administrative assistant

legal clerk

child protection specialist

youth worker

counsel

Childrens Aid Society of Toronto

Employment with the CAST has been a rewarding and challenging career. During my over 20 years of experience with the agency I witnessed many challenging organizational changes typically which were influenced and driven by economic influences (funding) and or as a result of recommendations from Inquests. 

A typical day at work involved meeting the needs of Ministry mandated standards to see clients, document case notes associated with these contacts, supervising family access visits, complete at minimum quarterly reports regarding client progress, attend Child Welfare Court and complete necessary Court Documents associated, lots of driving across Southern Ontario, administrative paper work filing tasks and responding to crisis related matters (abuse investigations and or apprehensions). 

What I learned was how to multi-task in this highly demanding and often fast paced profession.

Management at the CAST has gone through many transformations over the past 20 plus years. Approaches to management style and treatment of employees has varied also. For many of the years of my employ with the agency I had the good fortune to have highly supportive and caring Supervisors who mentored me and truly believed in and supported my work in Child Welfare. During the later stages of my career with the CAST a significant shift in style of management took place starting from the top characterized by a switch in title of the agencies head from being an "Executive Director" to calling himself a "Chief Administrative Officer". Coincidentally or not the culture of the agency became more "corporate" in nature and treatment of clients and employees began, in my opinion, to erode.

Co-workers at the CAST are some of the most courageous and inspirational people I know. I am privileged to have met them and consider some of these people to be the dearest and closest friends I have. However it would be unrealistic to overlook that in an agency of this size and with the number of people it employs that there are not a few "bad apples" within who avoid their responsibilities and increase the burden onto the shoulders of their co-workers. I am sure that at times, because of my challenging nature, some considered me to be a "bad apple". But I prided myself on completing my work responsibilities and not being a burden to my co-workers. I had too much respect for them to do anything otherwise.

The hardest part of the job one might think was dealing with clients and witnessing the tragic and difficult lives they experience. But for me in fact the clients are a reward in that they show such incredible resilience and strength even if they are not successful in accomplishing their goals. I truly like and enjoy the clients I had the good fortune of working with and find them inspirational. The hardest part for me with out a doubt were the changes in management style and the associated "corporate" like agendas associated with these changes. The hypocrisy of this style of management within a helping care profession is upsetting to say the least. I also found it challenging to cope with the few "bad apple" co workers who avoided their responsibilities and burdened co-workers such as myself.

The most enjoyable part of the job was with out a doubt the challenges of client contact. I also value the many wonderful, highly intelligent and stimulating co-workers I had the good fortune to meet. And lastly it goes without saying that the compensation and benefits of employ with the CAST are some of the most competitive in the field of Social Work.

You would be hard pressed to find better benefits and time off, but you are trading that for work life balance and highly stressful work. 
The executive team is managing the organization poorly and operating from large deficit, however; still manage to find room in the budget to compensate themselves higher than the premier of Ontario, and mayor of Toronto. They also create positions to take away from their responsibilities but have no problem shrinking the workforce of family facing child protection workers to do so. 
Good pension if you can stick it out. 
Lots of movement, you can try new roles. 
You used to feel like you were supporting families, but now there's no funding. 
Hard to disconnect from the work when you are off. 




It was not a very supportive environment to work in. There was no praise or direction when dealing with clients. Promotions were more based on the friendship with management rather than actual qualifications, I found my co-workers did not function as a team and were more interested in partying with the manager, a functional alcoholic, than focusing on the well being of the clients or became enmeshed with clients and created an unsafe working environment  at  times.

Everyday is almost like walking into my  comfort zone. All of our staff work well together to ensure the benefits of the young people we work with. The hardest part sometimes of my job is witnessing the crisis and break downs of the young people I work with. Listening and learning about what they have gone through as young people is difficult emotionally sometimes, however the enjoyable part of the job is being part of the healing and recovering process of the young people to get them back on their feet again.

Benefits are very good however it doesn't make up for the lack of advancement, and communication.
People are not allowed to talk to each other.
Management doesn't communicate with employees only during department meeting.
Employees feel scared to loose their job every day so they never speak up about issues.
People are backstabbing each other to impress the management. The work environment is very bad and it's depressing to work there.

Child welfare is meaningful important work. I have learned so much working at CAST. In recent years the days have felt longer and the work harder. In addition to the budget cuts from the province it feels like we have to do more with a lot less. It’s a tough place to be in. But it’s manageable with a supportive supervisor. 

The Legal department at CAST is very toxic!  Non-stop complaining  by employees and EVERYONE is STRESSED! The benefits are amazing and salary is okay, but the workload is very heavy and quite unrealistic.  Great learning experience and opprotunity to be exposed to Child Welfare. Very talented group of legal professionals.  You will be challenged daily.

Good working environment and supportive management in difficult cases. Great experience.
Never the same experience at work . Everyday was a new experience. One learned to be open and accepting of everyone. Good benefits and vacation. Ongoing planning to improve the lives of the children and clients. More than just a starter social work position but a career.

Excellent place to work.  I feel that there is job security and a general sense of caring for needs of clients as well as employees.  It is a higher paying employer with this comes much responsibility and long hours at times.  Overall, employer is fair in decision making.

Caseloads are too high to effectively impact in a meaningful way. It is greaat work in helping children and youth overcome very difficult situations that they often have no control over.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Administrative assistant 6 salaries reported	$59,023 per year
Legal clerk 2 salaries reported	$64,213 per year
Child protection specialist 4 salaries reported	$97,751 per year
Youth worker 2 salaries reported	$72,093 per year
Counsel 1 salary reported	$130,297 per year

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