Child protection training set for Stephenville

The Newfoundland and Labrador government unveiled a plan Friday to train child protection workers, with the Opposition raising questions about where it is based.

The Departmentof Child, Youth and Family Services will bring social workers to Stephenville for a skills-enhancing program offered through the local College of the North Atlantic campus.

The program will be based in the district of Education Minister Joan Burke, who until this month's cabinet shuffle had been the minister responsible for child, youth and family services.

Newly appointed minister Charlene Johnson said the program will help raise standards for staff who work in child protection cases.

"We are committed to ensuring that CYFS managers and frontline staff across the province receive the best possible training in a consistent and timely manner," Johnson said in a statement Friday.

But Liberal critic Roland Butler said the selection of Stephenville as the centre of the training is not a coincidence.

"To see this unfolding now, unfolding in the minister's district,with a byelection on the go on the west coast, makes one wonder reallyhow they selected the west coast over the other areas of the province that also[have] great needs as well," said Butler, referring to the Humber West byelection scheduled for Feb. 15.

Butler said the selection of Stephenville is debatable since most of the children in need in the province and the staff assigned to help them live outside western Newfoundland.

"We know for a fact that in Labrador region there are 190 children involved. In eastern there's 253, [in] central there's 41 [and] on the west coast there's 122," Butler said.

"We're not against them going to the west coast as long as they selected it for the right reasons."

The government appeared to be prepared for questions about the site selection.

"The creation of a training unit specifically for CYFS workers will ensure a more coordinated, targeted and streamlined approach to professional training for all staff no matter where they are located across the province, whether they are in Nain, Port aux Basques or St. John's," Johnson said in a statement.