Children and Youth — Issue No. 2 — Monday, September 23, 2013 (HTML)

Present: Jane Thornthwaite, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Donna Barnett, MLA; Mike Bernier, MLA; Doug Donaldson, MLA; Maurine Karagianis, MLA; John Martin, MLA; Darryl Plecas, MLA; Jennifer Rice, MLA; Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA

2. The Representative for Children and Youth provided the Committee with an overview of the mandate of her office and an update on current work.

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions regarding the report entitled Trauma, Turmoil and Tragedy: Understanding the Needs of Children and Youth at Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm, An Aggregate Review.

• Melanie Mark, Associate Deputy Representative, Advocacy, Aboriginal and Community Relations

4. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions regarding the report entitled Who Protected Him? How B.C.'s Child Welfare System Failed One of Its Most Vulnerable Children

• Melanie Mark, Associate Deputy Representative, Advocacy, Aboriginal and Community Relations

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH


CONTENTS
Page
Office of the Representative for Children and Youth: Introduction and General Update	8
M. Turpel-Lafond

M. Mark


Representative for Children and Youth Report: Trauma, Turmoil and Tragedy: Understanding the Needs of Children and Youth at Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm — An Aggregate Review	16
M. Turpel-Lafond

Representative for Children and Youth Report: Who Protected Him? How B.C.'s Child Welfare System Failed One of Its Most Vulnerable Children	22
M. Turpel-Lafond

Committee Meeting Schedule	28

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): My name is Jane Thornthwaite. I'm the MLA for North Vancouver–Seymour as well as the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.

My co-Chair, Carole James. I thought maybe what we'd do is an introduction of the members first — plus we have a couple on the line — and then we can get an introduction from the representative's representatives as well.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Sure. Carole James, MLA for Victoria–Beacon Hill and critic for Ministry of Children and Families.

D. Donaldson: Hello. Doug Donaldson, MLA for Stikine and critic for Aboriginal Relations. I live on the Gitxsan territories in northwest B.C. — an 80 percent Gitxsan First Nation community and six different First Nations represented in Stikine. We have a history of many of the issues that the reports today are going to be highlighting, as far as youth in our population, so looking forward to the recommendations especially.

M. Karagianis: I'm Maurine Karagianis. I'm the MLA for Esquimalt–Royal Roads, and I'm currently serving as the critic for child care and women's issues. Great to see you all.

D. Barnett: I'm Donna Barnett. I'm the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin and Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Communities. I also come from an area where I have three different languages of First Nations. I have Tsilhqot'in, I have Carrier, and I have Shuswap. Within my riding there are approximately 20 different bands that we work with.

M. Bernier: Good afternoon. I'm Mike Bernier. I'm the MLA for Peace River South. I'm up in treaty 8 territory. It's my area.

D. Plecas: Good afternoon. Darryl Plecas. I'm the MLA for Abbotsford South and parliamentary secretary responsible for crime reduction.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): And we've got some members that are with us from afar. Maybe we could start with Jennifer.

J. Rice: Hello, I'm Jennifer Rice. I'm the MLA for North Coast, and I'm in Prince Rupert today. I'm glad to be here. I'm the critic for northern and rural health and deputy critic for Children and Family Development.

Moira was here, and now she's been disconnected. We're going to try and see if we can get her back into the swing of things. Moira is the MLA for Vancouver-Langara.

I'd like to introduce our Clerk and our research staff, and then we'll go to the representative.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Kate Ryan-Lloyd. I'm Clerk to the committee.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Thank you, Chair. I have with me John Greschner, who is the Deputy Representative for Children and Youth, and I also have with me at the table Melanie Mark, who is the associate deputy representative with a responsibility for advocacy and aboriginal community relations and youth engagement.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thank you, and welcome, everyone. This will be our second actual meeting but first getting into the meat of all the committee. I very much appreciate everybody making themselves available, coming down from wherever they are from and committing their time to this very important meeting.

The way that we've got ahead of us with regards to the agenda is that we are going to get an update from the representative, Mary Ellen, on her office. Then we're going to throw it open for questions. We've allotted, as you've got the draft agenda schedule in front of you, 30 minutes for Mary Ellen's presentation and then 15 minutes for questions.

Then we're going to go into two reports. The first one, which everybody should have read — Trauma, Turmoil
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and Tragedy. That one will be presented by our representative for 20 minutes and then, again, 30 minutes for questions from the committee members.

Then we'll go on to the second report, Who Protected Him? Again, a 20-minute presentation and then a 30-minute time for question-and-answer.

I would encourage all of us to keep to that time frame to ensure that all the members get an opportunity to ask questions. I do encourage you to ask questions so that we can get the most out of everybody's participation here.

At the very end we do have an opportunity for any other business. Key for that any other business will be setting another date for the meeting, because we do have quite a few more reports that we have to go through as well as the immediate meeting that we're having next, in November, with regards to the annual report and service plan.

We do have a pretty hefty agenda, at least for this term. We want to make sure that we get through it in the most fruitful way.

Does anybody have any questions with regards to that kind of procedural issue? Anybody got any questions before we delve into it?

Okay. So Mary Ellen, please begin. We're very much looking forward to your introduction to your office.

Office of the Representative
for Children and Youth: Introduction
and General Update

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, thank you again, Madam Chair. Let me just say, first of all, it's good to be here with the committee again. This is the 25th time as Representative for Children and Youth I've met with the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. Some people have been here almost from the beginning and attended almost all 25; I look at Maurine Karagianis in particular. We are now meeting with a new committee, so congratulations to Members of the Legislative Assembly that have joined the committee. I look forward to a very productive relationship.

You will have received recently a bit of a background package from my office, which gives a bit of a summary of the work to date. However, I'll also just draw your attention quickly to our service plan and annual report, which we're not talking about today but which, at page 28, has quite a valuable timeline of the work of the office from its inception in 2006 to present. It's a visual timeline.

For those who are extremely busy and certainly haven't had an opportunity to read the reports and so on, you will always have that opportunity to look at that timeline and get a sense of where we've come from and where we're going. Not surprisingly, you will find that many common themes will recur in the reporting from the representative's office to members of the committee.

What I was hoping to do is to give a brief overview or update on the work of my office. The work really involves the situation for vulnerable children and youth and families in British Columbia. It's an important area of government service and human need that really does require your focus and skill as we look at how we can improve the situation for some of the most vulnerable citizens in the province and how we can effectively collaborate across sides of the Legislative Assembly as well as with the senior officers in the administrative branch of government to see that change happens.

Just on that issue of change. I would like to just note that since 2006, when Mr. Ted Hughes produced the important report on the child welfare system that led to the creation of an independent representative's office, we continue to be buffeted by a significant degree of change.

There have been four Ministers of Children and Families. There have been three deputy ministers, including a recent shift in deputies in that ministry. I want to stop and take a moment to thank the deputy that just recently left, Deputy Minister Stephen Brown, who's now the Deputy Minister of Health. He provided excellent support. We had a very strong and effective collaborative relationship, and he appeared with me jointly and individually before this committee several times.

I'm certainly sorry to see him go, but found it to be a very valuable time, although the door revolves. We have a new deputy minister for Children and Families, Mark Sieben, who I'm sure will have an opportunity in the future to come and speak about the work of the ministry.

As well, since 2006 we've had three provincial directors of child welfare. We've had periods of time where there were no directors of child welfare, and we've had periods when there were other acting directors of child welfare. So again, a significant amount of change in an area that is frequently challenged.

On that front, I would like to recognize the recent transition there. Doug Hughes was the director of child welfare. He recently has been transitioned to be an ADM in the Ministry of Health. He restored the office of provincial director, and he worked very tirelessly in that role. We were very pleased to work closely with him.

We welcome the new provincial director of child welfare, Cory Heavener, who is moving from being the director of the office of domestic violence for the province into that role.

Cory spent five years at the representative's office, leading important investigations, including the investigations into the homicides of the Schoenborn children. So we know she has a long and deep career in child welfare. We look forward to her leadership in that role.

In any event, as you can see, there has been change. Change is a good thing, and it's a not-so-good thing. It's a not-so-good thing because we always need to take stock. New people like to cast a fresh set of eyes at things. If you
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look at the timeline in the annual report, you will see that recommendations have been made, work has been done, and sometimes along the way these changes lead to bumps. They lead to a bit of slippage. They also lead to a new opportunity to do greater work. So we welcome that, and we note that we do not want to lose initiative and effort on key issues for vulnerable families.

Just in terms of a very quick overview for those that are not familiar, my office has offices in three locations: the Victoria office, where John Greschner, my deputy, is — it's my headquarters office for myself; our Burnaby office, where my associate deputy, Melanie Mark, is the senior official; and an office in Prince George. So we're one of the few — if not, I believe, the only — independent offices of the Legislative Assembly that actually has a physical office. I don't really consider it the north, Prince George, but the near north, I guess. Sometimes people in Victoria consider it the far north. I never cease to meet people that have never been there.

But in any event, it is important for us to have a broad geographical coverage and to see children and youth throughout the province. Our advocacy staff is located in our offices throughout the province, and we're accessible to children and youth by phone and in person across British Columbia.

With respect to the staff in my office, we do have a competent and diverse group of dedicated professionals. I always want to recognize their hard work, their superb service and teamwork in support of the mandate that we have. They're a very dedicated and high-functioning team. I very much appreciate and value not only their expertise but their commitment to getting the work done.

Now a bit about the context of the work with respect to vulnerable children in British Columbia. We know in British Columbia that most children will grow up with their parents and family and have very positive outcomes. British Columbia presents a really fantastic set of opportunities for many families and many children. However, it is the cohort of children that don't tend to do as well and their circumstances that really draw our gaze and our attention — and the essential services to them and whether or not they, in fact, create opportunities for them to reach their maximum potential and their development.

So we tend to look at issues that impact the lives of children — issues sometimes outside the control of their parents and families and outside their control — such as poverty, abuse, neglect, addictions and domestic violence; or living with special needs that may impact the health, well-being and safety of children and youth. Each of these areas often requires government services and support to parents and families in caring for children and sometimes government intervention to ensure the health, safety and good development of children.

There are approximately 901,000 children and youth between the ages of birth and 18 living in B.C. In 2011-2012 about 17 percent of the zero-to-18-year-old child population were served by MCFD. That's about 155,000 children. That's across six different program areas.

The services include family support, early childhood development, child care subsidy, child and youth mental health, child and youth with special needs programming, youth transition supports and youth justice. Of the total child and youth population, there are about 13,000 children and youth living outside their parental home, in care of the province, with a caregiver supported by an MCFD or Aboriginal Affairs program, or living on their own under an MCFD youth agreement.

Children and youth in care receiving child welfare services tend to have poorer health and economic well-being outcomes than other children. This is something you'll see spoken about repeatedly in the reports of the representative's office. We pay great attention to their education achievement, whether they can be supported to improve their education outcomes and whether they could be supported to have more prosocial outcomes, as they experience higher rates of incarceration and dependence on income assistance.

So specific attention and consideration is given by my office to the situation of vulnerable children and monitoring these services and programs to understand if they're effective and responsive to their needs, if they accomplish their aims and services and whether or not we are changing the outcomes for some of our most deeply vulnerable children.

Not surprisingly, a strong focus of the work is on aboriginal children, including aboriginal children in care or those receiving services, because they, even in the cohort of deeply vulnerable children, have some of the poorest outcomes.

Although only 8 percent of children and youth in B.C. are aboriginal, as of August 2013, 52 percent of children and youth in care were aboriginal. That continues to grow.

The disproportionate representation of aboriginal children and youth in the child welfare system and the disparity in outcomes between non-aboriginal and aboriginal children is a key focus for my work. You will see some additional reports. A report was filed last week on an aboriginal child, and you will see reports in the near future, in the months ahead, on aboriginal child and family service issues and individual aboriginal children. So this is a major focus of attention in the representative's office.

Just speaking of that recent report that was issued, we're not considering it today. We will have it, as I understand, in meeting with the Chair and vice-Chair of the committee, at a future meeting.

However, again, I'm happy to note that it was released, and I was very pleased to see that the recommendations contained in that report — really, there are only two — were accepted by both the Ministry of Children and Family Development here in British Columbia as well
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as by the government of Saskatchewan, as the child was transferred by B.C. child welfare officials to Saskatchewan and now lives in foster care. She's eight years old, in Saskatchewan. So I look forward to discussing that report with you in detail.

In terms of the volume of work, our advocacy program continues to receive a large volume of calls for assistance. Approximately 800 new cases have been opened this fiscal year. Since we opened in 2007, there have been nearly 11,000 advocacy cases handled by the representative's office. Those contacting us for advocacy support most often feel frustrated, ignored, perplexed or unable to navigate a complex system.

Next Monday, September 30, our advocacy mandate will change by virtue of the legislative amendments that were passed before the spring election. That will allow us to advocate for young adults from the age of 19 to 24. Our current mandate allows us only to advocate up to 19. Now we'll be able to advocate right through to the age of 24, particularly for young adults with developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorders and/or fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and those who are transitioning out of the child-serving system into the adult system, particularly where their target of service is CLBC.

In planning for the implementation of this service, we've had the assistance of a working group from among many community organizations that serve young people. We've developed a very good MOU, which I hope to sign later this week, with CLBC, the primary service provider with whom much of the advocacy focus will be oriented.

On September 10, I presented a budget request associated with taking on this new work before the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We'd been granted, in April, some contingency funding to get prepared for this work. I was happy that the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services approved our funding request, and we anticipate being supported in that regard.

There is still work to be done with respect to the scope of that advocacy. We're ironing that out in terms of whether the order-in-council that's in place, commencing next Monday, is sufficient to cover some of the additional services that we'll need to advocate with respect to including mental health, addictions and some specialized health services.

I look forward, very much, to celebrate that beginning. I can say that we have a number of cases that have been on hold, if you like, for some time of young adults in that cohort of the 19- to 24-year-olds. You'll be hearing more about that as that advocacy mandate expands and we get some experience and see what we learn and what we find out.

On another matter, I've been active since this past June on the issue of tuition waivers for children in care. I issued a challenge to post-secondary institutions in B.C. to establish programs to waive tuition for children in care and children aging out of the care system so that they would find attending post-secondary education more attractive and easier, because they're very intimidated by the costs and the barriers.

I was happy that Vancouver Island University was the first off the mark and accepted that. I am pleased to report that there are about eight students currently attending Vancouver Island University who are involved with this program. There are other applications pending, which have yet to be approved.

The challenge was put out in June. And as of September, actually, that university was able to move that agenda. I am extremely grateful to the president and the board of governors and everyone at Vancouver Island University, who have been very supportive.

We're working very hard with a number of young people to make sure that they make it through that system. There have been very positive signals from other institutions. I expect some announcements in the weeks and months ahead indicating that some of our other large post-secondary institutions in B.C. will also accept the challenge I put out for tuition waivers.

This is very positive. I think it's always good to share with the committee some of the positive news, and this, certainly, is an example of it. However, I don't expect the doors of the post-secondary institutions to be pulled off the hinges by young people rushing in, because the quality of education that children in care receive is not sufficient to make it a seamless admission from high school in. In fact, in the past four years not a single child in care enrolled in and completed precalculus mathematics 12, which is a requirement for almost any science and technology program in a post-secondary institution in B.C.

There is much work to be done. My office is deeply engaged in that work with the superintendents of achievement in the education system, with the school districts, and we hope to keep working closely with foster parents and others to see that we can improve the education achievement early so that there will be a greater cohort of students there as we try and support them better on the post-secondary side.

This has been very satisfying. I think it will be extremely positive in the future. Now, just about half of the children that age out of care age out on to social assistance, so we have to change that. This is one small initiative, but an important one in that way.

In November we are planning a bit of a workshop on some of the issues for young people transitioning into post-secondary education with some of the institutions that have stepped forward and some of the others who are working on it. We'll be inviting members of the committee to participate and listen in on that and see what we can achieve together to try and make it a more seamless process. I can say that there have been some extremely supportive corporate citizens in British Columbia that
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have stepped forward to support for living expenses for some of the young people who have enrolled this fall.

On another matter, this week my office will be hosting the Biennial Staff Training Conference of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates. Approximately 80 staff from ten provinces and territories will gather here in British Columbia to learn from experts and each other about advocacy, investigations and public reporting.

We will also hold our sixth annual awards of excellence, this year to be hosted by Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor, Judith Guichon, at Government House. I'm pleased that the Chair and vice-Chair of the committee will be joining us at the awards this week and will be presenters at that event. This is very important, to recognize the excellence among people who serve our communities and our most vulnerable children in British Columbia. It's important to not only recognize the excellence but to become inspired by it so that we can remain positive and tenacious in improving these supports.

During the next number of months, just a few brief updates on work that you will see, if not before you as a committee where we discuss it, at least tabled with you. A number of reports should be forthcoming. One is a comprehensive review of aboriginal child welfare policy in British Columbia. Second is an investigation into the suicide death of an aboriginal youth in a remote community. Thirdly is a review of MCFD's adoption program, and fourthly, an investigation of a critical injury of a child in the context of parental addictions.

We are also busily engaged in a number of other reports that are not yet at fruition but that are quite significant. One is an aggregate review of sexual assaults, primarily on girls and aboriginal girls. An update on our previous report called Growing Up in B.C., which looks at outcomes achieved for children across key domains. That's a joint initiative with the provincial health officer, Perry Kendall. We are preparing an analysis of the recommendations and the status of the recommendations made to date in a variety of reports of our office for consideration by the public and this committee.

We continue to monitor what's called residential redesign or residential services in MCFD, such as foster care, group homes, etc. We continue to monitor closely the ICM, or integrated case management information system, its performance and implementation.

On that issue of ICM, I just want to complete my remarks — and then open it to discussion — to say that I continue to have some concerns about the impact of the new ICM or case management system on child safety. In July 2012, I issued a rare public statement citing some concerns about public safety and safety to children as that system was being implemented. It commenced implementation in April 2012.

Today, 14 months later, I'm still concerned that ICM continues to be plagued by a plethora of technical issues and that it's an ineffective tool to provide safety to vulnerable children, youth and families in B.C.

There have been lots of recent discussions between my staff and MCFD from across the province. They demonstrated that many of the issues I raised in the past continued to remain unresolved — they need to be tackled — such as being able to conduct an accurate search, issues identifying key people involved with a client, issues with duplicate records, issues determining client history and service interactions.

In addition, MCFD front-line staff have identified to my office a number of new problems that raise even greater concerns, such as pertinent information disappearing off the system and the non-responsiveness of the system with end users being unexpectedly kicked off the system or having the system hang on them. This is not acceptable in an environment where children's safety is dependent on access to timely information.

I'm also not satisfied with the quality assurance activities that MCFD has undertaken to date. The safety checks that the ministry undertook did not address my concerns about how individuals are connected to each other in the system and how pertinent information is connected to the individuals.

As time passes and serious questions remain about the completeness, integrity and accessibility of the data in the system, the problems essentially compound. As the Representative for Children and Youth, it's my responsibility to raise these issues and keep decision-makers and the public informed. I have not retracted the safety warning, and it still stands today.

I appreciate that that might be a matter of concern to members of the committee, and I'm happy to respond to any questions or inquiries you have about that and about the status of that issue.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Just a couple of initial questions. One is around the expansion of your mandate to include children aging out of care and children with special needs, adults that turn 19. I wondered how the information is getting out that your office is actually going to have that expanded mandate.

I think part of the challenge will be to inform people in the field that that expanded mandate will be there, that it will be beginning. I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about how the information is getting out, whether there is any kind of partnership with the ministry or with Community Living to get that information.

The second question is related to recommendations that come forward in your reports. As we know at this committee, one of the things that happens is that reports come to this committee. We get an opportunity to go
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through them, and they go to the ministry. The ministry makes their comments on the reports.

I wondered, from your perspective in the representative's office, what kind of follow-up is being done on those recommendations and what kind of work is being done in that area so that we can have a discussion on what role we as a committee can play in that accountability as well.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Great. I think on the first, I'm going to ask my associate deputy, Melanie Mark, to talk about the campaign, if you like, to inform people, because we've been pretty busy on that front. She's been spearheading that, so I'll ask Melanie to answer that, and I'll come back to the question on recommendations.

M. Mark: Thank you for the question, Carole. On Monday, September 30, we'll be having a community launch to publicly announce our new mandate. We've done a blitz of e-mails to our stakeholders that we currently have at RCY.

We're also working with our external advisory — comprised of the Public Guardian and Trustee, CLBC, former MSD and AG's office — around some of those changes and informing their staff. We're really doing a blitz on using social media and new methods to inform young people about our mandate. So expect it on September 30 and throughout the month, just to raise awareness via social media. Facebook and Twitter will also be used.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you. It would be helpful if MLAs received that in their community offices, because we often have people come to our offices asking about that information, so just one other source. It might be helpful for all of us, as MLAs, to have that information in our offices too.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yes, we'll make sure that you receive copies of that. And we do have some updated literature that we'll be circulating for MLAs and others, for your constituency assistants to be able to direct any incoming matters to us.

On the issue of recommendations, the annual report and service plan that was tabled has a quick, very high-level rundown on recommendations, but you will note from looking at it that there are a number of recommendations that are outstanding. This again, given the degree of change that happens in the leadership in MCFD, can be a challenge at times.

Certainly, we have been tracking the recommendations. We are often in very deep with the ministry, and a variety of ministries, on recommendations, and it's important to see them accomplished. I can give one example, which is probably one of the most pressing.

They're all very important, but one that's very pressing is the report we did that was released on March 1, 2012, on the domestic violence homicides of Kaitlynne, Max and Cordon Schoenborn. That was a very important and extensive report that indicated that the deaths of those three children could have been prevented had we had an effective domestic violence strategy to protect their mother and to protect them. It was absent. It was sort of stunningly absent.

One of the recommendations in that report, a very key recommendation, was that there be a permanent lead in government on domestic violence. Actually, the day the report was released it was set up — the provincial office of domestic violence. We were very pleased about that.

But it also called for a comprehensive domestic violence strategy in British Columbia to be finalized by September 3, 2012, and fully implemented by April 2013. Well, we are now in September 2013, and we do not have that plan. I appreciate that there's been a lot of work put into it. I've been briefed periodically. But again, these recommendations need to be carefully tracked.

I refer to that one because I think that people who are leading the legislative side of government make very strong commitments. The day that report was released, the Premier, Christy Clark, the minister, then Mary McNeil, and everyone was really pretty much united in the Legislative Assembly that this has to be done, and they committed to doing it on a timeline. But here we are in September 2013, and it's not done.

It continues to concern me, because we have domestic violence homicides of children. We haven't had another domestic violence homicide panel by the Coroners Service.

We have reportables. The reports we'll talk about today affect domestic violence. Domestic violence is common in the lives of some of the most vulnerable children. So on the recommendations it's sporadic, but it is a point of some, certainly, frustration in terms of the oversight role, where you have a very strong commitment. But we have to get through to the finish line.

I certainly leave that with the committee to consider whether the committee may be able to take a more active role in monitoring the recommendations and giving some advice to the representative's office on how we can report to you on recommendations to make it meaningful. Obviously, we want all sides of the Legislative Assembly to work cooperatively together, to take the politics out of the issues for children. But we have to monitor government's performance around this, and the domestic violence area is a key one.

I was hoping to be able to come to this very first meeting after the last general election to say that there was a plan, and it's unfortunate that we do not have a plan. It certainly causes me some degree of despair that we haven't made a lot of progress on one of the most important areas, which is domestic violence.
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D. Donaldson: A couple of broad questions. Do you meet regularly with the Minister of Children and Family Development, and is that part of the role you see? Do you think that's helpful? Have you met with the new minister yet?

Then something to drill down a little bit is on recommendations that are actually implemented. Is it the role of your office to monitor the efficacy of those recommendations? If not, who monitors whether what you've recommended is actually addressing what you hoped it would address?

M. Turpel-Lafond: With respect to the relationship side, I meet regularly with the Minister of Children and Family Development to address issues.

Of course, certainly, we have a very robust administrative fairness process before a report is produced, so senior officials have an opportunity to identify errors and omissions. Then we sit and discuss. We invite their input into any recommendations. Then I have a pretty extensive debriefing process in advance with the minister. Apart from that, we meet periodically to review priorities and progress. That's important at that level as well as with senior officials — the assistant deputy ministers, deputy minister and others.

Again, there's been a recent change in the director of child protection, which is an ADM role in MCFD, and there has recently been a new person added to be an ADM for regional operations. So the structure of MCFD has changed again — I'm hoping, for the better. But in any event, the structure has changed again. We do meet, and we do focus on it, and we do track and engage on some of these issues.

Around the recommendations, I think it is important for the representative's office to touch ground on the recommendations. Of course, we can't be responsible for their implementation, because we're not government. But it is important that we track them sufficiently to report on them because, as we know….

For instance, with the homicides of the Schoenborn children, my office produced a report about 18 months prior on the death of Christian Lee, another domestic violence homicide. In a response to that, there was not a lot of activity, so when we did the second report with the three homicides, some of the recommendations built on what had been done but identified that work had not been done.

It's a theme that comes back again and again, so we will be on that theme, because it's a major issue. For instance, domestic violence and children, implementing recommendations, is important to report on, and it is challenging to report on, but it's also very important that MCFD speak about what it has accomplished or hasn't accomplished.

Around the ministry's general performance in fulfilling its six service lines and its effectiveness for children and youth, it is important that the ministry reports comprehensively. It has a service plan. It does an annual report. It needs to identify key outcomes and measures and say what it's accomplishing for children and youth.

We're very involved with them — that that be a meaningful process, that there be real accountability and transparency around that. But until that becomes a reality — if you like, a regularized, routinized performance report from MCFD — we will continue to have to get in and frequently do periodic reviews and reports.

When our mandate was reviewed by the select standing committee prior to this one, we looked at whether or not my office needs to continue to do auditing, monitoring, a review of the ministry. I think the deputy minister of the day, Stephen Brown, was quite forthright to come forward and say that not only does it need it, but it's necessary. They need it. The ministry themselves would like it because they haven't quite got there yet. Not that they're not committed, but we haven't got there.

The depth of review — it depends. The issue of ICM is a good example. My office could easily become a co-manager of ICM with them. It's not an appropriate role for an oversight body; they need to put in place effective management. But I need to be able to periodically evaluate how it's going and report to you and members of the public. The depth and frequency is something that we have to determine. At this point, we've been fairly robust in that regard.

M. Karagianis: Mary Ellen, there has been a great deal of concern recently with service cuts, some of them as a result of ICM, to organizations like PEERS, the prostitution empowerment and employment resource society.

Coming out of the recent Missing Women Inquiry, there were a number of very strong recommendations made about more support services for people in the sex trade. We know, realistically, that many of those, people involved in it at an early age, are young people, marginalized individuals who find themselves in the sex trade. Also, the number of young women who have gone missing along the Highway of Tears are youth.

I am concerned about having more advocacy for young people in the sex trade. It's not something that you have reported on directly, although I know that you have certainly had some consideration of the vulnerability of youth in the sex trade.

Can you comment at all on this? I mean, it certainly moves us away from the Children and Families Ministry considerably, but I would think that it would be a key piece of work for you. You may be involved now and we're not aware of it, but I'd like you to comment on that, if you could, please.

M. Turpel-Lafond: First of all, just the terminology that we use about the sex trade and children: they're
[ Page 14 ]
sexually exploited. I think survival sex work in British Columbia, from our experience….

Like for instance, the report that I issued last week was about a child born to a mom doing survival sex work, an aboriginal mom escaping a horrific child welfare horror situation — indeed, intergenerational kind of residential school abuse, where she was sexually abused. She was doing survival sex work, had three children she could not care for and struggled deeply. Working with vulnerable kids often means working with vulnerable moms.

The issues around young girls and women who are sexually exploited are major issues of concern to my office. We work as an advocate in many of those cases. We are very concerned about young people who are in care, have not been in a family setting for some time. The number of reports of sexual assaults on young girls — and boys, but primarily girls — who are in the care of the state is quite staggering and surprising.

Hence, we are doing this cluster aggregate report on sexual assaults. It's just an aggregate of what's reported to us, but it shows a bit of a trajectory of young people who have been abused and neglected, are not finding support as youth and are sexually exploited — often non-consensual sexual encounters where they're hurt and for which very little action is taken either in the medical system or in the justice system.

The issue of safety for a cohort of young women is a significant issue in British Columbia, and it needs attention. It sort of goes hand in hand with some of the work we've done on the domestic violence side, but that vulnerability is there. The safety gaps are important.

Whether or not the existing services are there for these young women or their mothers is an issue, and how service changes impact that. We do see, through some of these front-line service agencies that are serving street-involved citizens, whether they be 17 or 25…. They are identifying a young population that's sexually exploited, and they are very concerned about the supports they can offer, because they frequently can't put in a safe house the 14-year-old and the 30-year-old. We do have a lot of issues where there are short-term solutions and not necessarily good policies.

I take a very strong interest in it. We're involved a bit in some efforts in the Lower Mainland, which tends to be a magnet for that. Although, I have to say that survival sex work and sexual exploitation of young people are all over the province — not only the deeply vulnerable abuse but also the rise of Internet, the rise of sharing sexual images. We are now having our first prosecution of a 16-year-old for sharing an image of someone else. There are a lot of issues with respect to sexual exploitation concerns.

Particularly around the victims, it's an area that my office has looked at. There are not prescribed programs or designated programs so much as there are community service agencies that have had a mandate, like PEERS. But there isn't necessarily a program to prevent the sexual exploitation of girls and women in British Columbia.

That's an area where…. We can't really monitor something that doesn't exist, but it's a problem that is a significant problem to us, for sure.

D. Plecas: Thank you, Madam Chair, and I apologize for even asking a question. I promised Mary Ellen in walking in here that I wouldn't ask a question; I'd spend my time listening.

I probably should be more up to speed on this, because I've heard this over and over and over again for the last four decades, but this whole matter of overrepresentation of aboriginal youth. I know, of course, your office responds to the consequence of that and the underlying issues, but I'm just wondering if you could tell us: how far does your office go to exploring why we would have the overrepresentation in the first instance?

Maybe you could comment on: are there things that we ought to be doing to get us past this so that we're not going into the next decade with this same issue?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Sure. With respect to aboriginal children, we are very deeply involved in both the issues of understanding the root causes and also looking at whether or not we have effective policy framework in British Columbia to respond to the difficult circumstances that far too many aboriginal children and youth experience in their families.

So with respect to root causes, understanding the pathways of aboriginal children in and out of care…. For instance, one in five aboriginal children will be exposed to the child welfare system directly during their childhood. We have a daily snapshot of how many are in care. But how many throughout their childhood will have exposure to it? They're not exposed to it just because there are overzealous social workers targeting them.

They're exposed to it because they experience a significant amount of neglect, partially because of the intergenerational impacts of residential school and parental poverty and other factors, but also because there is maltreatment.

This raises some fundamental issues about how we change some of those situations. The dynamics of the aboriginal population in B.C. are unique; 80 percent of the aboriginal population is off reserve and growing. The aboriginal youth population is one of the fastest-growing segments of the population, given dependency ratios and birth rates. So it's a unique situation, a population that requires a great deal of understanding and support.
[ Page 15 ]

At the same time, we have been doing a much better job in some areas — not good enough, but a much better job. Education outcomes for aboriginal children in B.C. have improved from about 20 percent graduation rates to close to 40 percent graduation rates over a period of about 15 years.

That is in part because there has been a very strong focus. Whether those results are both on and off reserve is unclear because we don't have any data on reserve. The off-reserve data is better, and we are working very hard at that. Still, that's only a fraction of what it is for the average British Columbian, which is closer to 83 percent graduation within the expected six years of attending high school.

So we're closing gaps, but not very rapidly. We've been stalled for many years. Absolutely, we're very interested in root causes and outcomes. We're also very interested in understanding what the policy framework is. Does government have a sound policy framework? Is it effective? Is it responsive?

Hence, we will issue soon a review of ten years of policy, and we will, I think, be able to speak publicly about what we find with respect to that. That's been a gargantuan task, looking at it across government. Not surprisingly, different times and different people have various ideas about that. Whether any of them have worked is another thing all together. It's an area that we will be talking about again and again.

On the purely research and evidence side, we have done, I think, in B.C. through the representative's office, with our partners like the provincial health officer, probably some of the broadest research that's been done in Canada on the pathways of families and children in and out of services. It continues to concern me that what actual children get is unknown and inadequate when a significant expenditure of resources goes into the topic. But what do actual children receive to change their life circumstance?

Too often what I find is the child on the waiting list for five years for speech pathology in a region. Yet there has been a significant inflow of money to a program, but it doesn't get to the child. So this is a major concern around how services are delivered.

I do have the opportunity to speak on occasion with the federal minister and the federal officials with respect to these issues for aboriginal children, and find that very valuable because they also have responsibilities, policies and programs. Some of them are failed policies and programs, frankly, which they're grappling with. These are major concerns.

With respect to British Columbia's mandate, the child welfare regime is a provincial regime. The educational regime is a provincial regime. Even though we have a tripartite agreement, it is the School Act that governs. We still don't see sufficient success. So you will hear a lot in this committee about this subject.

We are engaged with the Canada Research Chair, Prof. Aron Shlonsky from the University of Toronto. He's the Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare, who is looking at a very comprehensive work with us on pathways of aboriginal children through all social services to better understand if we have more opportunities to support children. We will be reporting on that as well.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): We need to move on, but I am recognizing that Darryl had another question, as well as Carole. But I'd like to just touch base with our folks from beyond.

Carole, do you want to start off with your question, or can one of them be encompassed in some of the other sections?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Just a really quick question on ICM. You mentioned ICM, and Maurine talked about PEERS. Part of the challenge with PEERS is also an ICM issue on the other ministry side, on the Social Development side. I wondered whether you've had anything specific from the ministry.

I admit my frustration at not being able to get that, as well, on exactly what fixes are being put in place now for the challenges around, particularly in the Ministry of Children and Families, alerts that are on files, information that seems to be there and then not there. We've had those concerns expressed by social workers worried about missing information. I wondered if you've had anything very specific around work that's being done by the ministry on the challenges that ICM continues to have.

M. Turpel-Lafond: We have received some general updates. They, again, in their shifting of responsibilities in their associate deputy minister level, realigned their responsibilities for ICM just a bit more than a week ago. So they've changed that around. A consultant was hired to prepare two reports to advise them. Those reports were received. They've briefed us on it.

I continue to be concerned, though, because the same sort of management team is in place that was there from the beginning, and it was a very poorly launched initiative. The burden placed on those people who do, particularly, the child welfare work is so significant, and the worker frustration and ineffectiveness around this are very fundamental.

They assure me that they're going to be able to fix it but possibly not until the end of 2014. In the meantime, what steps will be taken and by whom? This is why I refused to
[ Page 16 ]
remove my safety warning, my flag, and I will continue to monitor it. The new deputy minister at MCFD has certainly written to me in response to correspondence I sent to him, indicating some of the steps that he will take. But they haven't taken the step yet to have the independent governance oversight that they committed to.

When Deputy Minister Brown was there, there was a commitment to a remediation plan. Some of that has been done, but new problems have arisen, so I certainly am not in a comfortable place at this point to say that I'm satisfied with where this is.

I'm also very concerned they had a one-time arrangement to hire approximately 100 workers to sort of backfill while the training was happening. That ended. I think they're going to be carrying them over for a period of time. What they're going to do and how useful they are, office to office, is unknown. I, certainly in my engagements, hear different things, but the fact that the fundamental functionality is not there yet raises these big issues around safety. That hasn't been fixed.

I suspect we will be reporting to you at every update on this issue, and I'm certainly not satisfied with where the issue is today.

D. Plecas: My question goes back to your introduction. You mentioned the whole business of the difficulty aboriginal youth, in particular, have — or children in care, generally — with getting the prerequisites to enter post-secondary. I'm just wondering if you've looked at the whole idea of: let's just not have those prerequisites. I think some of that is very, very overrated, or there's a way of dealing with the matter of prerequisites once somebody is into post-secondary and far along in it.

I mean, I know there are university presidents who would say that most all of the prerequisites required are unnecessary, and my own experience as a professor for 34 years would say that's very true.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Perhaps that's confined to the field of criminal justice. I don't know. But in any event, the issue of not having the prerequisites is a pretty…. Is it something that can be solved another way? Yeah, you can ladder people in, take them into access programs and backfill.

The challenge is when you have a young person in care who has moved 20 times and has attended 14 schools and never got fundamentals. It can be done. It's usually not going to happen at 18. It sometimes doesn't happen until 30, and by then, some other entrenched activities replace that.

Laddering is there. We have a college and university system. Vancouver Island University is a ladder often, and we found programs. The fact of the matter is I remain insistent with the superintendents of achievement that I meet with to say it's unacceptable that of all the children in care, no one is in pre-calculus math. It's not acceptable.

It's unacceptable that when it comes to aboriginal children as a population, only a small subset is there, partially because they don't have math and science teachers on reserve. These are things that we need to fix earlier, not later, or we need to do many things at once.

You're right. Admissions criteria are there. Most universities are loath to waive admission requirements — very loath to waive them — in part because they've had experience where students do not succeed. You're not doing anyone a favour by bringing them into a program and them failing, as opposed to preparing them.

There are many ways to skin that cat, and I think everything should be tried, but the fact that no one takes pre-calculus math is also a sign that they're not paying sufficient attention to what young people are taking.

Until a few years ago, and even still, I would say it's unclear who is responsible for monitoring the education status of children in care. Well, the state is the parent, so they're the guardian. You have a guardianship social worker, but then you have a foster parent. Is the foster parent the one? The foster parents often phone me and say: "We need to do more here." It's the confusion around who's doing what. When there's confusion about who does what, generally nothing happens.

I've tried to make a lot of points of accountability around education achievement for kids in care, whether it's from kindergarten forward, and for them to receive what they need. They may need a specialized learning plan in every instance. I'm inclined toward thinking that, and I'd like every school district to perhaps go down that road. I'm hoping that once the Ministry of Education has a deputy assigned to it, we will take this work up with them again.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thank you. I think we'll go on to the next topic. Mary Ellen, if you could give us an overview of Trauma, Turmoil and Tragedy. Again, 20 minutes max, and then we'll go on to questions after that.

Representative for Children
and Youth Report:
Trauma, Turmoil and Tragedy:
Understanding the Needs of Children and
Youth at Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm —
An Aggregate Review

M. Turpel-Lafond: Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I'll try and actually make it a little bit briefer and allow for the fact that our question time is important.

This is a report that was released last November. It looked at a cohort of cases that were reported to my of-
[ Page 17 ]
fice between 2007 and 2010 of 89 suicide and self-harm incidents. This was the second aggregate review. We did one before of the deaths of children under two, which were largely sleeping deaths.

Included in this review of 89 were 15 youth who died as a result of suicide and 74 youth who were engaged in self-injury. Each of these 89 youth had received services from MCFD.

We looked at some common characteristics in their lives. Certainly, among the common characteristics were chronic instability at home, mental health issues, substance abuse and unaddressed trauma among the shared experience of British Columbia youth at risk of suicide or self-injury. It also revealed again a significant overrepresentation of aboriginal children as well as issues around compliance with the ministry to its own standards.

These aggregate reports are prepared to look at a variety of a number of cases and see what we can learn from them. Again, they're not to assign blame. Certainly, the representative's office recognizes that not all suicides or serious injuries are preventable, but we do want to look and see what services and supports were there.

Most of the youth here had a long history of involvement, which means that for most of them, there were many opportunities to help reduce their vulnerability and improve their chances of a positive outcome.

I want to just speak about the issue of instability, because it was certainly a line of questioning when we were discussing education outcomes earlier. Instability was a big factor in the lives of youth in this report. Of the 89 youth who were reviewed, 58 were in the care of MCFD, meaning they were children in care at the time of the incident. Those 58 youth in care had a combined total of 776 moves in care. Five of them had been moved more than 30 times. On average, the youth in care experienced a dozen moves while in care.

Quite apart from anything else happening — abuse, neglect — this instability in their lives and disruption obviously have impacted their social attachments, their meaningful relationships and even their ability to seek out and feel trust and support in the services around them.

In terms of those young people, the government is required to have a comprehensive plan of care. Only about 69 percent of the cases had one on file. The compliance with practice standards varied. Mental health concerns were identified in 70 percent of the cases. It's clear that they were having mental health challenges. They weren't new; they were already identified at some level. Whether or not there was clarity around their level of risk and the services offered to them was unknown.

On that point, I note…. We're not going to speak about it today, but my office did do a more comprehensive report looking at adolescent mental health services. We will meet and brief you about that in the future, and that looks more at the system of services. This looks at a group of children or youth that were in MCFD services already.

Lack of attachment to school was a big factor in this cohort of 89. As well, in more than half the files that were reviewed, domestic violence was a factor — a very significant factor around violence, loss and trauma.

We include a number of case examples from the cohort in our report. I encourage you, if you haven't had a chance, to look at them to understand the pathways of some of the young people who are coping with significant parental addictions, domestic violence, and sometimes left in a circumstance where you have entrenched parental addictions and domestic violence well known to the ministry. The level of despair by the adolescent is so significant that they actually take their own life. We're very concerned about not adequately protecting the child from the turmoil in their life in many of these cases.

The report recommends that MCFD takes steps to address trauma experienced by these children, including conducting a thorough assessment when a child comes into care about past trauma, and to align its services to address trauma — so trauma-informed service. We look at, in the report, some of the requirements of a more trauma-informed approach to looking after children and aligning service standards. You will see on page 37 some of the key components of what a trauma-informed system is in terms of being more strengths-based and holistic but also knowledgable in terms of the interventions.

As I said earlier, my reports try not to have hundreds of recommendations. We try to have one or two very focused recommendations that can be achieved. This had one major recommendation. That was a recommendation that MCFD have a thorough assessment.

The recommendation, which is on page 39 of the report, speaks to needing to have this good assessment, planning for services that will help them recover from early trauma, and trauma-specific screening and assessment when significant events in life occur and having a review of a plan of care each time something like that happens, and clear strategy to reduce the number of moves and disruptions experienced by children in care — so more stability, better planning, more effective response from the ministry.

With respect to the recommendations, we have not yet had a formal response from the ministry. We had a very good discussion of the report, but we haven't had a formal response. I know that with the outgoing provincial director of child welfare, Doug Hughes, we spoke extensively about the desire, on his part, that staff that do guardianship work with children in care, receive trauma-informed training so that they can align their services to understanding more about children. I'm not clear whether or not a competent plan was prepared in that respect, but we certainly did discuss it.

We have a meeting scheduled for mid-October with MCFD to hear about the response to the recommenda-
[ Page 18 ]
tions. I'll leave it there and entertain any questions that members may have.

J. Martin: As a new member of the committee, I thank you for the previous overview of the work you're doing. It's so helpful to have some context in the big picture.

One thing that I'm finding particularly troubling is…. We see crime rates across the board, social disorganization and interpersonal violence. We're at a 40-year low across the board — obviously, some categories more so than others. If we look at some of the rationale for why we might be at that 40-year low, including shifting demographics, we see different systems at play. We see different agencies collaborating and integrating their services. We're seeing superior mining of intelligence. We're seeing data management that was unthinkable even 15 years ago. Yet that's either not working in this particular area, or it's not happening.

I'm just looking for how this one particular area, social pathology, just has not followed that trend. All other areas related to criminal justice have gone in the opposite direction.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I think that in part, when we are dealing with the issues for children…. It's sort of criminal justice, in a sense. the first thing we have to remember when it comes to the issues around child maltreatment is that there are very few hands of the criminal justice system in the area. This, again, tends to be more in the family and in the realm of child welfare.

Protecting children from maltreatment, physical and sexual abuse, neglect, engaging to supervise. There's kind of a ladder that we go up from least intrusive measures — engaging to give family support — right through to removal of children.

The population that we're dealing with here of young people and children and youth is the population that continues to fall into that cohort. The criminal justice system, in terms of an abuse of a child…. The report that we put out last week on a girl that was very severely malnourished and abused. The grandparents were convicted of failing to provide the necessities of life and sentenced to three years in jail.

Child abuse convictions are rare. They're rare. They're few and far between, including in British Columbia, just like sexual assault convictions are few and far between on this cohort, in part because three-year-olds don't provide the greatest evidence and, furthermore, because it tends to be a more entrenched issue that child welfare services are engaged with.

On the population here, though, when your question is why, there are still children that are maltreated and abused. In terms of this trajectory, just about two-thirds of the kids in this group, the 89, were kids in care. They were in care for a reason or had come in and put back, so we can see the need to….

First of all, they're known by government. They're known by the Ministry of Children and Families. It's not a child that was unknown. There may have been reports and services provided six or seven times, but what was the service? Were they put on a referral list?

Your question speaks to the issue of collaboration, cooperation and information management. I would just suggest to you that I do not think that's there.

First of all, I just spoke to the information management issue. We have a dysfunctional information management system in British Columbia that just got worse, even though, in point of fact, we spent $200 million on it.

On the actual collaboration part, there is not a lot of collaboration. I would certainly say to you that we barely have a child welfare system in British Columbia. It's knit together a little bit, and it's pretty dicey in places.

Not surprisingly, many of the children that we look at here, who are injuring or committing suicide, later will be children that have in some ways been missed or passed over through that process. There is an opportunity to respond more actively early and more positively early and maybe develop that better collaboration that you speak about, and planning and engagement.

They're largely children that don't have the natural benefits of an intact family that will be able to advocate for services or supports and keep an eye on them. Particularly when you're moving 30 times, there's really no consistent eye on your development.

Even if an intact family moved 30 times, I can virtually guarantee you that the children are going to have some reactive attachment issues. But when you're a child in care moving 30 times, that's pretty significant, yet the state is the parent. We really have to calm down the reasons for them and look at them much more closely.

C. James (Deputy Chair): A couple of things. You mentioned that you haven't met with the ministry yet or that the ministry will still provide information, so I'll be interested, perhaps at our next meeting, to just hear a little bit about any of their recommendations.

On the trauma support services. I talked to a foster family two weeks ago who told me that they took in a foster child whose mother had died, and it was almost nine months before they were able to get counselling for that young child. I think the trauma supports are critical and should be an ongoing part, you would expect, for most kids who come into care who have suffered some kind of trauma.

On the issue of tracking and the issue of moves, are you aware of anything that the ministry is doing specifically to track the number of moves of children in care? This will follow on our next report as well — the same kinds of issues of the number of moves and whether there's any kind of tracking being done on that?
[ Page 19 ]

Then the second quick question is: in the work of this report, was there anything broken down on regions? I guess I'm looking to see: were there any areas where there were strengths, where there were better results or less trauma or less challenges for young people, in the learning, as you look at where we can look at best practices?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, just on the first question about moves. We did a report, the provincial health officer and I, on criminal justice issues and children in the criminal justice system, and we noted the correlation between those who came in at an early age, 12, who tended also to be children in care with a lot of moves.

We made a recommendation a few years ago about tracking moves of kids in care. It was resoundingly rejected, saying that it can't be done. We did, under the leadership of Deputy Minister Brown, revisit that, and I strongly encouraged, because of the themes in other reports, that they track moves.

It's a bit up in the air at the moment, I would say. MCFD has been more amenable to reporting how many times the children moved in the last year versus how many times they moved in their entire stay in care. How you report these things really matters.

There are some ways to do it. We haven't quite landed on that, and we need to look at it. What we had recommended in the past…. I continue to advocate very strongly with the provincial director of child welfare and the deputy and the minister. I picked sort of an arbitrary number just to get them comfortable — this is a few years back — to say that with three moves in care, an alarm bell rings and an intensive bit of planning is engaged so you don't find out on the 14th move.

Why three? It's not like I have a body of research that says that three is definitive, but three certainly seems too many. So what happens? We'll talk a bit more about this in the next report as well.

Not only the moving, it's seeing the child. If you're not tracking the moves, you're probably also not seeing the child. One of the common themes we saw in this group of 89 was the lack of consistently seeing the child, whether that's in child and youth mental health or guardianship social work.

Child and youth mental health is an area which has a lot of service demand — a small number of FTEs; we can't give you the exact number; it's something in the neighbourhood of 230 FTEs serving the entire province, and some of those are on the management side, not all in direct service — and their ability to actually see children and youth when they need to be seen.

This also continues to be a concern of mine in the child welfare and mental health system: people wanting to see children at times when they're in school, for instance, instead of letting them be in school; or not seeing them when they need to see them, when families are available; and the need for the staff to work hours that reflect the needs of children and families and not reflect the convenience of office hours.

This type of work is unique. The crisis doesn't always happen at ten o'clock in the morning, with the scheduled appointment. It tends to happen during the summer break and in the evenings.

Around services, core service alignment, we have not been able to achieve that either. I continue to ride hard the ministry on that point — to change the service and report on whether or not the child in care is seeing the guardianship social worker as frequently as is required under their current policies and standards. It's another area that they don't report on but they need to report on.

My quick question, I guess, in looking through these reports, these papers here: can you explain to me….? I don't see it in the recommendations, but I'm just thinking…. I've lived this my entire life, these issues, on a very personal level.

One of the things I want to know is…. There's an obvious cohesiveness between what we do here and with the health sector.

Can you explain to me what we do with that to make sure, especially with youth…? A lot of youth are maybe troubled, and we find this at an early age. How do we ensure that we have that relationship where we're getting proper diagnoses for these youth to make sure that not only, I guess, when they're going through the system…? When you see some of these children that are challenged and you see how many moves they're having….

I take it a step back, because one of the things I've seen where we've failed is the proper diagnosis to make sure they're getting the proper care to begin with and are put in the proper homes. Can you maybe explain how that relationship works?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, in the cohort here we saw many young people who were awaiting a visit with a child psychiatrist, for instance, where there were serious mental health issues, whether they had a mood disorder or there were some deeper psychiatric issues as well as trauma — the ability to do an assessment. Again, it depended on where they lived, so a long period waiting, often, and then waiting to get in to receive some type of support, even while they're waiting for assessment.

The idea that they would be removed from a traumatic environment — let's say a home riddled with domestic violence and parental addiction — and then placed in a foster home or a group home, but still waiting for that assessment and support…. While it's a bit of a geographical change, it hasn't addressed any of the issues, often.

This is a population that…. Because they are children that are, often, not with the type of supportive parent that
[ Page 20 ]
can navigate a health care system, they're looked over. One of the ways to address that is, certainly, that if a child comes into care, making sure early that there's a complete medical assessment that also looks at trauma. We have recommended in the past — again, it's not in this report, because we don't keep the same recommendations going — a very simple recommendation.

The Canadian Paediatric Society did a very helpful bulletin in 2007 on guidelines for medical assessments for children in care, because they see the types of vulnerabilities. What type of assessment should you do for a health assessment of a child in care at the point of admission into care?

We still don't have that one implemented either. We have the child taken to the emergency room and looked at. We may get some: "They're okay. It's a broken arm." The broken arm will be repaired, but it's not the comprehensive assessment, and it's deferred.

Attending to the medical needs. You're absolutely right. The child welfare system and the health system work together, as does the education system. Improving the life chances for these children is not a one-off service. It's not a handoff from one service provider to another.

There have to be clear protocols. For instance, the Ministry of Children and Families needs clear protocols with the health authority in the local hospital setting, in the local community to make sure that these assessments occur, that the information is shared, that they're safely stored on the file and that action is taken.

We don't have that piece worked out. In these 89 cases, we did see this consistently. So dropping it…. We also saw something…. Because it was a small number, we weren't able to say a lot about it. We saw, for instance, some early identification of where there were mental health issues, like at seven or eight years old, but by the time the young person was 14 or 15, completely disconnected from services. So something about an early assessment, and then it got lost.

We can't conclude everything from 89 cases, but it did tell us an area to inquire into in the report we did later on mental health, which is: what's the lifetime mental health plan? If someone is seven, has some very significant disregulated behaviour, for instance, and self-harming, what's the plan throughout time? We saw some really staccato-type behaviour there.

So we do all this work when they're youth to try, hopefully, to have successful adults. But what do we do for…?

I was happy to hear, when you spoke earlier, about the 19-to-24s and helping out there. When you're looking at these cases, that's one situation. How often do we find, though, that the system is helping kids get to 18 or 19, and then they drop out of the system?

Now all of a sudden you've got kids who are 19, 20, 21 years old and have a history of trauma, a history of self-violence, and we don't have the support mechanisms for them. At 21 or 22 now they've become suicide cases that we don't really hear of.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, you've just described the trajectory, which is the path in British Columbia, which is poor quality of service around abuse and neglect, trauma, often behavioural issues, some pretty much destructive and harmful self-harm, and other harm behaviour — a lack of support.

They tend to be pushed out of the child system before 16 — if they can find someone in the child system. Then you have someone who may become street-involved. Then you have all the costs and difficulties associated with that.

The only thing I would layer on top of it is you also often have the adolescent that's a parent. They've experienced their own trauma. They may turn to addictions to cope with the absence of the health supports, and then they parent. The trajectory for some of the most vulnerable young people is not a good trajectory. We have to disrupt that and intervene.

We can see here, with these 89 cases…. As I said at the outset, we're not suggesting that all 89 of these self-harm and completed suicides could have been prevented. Certainly, that's not the point of the report. However, there were not very successful efforts to change that trajectory in a positive way in most of these cases.

It was the rare case where there were successful interventions and activity. It was the more common case that it was a more hands-off approach — so the absence of resources.

D. Donaldson: Thank you for the report and thanks to your staff who put it together. Although the case histories ring very familiar from the area that I live in — over 200 suicide attempts in one year, a matter of six years ago, in the Hazeltons — a lot of the information, I found, added to my knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes.

Just a quick comment on the highlighting of the number of moves. I find it unbelievable that we don't have a system that can actually count on their hands and toes the number of moves a child in care goes through while they're in care. I find that incredible, and I look forward to hearing more from you in future meetings about how that's getting to a resolution with the ministry: to be able to count, let alone monitor, but counting seems pretty fundamental.

I'll try to ask three quick questions all at once. On your bullet points on page 6 around the comprehensive plans of care, only 69 percent of the files were current. You've made the point that the ministry staff is doing incredible
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work. I just wanted to know whether you got to some of the reasons why only 69 percent were current.

On a bullet point further down: "Less than half of aboriginal youth in this review were in an aboriginal placement." Is that due to a lack of aboriginal placement opportunities, and have you made recommendations around that previously?

The third point. "Delegated aboriginal agencies provided service in only 38 percent of the files involving aboriginal youth in this report." Was that because there weren't delegated agencies for a number of these aboriginal youth as to where they were living in the province?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Okay, I'll take the first one, which is on plans of care. In this review we just looked to see whether there was a mention of a plan of care with a date assigned to it. We didn't assess whether they were actually plans of care that met the ministry standards for plans of care. We did do a plan-of-care audit that we'll meet about later and talk about, but in this group we found that only about 69 percent had at least evidence of a plan of care on the file. Some of them had no evidence of a plan. Whether it was actually a plan or not, it was just noted that sometime there had been a plan. It wasn't necessarily complete, and the quality wasn't there, so we didn't have an opportunity for 89 to assess it.

We do have an audit of 100 plans of care that we will report on later, so we'll be able to delve deeply into that issue. We did have a chance to interview a lot of workers about the quality of plans of care, because this is a core issue and requirement under the provincial legislation, the CF&CSA.

On the issue about the aboriginal placement, less than half of the youth were in an aboriginal placement. That could be either within a delegated agency or outside a delegated agency. We're not seeing that match.

On the issue of the delegated agencies, your third point, the agency has to be delegated to a certain level — for instance, to provide guardianship — in order to qualify. Not all of the 20-plus agencies in B.C. are at that level 6 designation.

One point I will note and you're going to hear more about as we come into reporting on aboriginal child welfare more broadly — and indeed, in the next case that we'll talk about, in other reports — is that one of the challenges we find is the ministry service plan has as a service objective: aboriginal children served by an aboriginal service provider or delegated agency.That's their objective.

Now, that's a laudable objective. However, the aboriginal delegated agency operating on reserve has no mental health program and services. The children who may be very traumatized may be unwittingly placed with a service provider that actually has no services. So this is a serious problem, a serious gap, which is why in turn we come to the federal government or the provincial government.

We have as a goal to place aboriginal children with aboriginal agencies, but they have no services. So their ability to access health services and mental health services is a gap. So you're essentially setting people out of the mental health system. Are you making them more vulnerable? Not that aboriginal agencies don't provide good service, but they don't have resources to provide these services. So, ironically, you may take them from a resource-rich area and send them into an environment where there is no service. They have an aboriginal placement, but there is no service. So this is a very serious challenge.

That service plan objective is a laudable objective, but not in the context of how vulnerable they are and how needy the services are. So these aboriginal children might be meeting with their social worker from the delegated aboriginal agency, but are they able to access mental health supports?

There might be a contract between Health Canada and a psychiatrist or a psychologist from the Lower Mainland to fly in twice a month. Is that adequate? Do they actually get to see them? They're seeing adults and children. So there are really serious service issues around the quality of supports that young people, particularly in rural and remote locations, receive.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I don't see any other hands. I've just got a quick question that's a follow-up from that. What you're saying, then, is that if you're going to the aboriginal service providers, those ones are…. Because they're funded through the federal government, and they don't have the same services as the provincial government services, are you saying, then, that the push to get aboriginal services for aboriginal youth could actually give them a disservice?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Sure. What I'm saying is it does give them a disservice, because you're taking some of the most deeply vulnerable children and you're placing them, although well-intentioned, in aboriginal service providers but in the context of a complete gap of actual services. That creates….

I'm not sure what the thinking is — that the children will be there and eventually someone will provide the other services? But they don't ever get the services, and there's no follow-up and accountability for what happens around their service. So we may not see a plan of care, and we may not see the execution of a plan of care. We don't have…. We'll speak about this more when we talk about the aboriginal child welfare policy more broadly — the aboriginal mental health policy — whether or not our provincial programs and services are seamless or whether they do stop. That's a major concern with these children that are at the point of self-harm.
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J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Thank you, Mary Ellen, very much for that report. Not seeing any other immediate questions, why don't we move on to the second one — Who Protected Him? Again, that worked out really well. Your comments were brief — and then allowed everybody opportunities to ask questions. It worked out quite well. We'll throw it over to you, Mary Ellen, to continue on with the last report.

Representative for Children
and Youth Report:
Who Protected Him? How
B.C.'s Child Welfare System Failed
One of Its Most Vulnerable Children

M. Turpel-Lafond: Thank you very much, and again, I'll try and keep my comments brief so we can have more opportunity for questions.

This report is an in-depth investigation into one young person, an aboriginal young person, again. This case became quite known within the province because it was a young, 11-year-old boy who was tasered by the police. As a result of that, there was a review by an outside police agency of the police activity, which found that the police acted appropriately in terms of the threat that was present of the young person to himself and to others.

I don't look at police efficacy and police services and so on. I look at what situation the child was in, how did that come about, and so on. What we ended up doing with this report was actually…. We often look around an incident.

The boy had a particular heart condition. When he was tasered, he could have died, because he had a pre-existing heart condition that was indicated to the police. It was a serious injury that he suffered and potentially could have been life-threatening.

When we looked at the circumstance around that issue, we looked back at previous issues. We quickly discovered that there were a lot of police call-outs on this child. Then we quickly became concerned about the residential services of this child.

In essence, at the time of that incident the child was living in a sole-source resource that the ministry contracted with, which was that basically he was confined, sort of like in solitary confinement, if you like, living in a house with staff that would come in 24-7 — not MCFD staff but staff that were hired to care for him. The staff, without denigrating their commitment and so on, were pretty much low-wage staff. Staff during this period were earning about $226 for a 24-hour shift, not much in excess of minimum wage. They were sort of unemployed lumberjacks and others who were coming in to care for the boy. He was essentially a prisoner — if you like, for lack of a better phrase — in a residence.

We then became a bit concerned about…. The boy was becoming, you know, dysregulated emotionally. There were behavioural issues. Well, what was the story that this all happened? This resource was built. Why were the police called out?

The police were very frustrated as well. They were very concerned about the boy. They participated fully in the investigation and said: "We don't relish coming out and responding to the needs of this boy." In fact, they felt like they were being used to kind of take the boy out for a ride-along in the police car to try and de-escalate him, yet that wasn't really a good use of their time and resources. There was a lot of dissatisfaction.

So we went back, and we actually looked at the entire story of the boy, from the time he was born to what happened when he was tasered. Really, the story of the tasering became quite irrelevant in terms of this boy's story. This boy's story was really about how the ministry knew before he was born that he was in deep trouble. This baby would be in deep trouble — what he went through, traumatic and serious incidents that he went through; the lack of oversight by the ministry in terms of caring for the child, tracking the child's well-being.

I can just say I continue to be deeply concerned about the well-being of this child. This has not been resolved.

First of all, he came into care early. You can see…. We have a bit of a timeline in the report that might be helpful. It's actually at page 40. Well, we have a few timelines. We have a timeline of all of his moves. We have a timeline of police involvement — I wanted to give an idea of how many times the police were called out — a timeline about his education, because he hadn't been in school for some time and, of course, his well-being.

First of all, he came into care. He was placed in a foster home. In his first foster home, if you like, he was left for quite a period of time. There's no record on the file that a social worker ever visited him in that foster home. He was fairly significantly abused in that foster home. He was locked in a shed for hours. He was given cold showers for toilet accidents, bedwetting, and disciplined with hot sauce in his mouth. The ministry didn't monitor his well-being in that home and left him there for three years before taking action.

When he came out of that foster home, he was described as "feral-looking and rail thin." He was then placed in 15 different foster homes or group homes, not including hospitalizations on emergency bases at Children's Hospital, for instance, between the ages of two and 13.

As you'll note from the history, police were involved with him 22 times between the ages of eight and 13 alone. That's not that the police weren't out at the home, because there were domestic violence and sexual assaults and serious addictions issues — drug involvement and so forth.

His school attendance was lacking — no continuity. There was a very serious, continuing pattern of child welfare practice errors with this boy: a failure to provide
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services to address his complex needs, inadequate living arrangements, very significant failure to address this child's development. He was very isolated. As I indicated at the outset, he was living in a home where he was the only "client," shall we say — I put that in quotes; it's hard to believe a child could be a client — with no family present and this rotating crew of staff with little or no formal training.

My office was particularly troubled in this report by the lack of continuity of stabilized care and the use of police for assistance in behavioural issues instead of safe and positive cognitive behavioural therapy or intensive therapy and support.

In particular, we discovered and we were concerned by the use of a so-called safe room. The child had been placed in these locked rooms. The explanation was that it would help him calm himself. There is no policy…. It's not permitted, in fact, to lock a child in a safe room in a residential facility, just as it wouldn't be allowed for you as a parent or grandparent to lock one of your children in a room as a discipline measure for long periods of time.

The house the boy had been living in — the sole-client home — had a plywood room without any windows and with reinforced doors that he was locked in. Not surprisingly, we couldn't find any medical evidence or advice to support that device to actually de-escalate his behaviour. It became clear that he had been seriously retraumatized by this.

There was no clear documentation of the use of the safe room when it was used. It wasn't reported properly. Again, I just come back to remind everyone that this was a resource paid for by the Ministry of Children and Families and requested and designed by them. It was a private operator who set up the resource for the child, but the facts of the situation were such that the interventions with him were unsuccessful.

Now, I would say that it's clear that the child had significant behavioural issues and posed a safety threat to himself and sometimes others, in terms of his caregivers — running away from his caregivers, and so on. But it was inconceivable to myself as representative that the ministry could allow the use of such a room — and we found evidence that they'd been given permission to use this confinement — especially in a private residence, given the fact that this child had been so traumatized, including earlier having been locked in a shed and traumatized with that same approach.

With respect to the needs of the child, we made four recommendations that we thought would respond to his story and certainly not repeat this for others with complex needs.

The first recommendation was that MCFD create a comprehensive plan to develop a continuum of residential services for children and youth in B.C. with complex needs that cannot be met in a traditional foster home or group home setting.

The ministry has to address the current critical deficiency in matching children in care with complex needs with a suitable residential placement that's properly staffed and equipped to nurture them and support their recovery and their development, rather than simply housing them.

I also recommended that the office of the provincial director begin active oversight at the senior management level of the cases of children with complex special needs, children with a degree of needs like the boy reported in this case. I can't give you an exact number, but I can say that in my experience over the last six years, there are about 25 to 30 children in this category that need intensive support for whatever reason. We want to prevent them getting to that, but they do need intensive support.

Like this child, they need appropriate services. At the same time, the sort of mom-and-pop foster home is not going to work for the needs of these children. Hence we saw that even in this sort of sole-source residence, police are being called to manage the behaviour.

We recommended that MCFD develop an internal clinical unit to provide consultation, training and clinical support to residential care staff, social workers and others who are dealing with children with special needs. It has to use proven, solid expertise, not things like plywood confinement rooms and not an attitude of accept-and-support practice.

As you'll see in this report, at several times there was an attitude on the part of those who were responsible for residential services or care of the child that "well, good enough is better than perfect, so we will accept this" or "we need an emergency replacement by next week, and we have someone who can put something together, so we'll accept it."

There was an attitude which was one of accepting a very poor circumstance instead of actively demanding what the child's needs were. We saw that around the issue of restraint. We saw that around the quality of services the child received.

I was happy with the release of the report, that within a few months after the report was released the provincial director did issue a practice directive ordering that those who are operating residential supports — foster homes, group homes, etc. — discontinue using safe rooms and that they report instances when restraint is used in an unavoidable crisis. There will be times when restraint is used, but it needs to be reported and debriefed. I was very concerned that they not grant exceptions to that.

I haven't had a chance to receive a fulsome report. As I say, the provincial director just moved around, in terms of jobs, last week. I want to hear about how that's going and how many of those safe rooms are in operation and what is happening with them.

I intend to follow up on that recommendation, but
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they did accept that one. The first three recommendations, apart from that one, are still in progress.

The only point that I'd like to emphasize before I take questions is that I continue to be deeply concerned about this child, and I continue to be deeply concerned that the improvements have not been made to the system of care for children in this category. I've been monitoring this child's situation. We provide advocacy. I don't want to reveal too much, because I don't want to reveal his identity, of course.

However, since this report was released I have seven more incidents reported on him, and I am not satisfied that the situation that he is in now, his living situation, is suitable. And I am not satisfied that the plan for him is a suitable plan, as the plan for him is to again move him to an arrangement where he will be the only occupant of a resource.

There continue to be very serious concerns. In total, I have 29 reportable incidents on this one child, and some of the recent reportables include situations where he was injured as well as situations where he ran away from his resource and has engaged in activity where he became emotionally dysregulated, with things like throwing rocks at cars and engaging in other behaviour — banging his head, hurting himself — that suggest to me that his behaviour is not being adequately managed and supported now.

It's an active issue. We are, as I say, deeply involved, but things have not come to fruition.

When this report was released, again, for that cohort of young people — children and youth that have major behavioural challenges, possibly mental health challenges, possibly organic brain issues — the minister, on the day that the report was released, said that they would take immediate steps to open a six-bed facility for children and youth in this situation.

I had a chance to tour that work-in-progress. It's still not open. I had a chance to look at it. I haven't had a chance to see it completed, but no one's there. There is no one in that resource. It's not open. I don't believe this boy would be living in that resource in any event. So I'm deeply concerned about the residential services.

There was a time in British Columbia when there was a more therapeutic strain of residential services. They were shut down sort of in the latter part of the 1990s, and they have not been re-created. So right now it's an ad hoc arrangement. This is a young boy who is living that reality, and there are some others. It's not a large number, but there are others. We need to have that level of service.

I'm certainly in a constant discussion. I was with the former director of child welfare, where they were continually proposing to me that he be moved to another province to receive services that we do not have in this province. I feel very strongly, as the advocate for children and youth, that we need to have those services in this province. Although that would be a temporary stopgap, not having that in this province is admitting that we cannot serve a group of children.

All of that debate happened prior to our current exercise in core review and looking at ministries' budgets and activities. I can't say if there's been a budget committed, with FTEs and so on, to move forward. I'm very concerned about it.

So on residential services, the progress is not significant for this young person. And I certainly don't look forward to coming back to you and saying, "Oh, I've got three or four more reportables on critical injuries with the child," because it just doesn't end in terms of…. There's a better team engaged today than there was, but the service gap has not been filled.

M. Karagianis: Great. Thank you very much, Mary Ellen. A very disturbing story. But I am concerned about your final remarks about core review.

We've already seen, in some instances, mental health services in some communities that are now operating not 24 hours a day. As you so rightly said, these kinds of crises don't always happen between nine and five during the workday.

It would seem to me that even now there is an inability to provide the kinds of support systems that this individual needs, and others, and that speaks largely to the concern that there could be many more of these.

What are your thoughts on mental health youth services in particular and what the future may hold? I think we all would recognize that they're wholly inadequate right now. I know here, from our experience on the Island, that there are appallingly few resources here for youth mental health. What does that speak to for other children who are vulnerable out there in communities right now?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, as I say, I had a chance to visit…. I'm very closely involved in terms of oversight with respect to this child. He is placed today in a specialized living arrangement that's not normally used as a place for children in care, because there is no place for children in care with complex needs. So we are in the same catch-22 that we were in when he was tasered. I am just very concerned about that. I can't say anything else, except to say that where he is today is not a place where children are raised and live, and we don't have that.

Now, whether or not he may have a 12-month period of stabilization and then step back down into a community-type resource…. I mean, the whole idea is you have to step up and step down. There are times…. We have specialized mental health facilities, we have other things, that are available. We're not really sure what they're used for. Sometimes a child like this…. You know, there are cases where children like this are at motels with a few
[ Page 25 ]
workers for weeks. These are very concerning issues to me in terms of the quality of care of children.

I think there needs to be strong transparency and accountability for what we're doing, because these are not necessarily cheap interventions either. In the case of the resource that was built for this boy, which he was removed from — not quickly removed from, let me say, because I was very concerned that he returned, after he was tasered, back to the same place and stayed there for quite a period of time — that resource then was left vacant with a multi-year contract. So these things are….

There are issues around the contracting. There are the issues around those, which are one thing.

The quality of care. You know, it's sort of like we really don't want children to be raised in a garage. We want them to be raised in a bedroom where they're cared for with a certain quality and setting. And we do not have a policy, even today as I report to you. With all the time that has passed and all of the attention to this case and all of the discussion, there is no adopted policy on what our plan for complex residential service needs will be and who has responsibility and how it will be managed.

I think this is an urgent issue, without a doubt, and I'm grateful we have a chance to come round to it. I'm certainly speaking to the ministry frequently about it, but decisions have got to be made — not only decisions for a group of children but decisions for this person. And they have to be solid decisions.

D. Plecas: You know, I've listened to you, and glancing through the report, I'm wondering why you didn't title it "The Gong Show" or "What's Wrong with Us?" I mean, it is so disturbing.

I guess my question to you is: in your assessment, what is it that's your biggest challenge in getting us to actually do something about these things? Obviously, there's a multiplicity of things, but there's got to be something that's just stalling the obvious here.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I think it's our common responsibility to see that it gets done, and the money has to be spent on it. I think we have a bit of a challenge around sort of frozen budgets and other things, around what we will spend, and we have to make a commitment to it.

I certainly, in the wake of the release of this report, sat and spoke very directly to the minister, the deputy and the director of child welfare and was given an absolute assurance that change would happen. That was quite a while ago, and that has not been put in place. So the transparency and accountability has got to be there.

You're right. The level of treatment of this child was so appalling and shocking — it was amazing — that the tasering was actually a transient…. Really, like a mosquito bite for him.

But the fact that there is a child in British Columbia basically being raised in a setting not appropriate for children because we haven't contemplated and built that system of care is very problematic.

Now, the ministry has visited Alberta. They've looked at how Alberta does it, because Alberta does have a system for these children. They've looked at whether they'll bring back some of the ideas from ICE, and I've supported them fully. In fact, I've encouraged them to do it. The point is that they've got to land on a decision and bring it around to get the policy work done and move it forward. They've got to land on it. They've got to make the case for Treasury Board to get the resources and take it forward.

In the meantime, the child is languishing in that environment, and it's not acceptable. As I say, six more reportables are a concern to me.

The other concern to me, and I think you'll well appreciate this with your background, is if you have this type of maltreatment during this period continue and continue — this child's not going to school, doesn't have friends, doesn't interact — when he's 19, what will happen on the street to this boy? I'm very concerned about that, the risk that he poses to himself and others. He has been under the care of the ministry since he was three years old.

I'm not predicting something. I'm just saying I'm well aware of it from the cases that we work on, and we have to work with greater urgency on it. I'm not satisfied with the urgency that this has been taken.

D. Plecas: Let me ask a related question. You mention the frozen budgets, and of course, we are very concerned about being able to maintain that. But I sometimes wonder if there's not a case to be made for the spending of money now, which would be an incredible investment in saving money down the road.

I'm just wondering to what extent your office would be doing some analysis on that to show us that, gee — and I think many of us would know this — there is some research to suggest that we could save British Columbians a lot of money if we would invest more.

M. Turpel-Lafond: I think that the evidence on that front is very strong, and I think we have to always step back and realize that we do not have an intensive level of residential support for these kids in British Columbia. It does not exist. We cannot be a province with the number of children we have and not have that service. It's just not possible. We have to have that service. It is required. We wish no children would have to use that level of intense service, but that's naivety.

Every province grapples with this. Some provinces build the system, like Alberta. We dismantled ours, and we have left it dismantled. As a result, these children are in inappropriate placements — group homes, sole-source residences, motels — and, as I say, low-skilled workers, nice people — unemployed lumberjacks and Starbucks
[ Page 26 ]
workers — engaging with the child. That doesn't always work out well. We have many other reportables where things happen on the overnight shift with these issues.

There needs to be appropriate, well-thought-out care. The ministry needs to come out with its policy and its direction, and it needs to implement that. We are still stalled, and I'm certainly going to be on it as an advocate. At the same time, your point's a good one.

Not only does it cost in the long term, but can we treat children like this and not, in the end, be liable for what happens? I think just a narrow issue around the civil rights of the child — there are major issues about authorizing the child to be locked in a safe room continually. That raises some very fundamental issues. You can't…. You know, if you did that to your child, your child may seek some redress from you and may well gain that redress.

You cannot count on these children being invisible and powerless. They need to be carefully supported. So we have a very deep problem in British Columbia, and it's not solved.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I want to express my appreciation to the representative and to your staff for the report coming forward. I think that one of the most important pieces for all of us to remember around this committee — and hopefully, all of us in elected office from all different political parties — is that these are our children. These are children being raised by government. These are our responsibility. You can't say that these children belong to anybody else. They belong to all of us, and we're responsible for them.

As elected officials, we are responsible for the lack of support that is being put in place for this child. Having worked in the field, I wish I could say this is the only child, but as the representative and others will know, there are other children in this situation who aren't getting supports.

Just to follow up on the residential redesign. I asked questions in estimates around residential redesign and the work that was being done to put in place specialized homes. We recognize that these aren't a large number of children who need these very specialized homes, but for those who do, it's a very critical resource that's needed.

I was told, "No resources. No additional supports" — that this is going to be done within existing budgets and that it will also cover off all of the mental health beds that the government says that they're going to put in place in various regions, again with no additional resources.

I think if anything calls out for this committee to take some responsibility around accountability on these recommendations, this report is it. It's fine for government to say that the recommendations are being followed, but unless there is some follow-up, unless we're able to actually track those recommendations and ensure that they're being put in place and ensure that the resources are there and ask questions — as I did in estimates, around what has happened to this young man — we're not going to have any accountability.

I know I raised this earlier, but I would hope that we'll have at a future meeting a discussion as a committee around how we can put that accountability mechanism in place so that we can assist. I think this really shows the strength of having an independent representative's office reporting out to us, but I think it also points out our responsibility to take that on.

I guess just a quick question around specialized training. As you mentioned earlier, you said you aren't aware, at this stage, of specific homes. Are you aware of any kind of specialized training that's being put in place for either individual foster parents or specialized care homes for individuals to get the kind of training they need to provide this kind of care?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, of the 8,100 kids in care, about 13 percent are in staffed residential resources, so close to 1,000 are going to be in a group home setting, if you like. Is there a provincial policy on the mandatory training, clinical oversight, and so forth, of that strain? No. Is there a plan to? It's talked about, but it has to actually land on the ground.

Now, foster parents are voluntarily coming forward to take some of the attachment training, like the Connect training and other things. They're stepping forward and wanting training, mostly because they're overwhelmed. Some of these kids will go through multiple foster home placements. Like I say, that mom-and-pop foster home is not going to be suitable.

We have about 1,000 kids in staffed residential resources, group homes, in this sort of grey area without regulation, without policy, without requirement. This boy was in one of those as a little boy — a seven-year-old boy with the 17-year-old who had already been through 30 placements, which in and of itself is a dangerous combination without a clinical model, clinical oversight and actually a care regime.

The idea of a continuum of residential resources is an idea. It does not exist on the ground. It's a serious issue. This is one of the most serious cases, but one always hopes that the tough cases can be answered. What is very disappointing is that at this point, out from this report, despite the commitment that was expressed, it hasn't been answered. The policy hasn't landed on the ground.

The ministry can say: "Oh well, we have a few more months to do this and that," but I mean, we talk about these reports in advance. We talk about this individual continually. I appreciate that there are transitions in the ministry. They have got to finish this work. It cannot be delayed.

D. Donaldson: I don't think I heard you thoroughly on recommendation No. 4. Have the steps been put in place
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that the use of isolation and restraint where…? You recommended: "Immediately discontinue use of isolation and restraint as behaviour management strategies for children in residential care." Has that been put in place? What has been put in place, if it has been put in place? Also, where the use of restraint is unavoidable, you recommended that that be reported to your office. Is that in place as well?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, first of all, as I said earlier, I was very grateful that the provincial director put out a directive that restraint shouldn't be used in safe rooms — the practice, outside policy, of safe rooms.

That happened, and what occurred after that, in my discussions with the provincial director, was, surprisingly — perhaps not surprisingly, from my perspective — we found out that there were other places that they were being used, quite apart from this one. Then you have a whole bunch of other issues to deal with, which is to look at: well, why were they being used there, there and there, and why weren't we responding to them? Getting a grip on where they're used was certainly something the provincial director of child welfare was on, and we were talking about it. We didn't get to the next step, which is reporting to my office after March 1 of this year every incident in which it was used.

It's rare that I would make that type of recommendation, because I don't want to have every report of every doctor's visit and everything of every kid in care. I did it because I was very concerned about the type of power relationships that are involved and whether there are debriefings. That reporting has not started, with my office, which is not to say that they haven't gotten out and started looking at it.

You'll have to ask the ministry directly to speak to that, should they be invited to this committee. They should be producing an accountability statement, I feel, in terms of how many resources had safe rooms and used restraint — and if they'd been discontinued and how we know they've been discontinued. Of course, from my office, given my healthy skepticism, given what I've seen in this case, I won't be confident until I actually see the reports.

Now, I haven't received a report from March. They haven't started to set up the reportables. I have received some reports on this child and some others where there has been police involvement, but the use of a safe room is something else.

Safe rooms are authorized. For instance, at Children's Hospital there'll be a safe room. In the youth correctional centres there will be safe rooms. There are very rigorous policies there about debriefing after, and I touch base with the front-line staff that work at those places. They usually call anyway, if there has been an incident that they feel is outside practice. Many experienced people can de-escalate. The dysregulation of behaviour tends to de-escalate pretty quickly in those places anyway.

It's the issue of the thousand kids in the group home setting that I was very concerned about. We have not landed fully on what's going on, on the ground yet. I think the ministry needs to report out on that. They certainly need to report more explicitly to me on that.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Do we have any questions from our friends from afar, Moira and Jennifer?

I have a question with regard to the foster parent system, and this relates to the moves as well. So you've got a lot of….

The comments that you had made about the number of moves. It seems like a lot of the issues with regard to the number of moves is that the people that are looking after the child — or the child is put in placement — actually aren't prepared for the challenges that the child is bringing into their family home. Then they subsequently can't cope and have to move, except for the one you noted in the report that was actually very good but wasn't getting the supports to actually keep him there.

My question is: in your opinion, with regard to the foster parents, what kind of requirement is there to be a foster parent? You mentioned the mom-and-pop foster parent versus these therapeutic needs, but what is the requirement to be a foster parent?

M. Turpel-Lafond: There's an approval process and a minimum training process. The issue is the levelling of the child. There's a level 1 child, level 2, level 3.

Let me just say it's a completely chaotic situation at the moment, and it's been reviewed to recommend improvement for some time. There was an internal review inside the ministry not too long ago with the Federation of Child and Family Services agencies. There has been widespread recognition of….

Foster parents are very committed people that step forward to support, but they can only do the work if they get the support that they need. They tend to be very great advocates for kids, who work very closely with my office. It's just that foster parents have jobs; they go to work. They assume the children will go to school, like their children and so on. These are children that…. You're going to be called away to support them continually, so you need a specialized level of care and support.

It's a bit chaotic, but the other side of it is that what happens in some regions is also fairly chaotic, which is…. I don't want to depict it for all regions, but in the region that this child came from, it was not unheard of that the responsible workers would get in a room and say: "I've
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got X. What have you got?" It's like an auction: "Can you take this kid here? I'll take that kid there."

It was a kind of ad hoc shifting of an assignment: "No one's going to take this one. Well, let's send him to another region. Maybe we can send him over there." The whole idea is that there isn't a stable, well-organized set of residential services based on needs. Instead, it's a bit of an ad hoc thing where kids end up living in motels with workers and single-source resources, and it's a challenge. It's a deep, deep challenge.

The mandatory foster parent training is an area that the ministry wades in with a lot of caution. We want to encourage people to be foster parents and step forward, but we also need to make sure they receive the training. Foster parents are very strong with me saying: "We want to understand better the concerns."

In this case, with this boy, the foster parents just needed a little bit of respite and were kind of punished for asking for that, and the boy is moved. Well, in a way, it was a good situation. The boy was in a foster home for three years. Unfortunately, he was locked in the shed and punished and severely abused in that home. He was in a foster home for three years, and nobody saw him. Nobody had to think about it.

That's the concern. It's that you can't have that out-of-sight mentality: "We've got somewhere to put him. We don't have to worry about it."

It's a continuum of services, residential services. It's not an easy system to run. I appreciate that. It requires policy. It requires practice. But it shouldn't be an auction or a lottery where you decide: "I've got this kid. What have you got? Okay, you give me that. I'll give you this." That's not a social care system. That is a very flawed system. And that was what was operating in the region where this child was placed.

Unfortunately, it isn't quite as chaotic as that, because right now it's just stalled. We don't have the services at all. Are we back to thinking about sending the children out of the province? We don't even know there are spots out of the province and what that will cost us. As the child and youth representative, to you, I don't think it's adequate in B.C. that we say that we will send them somewhere else because we don't have it here. I feel they have to have their feet put to the fire and create the system here.

D. Barnett: Thank you very much for all you do. I have a question though. You said back in the '90s there were facilities that were open for these high-risk children. Why were they closed? Were they inefficient? Were they ineffective? There had to be a reason why they were closed.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, the therapeutic group home, if you like…. There was a strand of residential services that existed. They were shut down for a number of reasons. I wasn't representative at the time, so I can't fully tell you. I've looked at the ministry's history. I would say they were shut down, in part, for cost-cutting reasons. There's always concern about institutional abuse of children if they're not well designed and organized. I don't think that's the primary reason though.

I think there was a trend — deinstitutionalization, if you like, of children. This is one of the problems we have in services to children. Sometimes there will be the theory of the year that comes along. You have to be very rigorous to make sure that the evidence is there. One thing that is clear is that there's a cohort of children that require intensive support. They may be at the children's hospital for a long stay.

This boy was at the children's hospital frequently. He wanted to live at the children's hospital, actually. He ran away from his placement to an emergency room in the Lower Mainland, walked into the emergency room and said: "Please send me to Children's Hospital. I want to live there." He said he felt safe there, because it was a strong therapeutic environment.

Well, you don't live at the children's hospital, okay? You know, we don't take our cues from what the children say. But you can say something about this child. He's so emotionally dysregulated. We have these incidents. He's tasered. Yet he says: "I just want to live in a setting where people can support me." That's a very important insight, but we don't have that level of service any longer.

For whatever reasons why it was shut down — and I'm not saying we should be finger-pointing to anyone — we need to get it up and running again, and effectively running — for heaven's sake, at least for a small cohort of children. And make sure the right cohort is there with the proper clinical oversight and really effective engagement with their families.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I'm not seeing any more questions that need to be asked.

Thank you very much for coming here today and giving us the reports and also an overview of your work. Also, thank you very much for your commitment on behalf of the children in care in British Columbia. We very much appreciate it and very much appreciate your work. We look forward to seeing you again at the next meeting.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): In the meantime, we're going to decide…. We've got another meeting. We've already got our November meeting. It was actually our October meeting. Now we need another November meeting, which might be in December.

We can discuss amongst ourselves, the committee members, while the representative is collecting her things.

I'm not too sure. Carole, do you want to do it between me and you? Or do you want to do it with the group? What do you suggest?
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C. James (Deputy Chair): My suggestion would be that we do as we did last time, where we have our great support. Kate sent out some dates for us.

My suggestion is that we need at least one more meeting. I might actually suggest that we look at one in November and then perhaps in early December.

If we're going to discuss whether we want to take on a project at this committee, if we're going to discuss the annual plan, if we're going to discuss accountability and how we track recommendations and if we're going to ask the ministry to come to the committee…. I think all of those are going to take at least two additional meetings, so I would suggest that we send around for a couple of dates.

If it's easier for committee members, we might actually look at two dates together so that people don't have to travel twice. It might be easier for people if we look at two days, if it's possible to find those kinds of dates. Then people don't have to make two trips down — as an option.

M. Karagianis: I was going to say that it doesn't necessarily have to be here either. We have met in Vancouver in the past, so we could make it as convenient as possible for all members travel-wise — just to keep that in the mix as well.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Yeah, I think it's you and Carole that are the only ones from here. Everybody else is coming from wherever.

M. Karagianis: That's right. And sometimes it's just easier to travel…. I know, from anyone who's living in the north or in the Interior, it's easier just to come in to Vancouver and get back than it is to make that extra leg over here. I know, speaking on our behalf, that we would be happy to make it in Vancouver, if that works, as well.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): How does everybody feel on this side? Vancouver? Does it matter to you?

M. Bernier: For me, it doesn't matter, because when you land at the Vancouver Airport to get downtown or whether you're flying over here, it's kind of six of one, half-dozen of the other.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I'm hearing that if we do two days in a row or one full day or….

D. Barnett: If we do one full day, it's irrelevant to me whether I come here or to Vancouver, because it's when the planes fly. I can't get in and out on any day anyway.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Yeah. So that will be the one where we're going to be reviewing her annual report and service plan.

C. James (Deputy Chair): And we might want to look at if we want to make that a day meeting, a full day.

C. James (Deputy Chair): We might want to look and see if people have it already in their calendar. We might want to make it a full day and try and get through as many reports as we can.

In the meantime, I'll talk to the minister about a date to come and speak with us.

I don't know if Moira is still there, but thank you, Jennifer, for being…. I'm assuming you're still there.

J. Rice: I'm here, yes. My preference is to have it in Vancouver, but I can still do Victoria.

D. Barnett: November 4, I may not be able to attend, because there is a minister supposed to be in my riding.

All right. Thank you for that. Carole and I will think about a few dates, and then we'll get back to you as far as an extra two.

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Chair:	* Jane Thornthwaite (North Vancouver–Seymour BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	* Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal)
	* Mike Bernier (Peace River South BC Liberal)
	* Doug Donaldson (Stikine NDP)
	* Maurine Karagianis (Esquimalt–Royal Roads NDP)
	* John Martin (Chilliwack BC Liberal)
	* Darryl Plecas (Abbotsford South BC Liberal)
	* Jennifer Rice (North Coast NDP)
	* Dr. Moira Stilwell (Vancouver-Langara BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Committee Staff:	Byron Plant (Committee Research Analyst)

Witnesses:	John Greschner (Deputy Representative for Children and Youth)
	Melanie Mark (Office of the Representative for Children and Youth)
	Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (Representative for Children and Youth)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH