Nova Scotia’s child protection social workers are struggling under excessive caseloads, low wages, and inadequate support, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The report, released Wednesday, says these pressures are creating conditions of “moral distress” that leave many frontline staff feeling unable to practise the kind of “effective, compassionate, and just care” they consider essential to their profession.
The findings are based on interviews conducted between June and August 2024 with 15 registered social workers currently or recently employed by the Department of Community Services in Nova Scotia, the report said. Participants “uniformly understood their participation in the research as ‘a cry for help,’” the study said.
The report outlines several problems the workers described, including “caseload overload,” chronic understaffing, and a lack of time and resources. It says child protection social workers carry caseloads that exceed both their capacity and legislated caps, leaving them unable to address each family’s needs in a meaningful way.
High turnover rates and staffing shortages, which the report links to burnout and illness, have pushed many social workers to take on extra duties, often without suitable mentoring or training, the report said. Many workers said they feel misunderstood and devalued, both by their employer and the public.
The study calls for immediate policy changes to improve working conditions, including capping caseloads, better compensation, stronger mentorship, more anti-racist and anti-oppressive frameworks, and improved mental health support for social workers. It also recommends systemic changes, such as strengthening anti-racism policies and empowering Indigenous and African Nova Scotian leadership, as well as creating a social model of care that addresses issues such as poverty, housing, and access to supportive services.
“This report is a call to action to do what is needed now and, in the future, to care well for all Nova Scotian children and families,” the authors wrote, adding that solutions must go beyond individual interventions and address broader social and economic factors. Without these changes, the report said, the province’s child welfare system risks failing the very children and families it is meant to help, said the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.