Systemic barriers
Who is implicated? The government
Barriers connected to the organization of the different social systems and public and private services, as well as the policies, laws and framework arrangements in effect in the society in which the individual evolves.
Examples
Possible impacts
The choice of social programs proposed and the conditions for participating in them
Example: Restrictive eligibility criteria for specific programs.
Example: A predetermined issue to be targeted by the program, participant quotas, and funding tied to the number of participants.
Example: Stigmatizing eligibility criteria (low-income, low educational attainment, single parents, young mothers, etc.).
- Impossibility for young mothers to access education support programs in cases where the mother would like to work or keep her job.
- Obligation to become an income support recipient in order to qualify for a program, which is often difficult in terms of self-esteem and can entail the fear of being judged by others
- Impossibility for intervention workers to devote the necessary time to families because the internal management system focuses on results-based performance (meet with as many persons as possible)
- The target issue a program seeks to address does not correspond to families’ needs
- Organizations emphasize numbers of participants rather than the quality of the guidance service due to the accountability standards demanded by their funding agencies
- Parents are unwilling to embrace programs that may be very useful for them because they feel they are being judged right from the get-go
- Loss of parents’ trust because the criteria strike them as overly negative and demeaning
Examples
Possible impacts
A lack of professionals and specialists in the healthcare system
Example: Long waiting lists for services.
- Children with the most serious difficulties don’t get to see anyone until kindergarten
- Waiting lists are reset to zero when children start school, meaning any interventions for children with difficulties are pushed back as well
- Impossibility to intervene early in a child’s development, which often exacerbates the problem (Example: language development, defiant behaviours, etc.)
- Distressed parents are unable to access appropriate, free services to deal with their personal problems, which ends up affecting their family life
“But it was the issue of sexual abuse that cropped up at the beginning of the group process. During the second meeting, a mother asked the facilitators if she could talk to the group about the sexual abuse her daughter had apparently suffered a few days earlier. Her words resonated with another parent who had had a similar experience. The second parent was capable of articulating the powerlessness that one feels when one asks for help but doesn’t get any: ‘when something like that happens, you feel really helpless. When an abusive situation occurs, it becomes a free-for-all in the parent’s mind.’ This prompted the group to discuss and criticize the lack of resources available for parents who have to deal with this kind of situation.”
René, J. F., Laurin, I., & Dallaire, N. (2009).
Faire émerger le savoir d’expérience de parents pauvres:
forces et limites d’une recherche participative.
Recherches qualitatives, 28 (3), p.49
Examples
Possible impacts
Administrative procedures, web platforms, and government information systems that are poorly adapted to the different citizen profiles
Example: Complex official requirements (birth certificate or other documentation).
Example: Difficult-to-understand web architecture.
- Impossibility to place an online order without a credit card, higher costs if the procedure is carried out by letter mail
- A website that requires advanced literacy skills, leading to comprehension problems
- Less than straightforward navigation, making it difficult to find required information.
Examples
Possible impacts
Political disagreements between different levels of government
Example: First Nations children do not receive the required healthcare, social services, or education because the federal and provincial governments fail to agree who is responsible for paying the associated costs (jurisdictional dispute).
- Services take longer to become available or aren’t made available at all due to administrative reasons
- Parents’ energy is consumed in the pursuit of solutions
- First Nations children’s welfare and development may become seriously jeopardized. These were the circumstances in which a Cree child with a disability ended up caught in a jurisdictional dispute. The child did not get the recommended residential care and had to remain in hospital until it died at the age of five. Following this incident, the Jordan Principle was adopted in order to establish a legal principle that set out that the interests of children must take priority in the provision of necessary public services
Nibisha Sioui, Wendat and member of the Anicinape Nation, clinical and community psychologist, talks about the Jordan Principle. (In French only)