Ok how are Paul Wilcocks' comments on here news?

Wilcox is good enough to get paid for writing in the Vancouver Sun, the T/C and has a pretty good blog. In my view what he says sums up issues pretty well, so it's news. It's at least as relevant as what the previous poster or me has to say, and might actually make more sense.

We SHOULD care when du Toit is writing emails to mcfd staff. Burning the midnight oil makes for a very grumpy and dysfunctional Deputy whose decision making can be questionable. Someone in her position needs clarity of mind and excellent management skills - not to mention the ability to communicate effectively in writing and to spell correctly. She continues to model "do what I say, not what I do".

She´s been in the position for how long now? Has she produced anything of substance, created anything of substance? Now that she has disbanded her hand-picked Transformation Team, her next step is, apparently, to hire an additional ADM to manage the ministry while she goes out into the community to change the way the citizens of the province THINK.

Welcome to the Brave New World of mcfd.

If it weren´t so desperately sad, it would be funny.

Well, I think the issue here is being able to tell the difference between wanting to actually solve people's problems and wanting to sound more compassionate when you respond to someone in crisis without actually solving anything for them.

As a parent who deals with the Ministry (and yes, I've gotten the ghastly bureaucratic letters) and who networks with many other parents of adults and children with special needs, I can tell you this. We don't go knocking on the Ministry's door for fun. When we do, we don't want "compassionate letters". We want help coping with an adult or child who is enormously challenging; we want help paying for costly therapies that can make the difference between a child ending up behind bars or worse and becoming a successful, contributing student or citizen.

So indeed, nothing wrong with preparing intelligently for meetings or writing better letters. Except in my experience (and I've been to the meetings as well), it often amounts to being able to duck responsibility more smoothly in person as well. The problem is the continued fixation on ever more sophisticated PR to compensate for actually doing something to respond to people in crisis.

With thousands of adults, children & families on waitlists for services under the MCFD umbrella and staff completely overwhelmed by endless restructuring, it would be a lot more reassuring to see the Deputy burning the midnight oil to build a case for more resources so that the Ministry could actually do its job instead of writing more compassionate rejection letters.