The Value of Public Members: Bill 30 Leads to Change

FEATURE STORY

BY DEBBY WALDMAN

WHEN MURRAY HIEBERT JOINED the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW) Council as a public member in 2014, his knowledge of the profession was limited: he assumed that there were a few hundred social workers in the province, most of them in the field of child protection.

After five years on the Council, the retired consultant from Calgary not only has a comprehensive understanding of the profession, he has boundless admiration for those who practice it.

“My only regret is that the people of Alberta don’t know enough of what social workers do,” he says. “They don’t understand the impact that social workers have on the lives of Albertans, particularly in MURRAY HIEBERT times of need. It was a big learning experience for me.”

The ACSW has had public members on its council for more than 20 years, and the number is about to double. Bill 30, the Health Statutes Amendment Act 2020 which the Alberta government tabled in July, has increased the required percentage of public members on regulatory colleges’ governing councils, hearing tribunals, and complaint review committees from 25 percent to 50 percent. The change will come into effect on April 1, 2021.

Although the government posts openings for specific agencies, boards and commissions, applicants don’t always know until they are chosen where they will serve.

That was the case for Laura Delfs, an Edmonton lawyer with previous experience working with a regulatory board. She was inspired to fill out an application, recognizing from her prior experience that public members have much to contribute.

“I think public members bring an interesting perspective, one that is often quite different from that of the members of the profession,” she says. She wanted the opportunity to bring similar value to a board, so she responded to a newspaper ad for public members. Then she had an interview and was put into a pool of preauthorized public members.

In addition to her law degree, Delfs has a master’s degree in international development and experience in the global fight against human trafficking. She suspects that made her a good fit for the ACSW. Her three-year term began in 2018 and she says she intends to renew her commitment. She also serves on the board of Homeward Trust Edmonton and is a member of the City of Edmonton Subdivision and Development Appeal Board.

"My experiences serving on various boards have been very positive,” says Delfs. “My board work typically provides an opportunity to work alongside competent, interesting people, and certainly with a regulatory board, these are also people that are committed to their profession. Because serving on a board is time-consuming, I think people who volunteer with their professional regulatory body are often very interesting people, very inspiring people, very committed people. I like interacting with people like that.”

Public members are invited to participate in other functions of the ACSW by serving on committees. Delfs is a member of the ACSW’s Registration committee, and also chaired an ad hoc committee that made recommendations to Council about balancing the ACSW’s advocacy and regulatory roles.

Bukola Oladunni Salami, an associate professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta who also serves as a public member on the Council with Delfs, joined the committee responsible for publishing the Advocate.

Most recently, she’s contributed to conversations around creating space and intentionally inviting Black social workers to contribute to the magazine. “Because of my knowledge of the Black community, I am able to reach people who can speak to the issue,” she says.

Salami applied to be a public member hoping she would be assigned to the ACSW board; on her application, she indicated that it was her preference.

“I just like the idea of social justice and social workers, in terms of addressing the social determinants of health,” she says. “One of my motivations was to be able to influence and contribute to a profession that is really focused on those issues and on the well-being of marginalized populations.”

At meetings, Salami has expressed support for ensuring that the ACSW registration environment is a positive one for social workers who are gender minorities, to ensure that they don’t feel excluded in terms of how genders are described.

“The diversity of perspective is important,” she says. “It helps that we have people within an affected community on our board, such as people who are gender minorities. The fact that I am Black meant that I am able to bring in some of my personal and professional expertise. We are able to contribute multiple lenses and multiple perspectives to really enrich the conversation.”

Salami understands that ACSW members are concerned that half of the organization’s board will soon include people who are not trained in the profession. “That is a fair concern,” she says.

“There are benefits of having social workers on the board, but some of the benefit of having non-social workers is having people with lived experiences of receiving help from social workers, and that different perspective broadens our view and lets us see how to improve health services and social services.”

When Austin Mardon served on the board from 2011 to 2015, he brought a viewpoint distinct from other members. Diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 30, Mardon knew what social workers did because he had often received their services.

“It turned out it was a very good fit because I had a lot of perspectives that were unique in terms that they would never have had somebody like me through any other situation,” he says. “They were always surprised at how much I knew, which was different in many cases from their perspective, and that is the primary thing about public members. Sometimes, professionals get so focused and [develop] tunnel vision, so they sometimes forget the forest for the trees. That is what a public member is supposed to do: bring that broader perspective.”

Another important role that public members play is to protect Albertans by making sure that a profession is managing itself appropriately. With the ACSW, Hiebert says, that was not an issue.

“Social workers are very socially conscious people. When people asked what I did on the board, I used to make a joke. I’d say, ‘I’m representing the public of Alberta to prevent nefarious social work. It’s a really difficult job, because I haven’t found anything yet.’"

In addition to joining several committees and taking part in a discipline hearing, one of the most memorable experiences of Hiebert’s board tenure had to do with the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation. When the issue was being debated in Parliament, he recalls, social workers were initially not included as professionals who could provide support to terminally ill people who wanted to end their lives.

“The issue was front and centre for about a year, and I remember it being discussed in Council,” Hiebert recalls. “The ACSW made representation to the federal government that they should be allowed to legally give advice to people who asked questions about MAID.”

Hiebert felt strongly that social workers should have standing when it came to MAID. “They were originally left out of the draft of the Act, which I think was a travesty. They work so closely with people in palliative care, but they were not going to be allowed to talk about MAID without violating the Medical Assistance in Dying: Bill C-14. It goes back to my major issue of how little the general public knows about what social workers do, and the impact they have in our province, in Canada, and in the US.”

Mardon, too, got involved in standing up for social workers during his six years on the board. Among his proudest moments was a meeting with then Premier Alison Redford to address the issue of a social policy framework and social determinants of health.

“I remember explaining in a very simple, grade-one level, what both were, and it had such an impact on her that she started talking all about it,” he recalls. “I think it’s important to keep the lines of communication open and talk to people and explain things, and not be too confrontational no matter what your personal beliefs are, because we all have to work together.”

INCREASING THE NUMBER OF PUBLIC MEMBERS IS INTENDED “TO GIVE ALBERTANS A STRONGER VOICE AND GREATER ROLE IN PROFESSIONAL OVERSIGHT.”

- From Bill 30, the Health Statutes

Amendment Act, 2020 Public members are chosen through an open selection, by filling out an application on the provincial government web site. To be considered, applicants must be at least 18 years old, Alberta residents, familiar with the issues affecting the agency, and able to attend and participate in meetings. They are compensated through honoraria for their time and reimbursed for any travel-related costs. For more details, visit: www.alberta. ca/public-agency-serve-on-board.aspx

DEBBY WALDMAN is a writer and editor in Edmonton who works part-time at the Academic Success Centre at the University of Alberta. Her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, People, Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Parents, Publishers Weekly, and Glamour.