{"id":17011,"date":"2016-01-29T00:14:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T08:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=17011"},"modified":"2016-01-26T16:52:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T00:52:14","slug":"overburdened-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/01\/29\/overburdened-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Overburdened system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mardy Yager, manager of fund development at Marymound. (photo from Mardy Yager)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mardy Yager manages the resources of Marymound, the second largest agency in Manitoba that provides support to some of the province\u2019s highest-needs kids. Every day, he has to deal with an overburdened social services system that is struggling to keep up with demand.<\/p>\n

A lifelong Winnipegger, Yager has been working in the child welfare field for 26 years. He has been serving at Marymound for the past 15. \u201cI began working frontline with the kids and now I\u2019m the manager of fund development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a passion for the kids and intimate knowledge of the work, so I\u2019ve been effective in raising funds and awareness for child welfare here in Manitoba,\u201d he said of his choice of profession, \u201cwhich isn\u2019t historically a choice for most people.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he was 14, his father passed away. Although Yager is not a practising Jew, he feels strongly that his passion for service stems from his Jewish heritage and the example set by his father, who was vice-president of their synagogue, among other things.<\/p>\n

Marymound was started in 1911 by Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Yager said he felt privileged to work alongside the sisters when he first began working there, and found their values to be the same as any other religion\u2019s ethics. \u201cYou look after those less fortunate, you honor people\u2019s differences, you celebrate other people\u2019s religions,\u201d he said. \u201cSpirituality is very important, regardless of what faith you practise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The overwhelming majority of Marymound\u2019s kids \u2013 70% \u2013 are indigenous. As such, the focus of Marymound\u2019s assistance is not so much about religion. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of how the sisters looked at it as well,\u201d said Yager. \u201cThe focus was more on spirituality and healing, and that\u2019s what\u2019s kept me here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marymound\u2019s staff is a mix of professionals with different cultural backgrounds, including indigenous, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. There are more than 300 full-time and another 200 other staff working with approximately 3,000 children annually.<\/p>\n

Manitoba has the highest number of children in care (11,000) compared to any other province. For example, the province has almost double the number of Saskatchewan (6,000) despite the fact that the population breakdown of each province is similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system is overburdened here in Manitoba,\u201d said Yager. \u201cAnd it\u2019s struggling to meet the needs of all those kids. Some are very high needs. A lot has to do with fallout from the residential schools. Lots has to do with our indigenous populations being marginalized over the decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also, unfortunately, did the 1960s scoop, where we pulled kids out of their homes and adopted them out to white families all over North America. We\u2019re just starting to understand the issues and making some corrections as to how we approach the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the kids Marymound works with are dealing with family breakdown, physical and sexual abuse, neglect and poverty. Some are battling mental illness, fetal alcohol syndrome and other issues that mainly afflict the most vulnerable segments of the population.<\/p>\n

While Marymound has serviced Jewish kids and still does in their foster-care programs, those percentages are small.<\/p>\n

\"photo
Al Benarroch, executive director of Jewish Child and Family Services in Winnipeg. (photo from Al Benarroch)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Al Benarroch, executive director of Jewish Child and Family Services (JCFS) in Winnipeg, knows all too well how Marymound and similar organizations help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey run some very specific programs around treatment for sexual abuse,\u201d said Benarroch. \u201cWorking at JCFS, being a small sliver of child and family services in Manitoba, we work in our own community. But, in my past professional career, when I was in private practice, I used to see a lot of cases of sexual abuse \u2013 both in adults who are survivors \u2026 and also with youth and children who were in the welfare system because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Benarroch was quick to point out that sexual abuse is the smallest percentage under the abuse category \u2013 at least on paper \u2013 with 10% or 12% of all reported cases of abuse being sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a much higher number being reported of physical abuse, and the highest number is probably neglect,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat does that mean? Does that mean there\u2019s less sexual abuse or does that mean that it\u2019s underreported? The likelihood is, it\u2019s most likely extremely underreported by virtue of its nature \u2013 the nature of the secrecy and the nature of the disruptive levels of trust that a person has when they\u2019ve been victimized.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Benarroch said that anyone who can afford counseling can find it very readily, in general, accessing quality, well-trained therapists is difficult for those who are less financially well off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith JCFS, we deal with sexual assault very little for a few reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cNumber one, our agency is almost exclusively serving the Jewish community. I\u2019m not saying this doesn\u2019t occur in the Jewish community but, as a cultural community, we don\u2019t like to air our dirty laundry. So, as an agency, JCFS is constantly working on raising awareness about these issues so we can peel away those layers of secrecy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benarroch said JCFS sees many more cases in which there has been high levels of neglect and dysfunctional parenting that usually stems from the parents\u2019 past trauma, thereby impacting their ability to parent. In these cases, he said the parents can overcome their challenges and positively parent through talking about childhood experiences, which may involve physical or sexual abuse, to work through those traumatic experiences as adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me,\u201d added Yager, \u201cit\u2019s always been about the kids and the kids don\u2019t pick and choose. They are just here and we need to help them…. They didn\u2019t ask for the things afflicting them\u2026. We need to do our best to help them get a handle on the issues and go into the community in a productive way.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping those less fortunate, who can argue with that? Right? Those are all things we should all be doing. That\u2019s what makes our country as great as it is, because we focus not just on getting ahead, but on trying not to leave the less fortunate behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the values we have here, at Marymound, even though it started from an order of nuns, those values cross all religions.\u201d As an example, Yager said, \u201cI know that philanthropy and caring for others are basic values that all Jews share. We\u2019re quite charitable. It\u2019s also part of the values that the Sisters of the Good Shepherd have provided to us at Marymound.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, visit marymound.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mardy Yager, manager of fund development at Marymound. (photo from Mardy Yager) Mardy Yager manages the resources of Marymound, the second largest agency in Manitoba that provides support to some of the province\u2019s highest-needs kids. Every day, he has to deal with an overburdened social services system that is struggling to keep up with demand. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4432,4434,4433,5259,5258],"class_list":["post-17011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-al-benarroch","tag-jcfs","tag-jewish-child-and-family-services","tag-mardy-yager","tag-marymound"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}