THUNDER BAY - The Northern Ontario Service Deliverers Association (NOSDA) has requested an AMO delegation with Minister of Children, Community and Social Service Merrilee Fullerton to discuss social assistance reform.
According to a release from NOSDA, the vision, once realized, would provide for more people-centred services to improve client outcomes.
The Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) asserts the changes must be implemented without an increase in municipal program delivery costs, and that the changes do not alter the current provincial-municipal cost-sharing arrangements, with support from NOSDA.
The core points of the transformation are that the province has established the following principles:
- prioritizing the outcomes of employment, financial resilience, independence, and well-being
- supporting positive client and staff experiences
- assigning roles to where they make the most sense and improve efficiency
- improving program integrity by leveraging data and technology
- designing in partnership with municipal delivery partners
- building a system that puts people at the centre, with services that work effectively together to support them
- using data, evidence, and the voice of clients to inform design
NOSDA said its members are cautiously optimistic on the province's vision as it makes important moves in the right direction, and the province's willingness to co-design the new system with NOSDA members was seen as encouraging.
NOSDA is calling on the province to clearly define Life Stabilization as well as the outcome model framework to define success, and asking the premier to immediately start working on simplification of the social services system as they co-design the Vision for Social Assistance Transformation with CMSM/DSSAB’s.
