Introduction The Manitoba Association of School Trustees welcomes this opportunity to address the Community Panel charged with the responsibility of reviewing Manitoba's Child and Family Services Act. We applaud the government for this initiative, and for its recognition of the need for vigilance to ensure that legislation continues to be responsive to the changing needs of Manitoba's young people.
MAST appreciates the importance of the many issues under consideration.
At the same time, we believe that there are individuals and groups far better qualified than are we to provide input on many of these matters. The need for greater integration of service delivery to Manitoba's young people has been a major concern of the Manitoba Association of School Trustees since at least 1991. In that year, MAST, along with the provincial teachers', superintendents', and school business officials' organizations, presented jointly to the Government of Manitoba a 27-page brief outlining our concerns in this area. We regret to observe that in the intervening five years since we presented this brief, little has changed. The establishment of Manitoba's Youth Secretariat was a promising initiative that could very well have provided the coordinated approach to service delivery to children that was sought by Manitoba's educational partners.