To the Honourable Jennifer Howard, Minister of Family Services and Labour: In recent discussions of Child Welfare in Manitoba much attention has been given to the profession of Social Work and the importance of case management. While this is important, overlooked are the people who are actually responsible for caring and nurturing our youth in care- the youth care practioners. With salaries that are up to 90% behind similar jobs in sectors like Justice, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit, maintain and support the Youth Care profession. Without a proactive solution to the salary problem in the Youth Care field, the trained and dedicated professionals currently in the field will move to other jobs. Marginalized young people in Manitoba will, in addition to the challenges life has already given them, be dealing with substandard care. In the end the true victims of the lack of appropriate governmental support for Youth Care Practitioners will be the children who depend on the care they receive from the child welfare system. We, the undersigned, call for a real and timely solution to the woefully inadequate levels of compensation for the Youth Care profession in Manitoba.

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