudicator: Malcolm M. MacFarlane Date: November 25, 2024 Citation: 2024 CFSRB 142 Indexed As: DB v Family and Children’s Services of Waterloo Region (CYFSA s.120)

APPEARANCES

DB, Applicant Self-represented

Family and Children’s Services of Waterloo Region, Respondent Ben McIvor, Counsel

OVERVIEW

1This is an Application which the Child and Family Services Review Board (CFSRB) found eligible to proceed under section 120(4) 4 of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, S.O. 2017, c.14, Sched.1.

2On August 14, 2024, the parties participated in a mediation and entered into a Settlement Agreement with four terms. The first three terms of the Agreement required the Respondent to provide the Applicant with three letters. The fourth term gave the Applicant the opportunity to provide records to be added to his file.

3The Respondent sent the Applicant one letter on September 11, 2024, addressing all three terms and a revised letter on October 8, 2024.

4The Applicant alleges that the Respondent has not complied with the first three terms of the Settlement Agreement.

5A non-compliance hearing was held on October 28, 2024 where the CFSRB Member who facilitated the mediation acted as an adjudicator to hear and decide the allegations of non-compliance.

ISSUES

6The Respondent is alleged to have failed to comply with terms 1, 2, and 3 of the Settlement Agreement because they sent one letter rather than three letters and because the original letter contained spelling errors, language that was alleged to be blaming and shaming, and because the formatting of the letter was not in formal letter style.

RESULT

7I find that terms 1, 2 and 3 have been met through the October 8, 2024, letter provided by the Respondent. I further find that while the language of the Settlement Agreement technically requires three separate letters, since the single letter provided meets the substantive requirements of the terms of the Settlement Agreement, there is no reasonable basis for requiring the Respondent to provide three separate letters.

ANALYSIS

What are the terms of the Settlement Agreement?

8Terms 1, 2 and 3 of the Settlement Agreement are as follows:

1. The Respondent agrees to provide the Applicant with a letter describing the reasons why they did not support an earlier move toward either unsupervised visits for the Applicant with his children or an earlier closing of their file. In providing these reasons, the Respondent will reference any information received from the Applicant’s treatment providers and other sources indicating improvements in his mental health, and describe how this information was evaluated, and why it was not considered sufficient to support a change to unsupervised visits with his children. This letter shall be provided to the Applicant by the implementation date of this agreement.

2. The Respondent agrees to provide the Applicant with a letter describing the limits of confidentiality of his record with the Respondent and the circumstances under which his record with the Respondent might be released as part of a background check. This letter is to be provided to the Applicant by the implementation date of this agreement.

3. The Respondent agrees to review their files and provide the Applicant with a list of any and all releases of information signed by the Applicant for treatment providers and provide an explanation for why information regarding the Applicant’s mental health was not received from these treatment providers.

9Term 4 of the Settlement Agreement is not in dispute.

10In alleging non-compliance with the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the Applicant argues that:

1. The September 11, 2024, letter from the Respondent provided in compliance with the terms of the Settlement Agreement contained errors in spelling, including spelling of names of individuals.

2. The Settlement Agreement stated that several letters would be provided to the Applicant. Instead, the Respondent provided the Applicant with one letter that integrated responses to questions covering terms 1 to 3 in the Settlement Agreement.

3. The language in the single letter provided was blaming and shaming.

4. The formatting and structure of the one letter provided used a question and response style where the issues the Applicant raised in the Settlement Agreement were repeated followed by the Respondent’s answer. The Applicant alleges that this format was not a proper “letter.”

Did the correspondence provided by the Respondent meet the requirements of the Settlement Agreement for terms 1, 2 and 3?

11I have reviewed both the original September 11, 2024 letter from the Respondent and a subsequent letter from the Respondent dated October 8, 2024 in which the Respondent corrected misspelled names and from which the Respondent removed some of the language characterized by the Applicant as blaming and shaming.

12The Applicant indicates that there is no dispute that the September 11, 2024, letter addressing terms 1 to 3 of the Settlement Agreement was provided by the date required by the Agreement. He also agrees that the final October 8, 2024, letter did substantially meet the requirements of the terms of the Settlement Agreement.

13The Applicant argues, however, that both letters received left a number of questions unaddressed, specifically, regarding term 1, questions as to why the Respondent did not make more of an effort to reach out to the Applicant’s mental health providers to obtain information about his mental health that he was clearly consenting to having shared with the Respondent. The Applicant argues that the tone of the Respondent’s letter left him feeling blamed for not doing more to provide the Respondent with information the Respondent required to document improvement in the Applicant’s mental health, when in fact it was the Respondent’s responsibility to more aggressively pursue the information required.

14The Applicant indicated he had no issues with compliance with term 2 other than that it was addressed in the same letter as term 1.

15The Applicant indicated that his concerns regarding term 3 were interchangeable with the issues related to term 1.

16The Applicant had no comments regarding term 4, which was not in dispute or a focus of this hearing.

17At the end of the hearing, the Applicant agreed that the Respondent “did everything the Respondent ‘needed’ to do,” but that he remained dissatisfied by the Respondent not taking more ownership of their failure to more aggressively pursue details regarding his improving mental health, which he had consented to share. He argues that this failure had a negative impact on his ability to maintain a positive parental connection with his children.

18I find that the content of the October 8, 2024 final letter from the Respondent addresses all issues that the Respondent was required to address as part of the Settlement agreement, and for that reason, I find that terms 1, 2 and 3 have been met through the corrected October 8, 2024 letter.

19For the above reasons, I find that terms 1, 2 and 3 have been substantially met.

Has the issue of misspelling of names been addressed?

20I find that the revised October 8, 2024, letter addressed and corrected the issue of misspelled names in the original September 11, 2024 letter.

Are three letters from the Respondent required, or is one letter sufficient to meet the terms of the Settlement Agreement?

21The language of the Settlement Agreement technically requires three letters, one for each of terms 1 to 3. The Applicant argued that a lot of material was covered in one letter, and that although CFSRB confidentiality restrictions prevent him from sharing the content of the letter, for privacy reasons it would be better if there had been three letters. The Respondent stated that they provided only one letter for purposes of clarity and convenience.

22While the language of the Settlement Agreement technically requires three letters, given that the substance of the one letter meets the requirements of the Settlement Agreement, and given that the required correspondence from the Respondent is subject to CFSRB confidentiality provisions, and is therefor only for the use of the Applicant, I find that the single letter addresses the purpose of terms 1 to 3 and that there is not a need for the Respondent to provide the Applicant with three separate letters.

Was the language of the original September 11, 2024, letter blaming and shaming?

23I make no specific finding regarding this issue, however I note that there was information included in the original September 11, 2024 letter that the Applicant experienced as blaming and shaming and that the Respondent subsequently removed this language from their October 8, 2024 letter. In the hearing, the Applicant agreed that removal of this material rendered the revised October 8, 2024 letter more satisfactory. I find that the revised October 8, 2024 letter addressed this concern.

Does the formatting of the letters using a question and answer format render the letters non-compliant?

24While the Applicant was critical of the formatting of the letters, I find that the format is not relevant to the issue of compliance and that there were no specific requirements in the Settlement Agreement that addressed the format of the letters. I find that the October 8, 2024 revised letter fulfills the terms of the Settlement Agreement.

CONCLUSION

25For the above reasons, I find that the terms of the Settlement Agreement have been met.

26The CFSRB’s file is now closed.