One year after a landmark report into the horrific death of an 11-year-old Indigenous boy in foster care called for a “complete overhaul” of B.C.’s child welfare system, the province’s child watchdog says the NDP government has a long way to go in improving conditions for the most vulnerable.
“We can do so much better for children and families,” said B.C.’s representative for children and youth, Jennifer Charlesworth.
Charlesworth says she’s worried that as the province faces a $10.9 billion deficit, key social services that keep families out of poverty and children safe will be cut.
“What we worry, because we have seen it many times … is that what gets cut are social programs. What gets cut are the very things that help stabilize and support families through those difficult times,” she said. “Poverty has a direct impact on child well-being.”
B.C. child rep report on boy’s death uncovers need for care system overhaul
The report detailed the many missteps by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and a number of other agencies that contributed to the child’s death.
Charlesworth called on the government to create a new child welfare strategy which includes more accountability for child welfare workers and helps First Nations take responsibility for child welfare in their communities.
The government has not yet completed the new child welfare strategy and provided no timeline for when it will be done.
Charlesworth says action is still needed on providing support to vulnerable families, including preventative services such as a basic income and housing. The report also calls for more work on preventing violence within the home and providing more resources to extended family caregivers.
“In the absence of doing the preventative services, we see very expensive services needed to be provided when a child is older, when the family is in a significant state of crisis or when the child has come into care,” Charlesworth said.
She says, for example, staffed group homes can cost up to $100,000 a month per child.
“Surely, we can do much more and much better for many families, with $1.2 million that might [be the] cost [of] the housing of one child with very significant needs, if we backed up the bus.”
Charlesworth also says the government must address the short-staffing among child welfare workers that can allow children to fall through the cracks. She says demand outstrips the current workforce capacity in the child welfare system.
Jodie Wickens, the minister of children and family development, says her office has added tools for oversight and tracking to make sure social workers are visiting children and youth at least once every 90 days.
According to the report, social workers had not visited the 11-year-old or his sister in seven months before he was found badly beaten in February 2021. The child was flown to a hospital in Vancouver, where he later died.
The identities of the boy and his sister are protected by a publication ban on children in care, but he is referred to as Colby in the report.
Wickens said her ministry has increased its workforce by almost 20 per cent in the last two years to address short-staffing concerns.
“So staffing has increased … but too many workers say they can’t fulfil their responsibilities to children with their current caseload,” Charlesworth said.
Wickens says the government has hired a new Indigenous child-welfare director, Jeremy Y’in Neduklhchulh Williams.
“He is the first of this kind in the entire country,” Wickens told CBC News.
He is helping facilitate agreements with First Nations who want to reclaim jurisdiction over child welfare. The province has signed agreements with 12 Nations, and dozens more are being negotiated.
Charlesworth says none of those 12 First Nations have consented to oversight from her office.
Charlesworth also says the government has not done enough to tap into the knowledge of First Nations communities and other community services to find better ways to support children and families.
Colby was a member of a First Nation in the Fraser Valley.
Colby and his sister were placed in the care of his mother’s cousin and her partner. This was despite the mother asking that the kids stay with their grandmother, and despite recorded allegations of sexualized violence involving the cousin’s partner.
According to the report, Colby asked several times not to be sent back to the home.
In 2023, the foster parents were sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated assault of the boy and his sister, and manslaughter.
