The committee met at 10:05 a.m.

[N. Simons in the chair.]

N. Simons (Chair): Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. I’m so happy to see all your faces.

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m speaking to you from the beautiful traditional territory of the Tla’amin people, who are in our thoughts because of their recent issues around COVID.

I know you’re all participating from somewhere in this beautiful province on the traditional territory of an Indigenous people.

Today’s interesting meeting is beginning with opening words from Jennifer Charlesworth, our Representative for Children and Youth.

I believe you have some introductions to make, and then we’ll get into the presentation of your reports.

Update from
Representative for Children and Youth

J. Charlesworth: Good morning, all of you. It’s a real pleasure to be with you today, even virtually. I’m delighted to see your faces.

I’d like to begin in a good way by acknowledging, with respect and gratitude, the land that I’m presenting from today, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples and, more specifically, the W̱SÁNEĆ people’s territories, who have close cultural and kinship ties with the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ peoples, otherwise known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.

I’d also like to acknowledge the Métis peoples who live on these lands.

I will introduce my colleagues shortly, but I just wanted to begin with a couple of personal remarks. These past six months have presented incredible challenges for the children, youth and families of British Columbia, for my office and for all of you.

We discussed, at our meeting in April, the actions we’ve been taking in response to the challenges of COVID-19 and the trends we’re seeing. I think we all hoped for a diminishment of the virulence of COVID over the summer, and that has not happened.

Our work as an office, including our investigations and releasing of reports, has been ongoing alongside our COVID responses, which have required and will continue to require substantial attention and staff resourcing.

This morning I’d like to start by introducing members of our team who are here with me today. Then I’d like to give you an overview of what the fall is going to look like at RCY. It’s a busy season.

To begin with, I have the honour of introducing you to our new deputy representative for advocacy and First Nations, Métis and Inuit relations, Samantha Cocker. We are beyond thrilled that she has joined us.

A little bit about Sam. She’s of Cree and Scottish ancestry and brings passion, heart and incredible insights into child welfare, especially the First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous child welfare in B.C.

She has over 20 years experience in a wide array of service areas, including, most recently, as deputy director of the Aboriginal services branch at MCFD. There she took on a leadership role in working with MCFD executive to transform First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous child welfare.

She was also executive director at Xyolhemeylh, which is also known as Fraser Valley Aboriginal Children and Family Services, a delegated Aboriginal agency, where she spent many years advocating for systemic change to ensure better outcomes for First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous children and youth.

She’s been on the front lines of social work in communities around B.C., such as Williams Lake, Kamloops and Prince George, which is a great boon for us, obviously, and she brings solid knowledge of the province as a whole.

Her extensive experience working in respectful, meaningful and sustained ways with First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous leaders, as well as communities, children, youth, families and all the service providers, will be critical to our work at RCY.

In her role as deputy representative, Sam will work to ensure that RCY is doing its best work, in allyship with First Nations, Métis and urban Indigenous communities as they work to resume jurisdiction over their children and youth.

She’ll have the opportunity to support us and service systems in implementing and monitoring decolonizing practices called for in the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls inquiry, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and other reports. We look forward to Samantha’s wise counsel and guidance in our own journey to becoming a culturally safer organization.

It’s such an honour to welcome you, Samantha, to our team.

[10:10 a.m.]

I want to just share, for a moment, two deep gratitudes: to Kúkpi7 Judy Wilson, who is Chief of the Neskonlith Indian Band, secretary-treasurer of the Union of B.C. Ind­ian Chiefs and a member of the First Nations Leadership Council; and Judy Smith, director of the Ministry of Child­ren and Families at Métis Nation B.C., for assisting us in the selection process and in our circles and bringing their unique insights and wisdom to the process. Doing this in partnership with them was a real honour.

Having introduced you to Samantha, I’d also like to introduce the other staff that are with me today — all of whom you already know, I believe. Deputy Representa­tive of Operations Alan Markwart is here, along with Chief Investigator Carly Hyman. The acting executive director of monitoring, Alix Little, is joining us.

I will say that we have hired a new executive director, who will be joining us on October 5. She may be known to you; it’s Pippa Rowcliffe, who has worked with the human early learning partnership at the University of B.C. for a number of years. We’re delighted to welcome her. Gratitudes to Alix for providing wonderful leadership during this transitional time.

I’d also like to introduce you to Jenn Morgan, a member of the CID team who has been immersed in the work that led to the two reports we’ll share with you today. Thank you to all of this amazing team that I get to work with.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you very much. I really ap­preciate your introduction.

I want to just say, on behalf of the committee: welcome, Samantha. We look forward to meeting in person and getting to know each other. I think it’s an opportune time to just reflect on the importance of our committee and the oversight that we provide. In light of these two reports that you’re providing today, I think that that importance is just reinforced.

Without further ado, I guess, Dr. Charlesworth, you can introduce the report Invisible Children.

J. Charlesworth: Actually, can I back up just for a mo­ment, Chair?

N. Simons (Chair): You can do whatever you want, really, quite frankly.

J. Charlesworth: Thank you. I just want to take a mo­ment to share a couple of things that I’m excited about, as well, and a little bit about our fall schedule, to give you a little bit of a sneak preview.

First of all, Teresa, one of the things that you invited us to do was to think about the accessibility of our materials and resources and the ways in which we do our work, so I’m pleased to say we’ve done two things that I think are very substantial.

One is that we have redone our website completely so that it’s much more youth-friendly. It’s actually a youth portal now, so young people can gain access in a way that makes it much more accessible to them. Along with that, we’ve introduced a chat function that aligns with the ways in which many people are now interacting with websites. Before long, we will have a text function that we think will be significant for young people.

The other thing is that we have translated our website and our resource materials into 16 languages thus far, and we are also working to translate into the Indigenous languages that are in use in the areas in which we have our offices currently. That’s underway as well. You will find that on our website, and there’s a pop-down menu for any of those translations. Thank you for that inspiration. I appreciate that, and our relationship with you on those fronts, and credit to our communications team for that extraordinary work.

I’d also like to take a moment, if I may, to go over what the fall is going to look like at RCY so that you’ll have an idea of what’s coming up. It may be a bit of an understatement that we have a busy schedule ahead. Of course, I’m mindful that our report release dates are subject to some change, depending on what happens over the fall, but our intention is as follows.

Later this month we’ll release our annual report and service plan that covers that 2019-20 fiscal year and looking ahead to the next three fiscals. That report will contain a significant amount of information about our activities for the past year, including the injury and death statistics, as well as advocacy statistics, partnerships we’ve established with First Nations and Métis groups in B.C., our new approaches and the future plans for the office.

With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, we quickly realized that a needed role for our office was as a convener of community partners to hear their concerns about how COVID-19 has been impacting children and youth in different ways. This work is ongoing and will result in a series of what we’re calling rapid research reports that reflect lessons in a pandemic. We’re looking at the impact of COVID-19 on children and families specifically receiving children-with-special-needs services, the mental health of children and youth and of youth transitioning out of care, and substance use and family violence.

[10:15 a.m.]

These are emergent and collaborative reports. They’re done quickly with rigour but not the same extensive research that we do for many of our reports. It’s important that we respond to a crisis that has impacted all of us and learn from the emergency measures that have been put in place and what might need to be done as this pandemic continues. This will come to you in October.

We have a major report coming up focusing on child and youth participation and their experience of involuntary detention under the Mental Health Act. This is a very interesting report, beautifully done by the CID team. It’s particularly timely, given the proposed Bill 22 this summer. We’re planning to release that in October as well.

It’s actually the first of two reports on child participation and voice. The other will come up in 2021, focusing on child participation with respect to the protection system in the Child, Family and Community Service Act and in family law proceedings. Both reports will include recommendations to improve child participation in these areas.

We have an innovative report scheduled for release in early November on services for children and youth with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. For the past year, we’ve worked very closely with children and youth and their families that live with FASD. I’m excited to release this report because it speaks to what we’ve learned but will also contain recommendations for government on what they can do to improve services to these young people. I also hope that it will increase awareness and help to reduce the stigma faced by those living with FASD.

Also in November, and just prior to meeting with this committee again, we are planning to release a report on gaps in services for youth transitioning out of care. There has been much good work done in this area already, led by youth themselves in many cases. This report is consultative in nature and builds on that and will include recommendations for service improvements. It’s an area I feel very passionate about.

In late November or early December, you can expect a release of an important investigative report that’s been done in an entirely new way for RCY, utilizing Indigenous approaches. This report is guided by what we call the five Rs, which centres our work in relationships and conveys respect, relationship, reciprocity, relevance and responsibility grounded in Indigenous principles.

This particular investigation is into the life and tragic death of a First Nations youth who had been separated from her mother and community for a number of years. It’s not only Skye’s story. It’s the story of many young people who have been separated as a result of the enduring impacts of colonization.

This investigation is also being guided by the foundational principles of cultural safety, restorative approaches, trauma-informed practice and working with complexity that we are embracing within the RCY.

Finally, we’re also planning to release in December a report on critical injuries and deaths of First Nations and non-Indigenous children and youth over a three-year per­iod. This report will form the second part of the Invisible Children report we released in July and that we’ll present to you today.

I just want to thank the committee — agreeing to a series of monthly meetings at which we can present these reports very close to the time of release. We believe it’s important to keep you as up to date as possible.

I’ll just stop there, before moving into the Invisible Children report — if there are any questions that you have.

N. Simons (Chair): Any committee members or anyone have any comments or questions at this point, or shall we go into the…?

Okay. Jennifer, it looks like we’re ready for your outline of the Invisible Children report.

Consideration of Representative
for Children and Youth Reports

Invisible Children: A Descriptive
Analysis of Injury and Death Reports
for Métis Children and Youth
in British Columbia, 2015 to 2017

J. Charlesworth: Okay, great.

The first report we’ll present to you today is Invisible Children: A Descriptive Analysis of Injury and Death Reports for Métis Children and Youth in B.C., 2015 to 2017, which was tabled in July of 2020.

This report is the product of an aggregate review, the result of examining the injuries and deaths of children and youth receiving services during a three-year period. As I’ve indicated to you in the past, we’re intentionally shifting to more aggregate reporting, in keeping with the direction of the late Hon. Ted Hughes for this office.

However, this report marks a significant shift in our practice in two additional respects, and these shifts are notable because you can expect to see more along these lines from us in the future.

One way this report is different is that it focuses specifically on Métis children and youth, and this is a first for us. Historically, as you’re well aware, Métis children, youth and families in B.C. and their experiences have been rolled up in broader Indigenous data. So a pan-Indigenous lens has been applied to their experiences in the past, and this has not served them well. In fact, it has not served anyone well.

[10:20 a.m.]

The title of the report reflects the past experiences Métis peoples have had, specifically the experience of being made invisible. This practice of lumping all Indigenous peoples together has been shifting in recent years, and in June 2018, RCY changed reporting criteria for both our annual report and our regular critical injury and death updates from Aboriginal to specific indigeneities: First Nations, Métis and Inuit. So the Métis-specific focus is one way this report departs from previous practice.

A second and equally important shift involves the larger approach to this report. Deep gratitude to the members of the team for the way in which they have approached this collaborative work with gusto.

While the report is grounded in data that we have received through our legislative mandate, notably our reportable circumstances, it’s also informed by collaborative work with Métis Nation B.C., the Métis Commission for Children and Families of B.C., the Métis-specific delegated Aboriginal agencies and a Métis scholar with expertise in child welfare, Dr. Jeannine Carriere.

This collaborative approach follows the principle of “Nothing about us without us.” We’re keenly aware at RCY that the critical injury and death data we possess about children and youth represents actual lives, actual people, actual stories, and for us, they’re not just numbers. More than that, we’re deeply aware that while we are in possession of this information, we’re not the owners of the data. Rather, the owners are those communities whose information we possess.

It’s more accurate to say we are stewards of the data who have significant responsibility to the owners to ensure that our work serves them and that they find it useful, which leads me to my next point.

We’re also painfully aware that research since colonization that involves First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous peoples does often not serve their communities. Broadly speaking, it has unfortunately often been conducted in an authoritative way and has made First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous peoples subjects of the research, which has often been experienced as dehumanizing and harmful.

With this report, we’re attempting to change that practice writ large. I don’t mean to suggest that RCY’s research has been exploitative in that way at all, but I do mean to suggest that we are intentionally working in new ways that are sensitive and responsive to the needs of First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous communities. We’re using Indigenous approaches and recognize our responsibility to serve these communities and peoples.

Our intention is for the data to be useful to Métis communities as they resume jurisdiction for child welfare. For this report, I’m grateful to all of our Métis partners for their generosity — and I do mean generosity — in sharing their expertise and for guiding us in how best to put forward research in a way that would be helpful to them.

I sincerely hope that the conversations that we begin with this report will continue. I trust that they will and that together we can co-create research and reports that are relevant and useful to Métis communities. In fact, we’ve embraced that within a joint commitment agreement that we have with Métis Nation B.C. and the fledgling Métis community child and family services society.

What did our Métis partners want? They specifically requested that we avoid making statistical comparisons with Indigenous or non-Indigenous children and youth, and we’ve respected that request. What they did want was more detail about what has been happening for their children and youth, especially around cultural connections or lack thereof, identity, mental health and developmental concerns.

It was important to us to present the information in a way that was factual and that would provide context for planning, while not being damage- or trauma-centred. To be clear, we don’t want or wish to define the children in this report by the horrible things that have happened to them. It’s important to think about the data in this report as representative of children with their own stories, gifts, goals and aspirations.

The injury and death data represent harms and trauma they have experienced within child-serving systems, but they are far more than what has happened to them.

As we move into this data, we hope the data will enable change. Although our report doesn’t contain recommendations…. As you know, we suspended all our reports that had recommendations to support the Legislative Assembly to deal with the pressures of the pandemic. But in this report, our hope is that the information will create a baseline that we can continue to refer back to from which future measurements can be initiated and, of course, be helpful to the communities.

I’m going to highlight some of the key findings for you and then look forward to a good conversation about implications.

[10:25 a.m.]

We looked at a total of 183 injuries that were reported to the RCY for 117 Métis children and youth. That represented 9 percent of all in-mandate injuries reported during that three-year period. Of those children and youth — so of 117 distinct children — 95 were in government care at the time of their injury.

The most common type of injury reported was sexualized violence, with 44 of the 183 injuries falling into this category. I’m particularly concerned about the heightened risk of sexualized violence and exploitation for female Métis children and youth in care, who were the most likely to experience this type of injury.

As an aside, I was disappointed that much of the media coverage upon release of this report headlined this particular finding, because there was far more in that. Although important, it was but one aspect of an important report. I found that, to some degree, I had to work with reporters to help them understand the larger picture in what we’re trying to achieve here and not further stigmatize by the labelling.

The second most commonly reported critical injury type for Métis youth was suicide attempts, and that represented 33 of the files examined. Tragically, four of the 17 deaths of Métis children and youth that were part of this review were completed suicides. Caregiver mistreatment was the third most commonly reported critical injury type, with 21 such injuries. These injuries were most prevalent for children younger than 13 and those placed in foster homes or staffed resources.

Neurodevelopmental disorders and mental health concerns were evident for Métis children and youth in care who experienced critical injuries. To illustrate, almost half of the youth with injuries exhibited symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. One-third had suspected or confirmed fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and 10 percent had autism spectrum disorder.

Despite this, it was troubling to note that only 15 percent of the children and youth were receiving child and youth with special needs services. This committee knows well the gaps within the CYSN system. More than one-third of youth in care ages 16 to 18 were not attending school. That’s a particular concern, because school is a key provider of special needs supports.

Turning to mental health, more than half of the Métis children and youth with injuries had anxiety disorders. More than one-quarter had symptoms of depression. This was more prevalent in girls. Other mental health concerns included post-traumatic stress syndrome, psychosis, eating disorders, bipolar disorder and personality disorders.

Nearly three-quarters of the children represented in this report experienced multiple placements while in care, and we know how trauma-inducing that is. At the same time, there was little evidence of planning for reunification with family — or an alternative, if that wasn’t possible. Very few of the records showed this type of planning.

Another finding was that misidentification was a major issue. This included gaps in social worker knowledge and ability to identify Métis children and youth as well as persistent misconceptions regarding Métis and First Nations identity.

Our data showed that placement with Métis families was a rarity. In fact, only two youth were living in Métis placements. Overwhelmingly, the data showed that children and youth had insufficient opportunities to learn about their cultures, who they are and where they come from. We know that culture is a protective factor for kids.

Taking a look at that data, we’ve got real questions that arise from these findings. For example, what are the experiences of Métis children and youth who are not in care? What are the comparators? Given that we know that culture is a protective factor for children and youth, would better recruitment of Métis foster families result in better outcomes for Métis children and youth in care? Ultimately, how can our child-serving systems, including MCFD and Métis-specific DAAs — Delegated Aboriginal Agencies — facilitate effective cultural planning for Métis children and youth who are receiving services? These questions represent the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more possibilities.

As I mentioned, this report is the first in a two-part series. In the coming months, we’ll be releasing a second report that details critical injuries and deaths of First Nations and non-Indigenous children. It’s being compiled using similar Indigenous approaches, involving consultation, collaboration and ensuring our work is useful to the communities we serve and to the interests that are represented through the federal act supporting resumption of jurisdiction of our child welfare.

[10:30 a.m.]

That’s an overview of Invisible Children. We’re happy to take questions now. I’ll flag for you that Jenn Morgan and Carly Hyman have deep knowledge and have lived and breathed this report over a number of months, so they will support me in this discussion.

N. Simons (Chair): Thanks very much, Jennifer. I appreciate the overview and the work that’s gone into this. I’d like to just say that it’s good to see the focus on an area that has yet to receive much light from, I guess, the representative’s office. This is important information, and I hope it does inform future practice and help us make sure our child-serving systems are responsive.

I’m looking to my fellow committee members for comments or questions about this report or about reports that will come from this one. I know everyone is just overwhelmed with work these days with the UBCM going on and all sorts of discussions about other issues.

Jennifer, for my benefit, can you explain how the second part relates specifically to this first report, or is it a stand-alone critical injuries and death report secondly? Then after that, I have a question from a member.

J. Charlesworth: There are some interconnections. They are stand-alone reports in many ways, but when you think about it, we’re talking about the same body of data, 2015 to 2017, with similar collaborative approaches. So there’s a similarity in the methodology and approach, but they also stand alone and have integrity in and of themselves.

Carly or Jenn, would you like to add anything there?

J. Morgan: Just that they’re also linked in the way that we created the report. Originally, this was going to be a much simpler one report that was just a very quick and dirty overview. But as we started to work with the data, we saw that more themes were emerging than we had expected and that the themes differed between Métis children and youth versus First Nations and non-Indigenous.

Then we were also responding to calls from communities for disaggregated data. That was where we decided to split those up. We’ve always thought of them in our minds, at RCY, as being linked, but they are stand-alone.

N. Simons (Chair): Thanks for that response.

Joan, our about-to-be-most-recent draft pick for the Children and Youth team, you have a comment.

J. Isaacs: I actually have three quick questions.

Hello, everybody. Good morning. Thank you for having me on the committee. I’m glad to be back here working with you all.

With regard to the Métis versus the Aboriginal group, is there a percentage of the Métis that are rural versus the percentage that are urban? I guess I should rephrase that. What is the percentage of Métis in rural population areas and what is the percentage in urban populated areas?

J. Charlesworth: Just to clarify, are you talking about the Métis population across the province or this particular sample?

J. Isaacs: Well, either way, I guess. But actually, I think broader across the province would be better.

J. Charlesworth: It’s a great question, and I don’t have the answer. I will look to my colleagues, including Samantha, and if we don’t have the answer, Joan, we will absolutely get it for you as best we can.

Do my colleagues have an answer off the top? No? Okay.

J. Isaacs: It leads into my next question. You said only 50 percent of the youth were actually receiving services for their special needs. Is that a rural…? Does that play a part in not accessing services? If it does, is it possible to introduce some virtual care, as they’re starting to do? Kids, in particular, are very digitally inclined. Is there an opportunity there to introduce that, particularly in the rural areas?

[10:35 a.m.]

Then my next question was, basically…. When you were talking about the misidentification of children, is there any extra training that’s going on with the people that are working, the social workers and so on, to help them identify this segment of the population that has unique needs? Is there any training that’s helping them to move that issue that you’ve brought forward, forward?

J. Charlesworth: Both wonderful questions. Thank you. I’ll offer a few comments and then look to my colleagues to add more.

I think — and this committee knows well — that overall, the services available for children and youth with special needs are woefully inadequate. As we’ll share with you in October, the pandemic has further exacerbated that. So overall, it’s a fractured and frail system, with many young people not receiving any services. The Métis children that we talked about here are no exception to that.

Certainly, you raise an important point that from a rural perspective, rural and remote, there are fewer opportunities for our young people to receive CYSN services. But the intention of CYSN is to be available to children across this province. So it’s another example where there are good intentions but difficulty to deliver that, particularly if a child is needing specialized therapies or supports, because recruitment is a huge challenge. This is indicative of a broader issue, but we are concerned that this data suggests that so few of these children, despite the neurocognitive developmental challenges that were identified, are able to access the CYSN services.

In terms of the question that you have around access to virtual supports, I think that’s something that the pandemic has actually fueled — to see how that might be possible. As a result, though, of our lessons-in-a-pandemic work that we’ve done with CYSN, it is important to recognize that for many children and youth, that simple doesn’t work very well for them because of the nature of their needs and the importance of having more hands-on-related care or involvement in a child development centre with therapeutic interventions, behavioural interventions, etc.

I think I’ve seen more openness, a greater openness to thinking about how to extend things in a virtual realm, but I still think that we are dealing, fundamentally, with a system that’s broken. I’ll be very clear about that, and I think our report will further develop that.

In terms of training, the Métis Nation B.C. and Judy Smith, who I referenced earlier that helped in the work with Samantha, have developed some training materials, and those have been shared with the ministry. But I think Samantha is probably somebody who knows best how that kind of service and support and training is offered. Maybe we’ll take each one of those. The rural, CYSN perspective first, and then we can maybe talk about training in terms of looking to my colleagues for further….

Jenn, Carly, anything on the data that we have there that you would like to add?

C. Hyman: Jennifer, on the issue of identification or misidentification, I’m not aware of any specific ministry training initiatives. Some might have more current information. The ministry did have an opportunity to respond to this report, and they didn’t highlight any current initiatives, didn’t bring anything to our attention. I’m sure if there was something, they would have done so.

N. Simons (Chair): May I just comment that in previous reports, the representative has indicated that the ministry doesn’t always adhere specifically to the practice standards that require the identification of Indigenous children and youth.

That’s, obviously, for many different reasons. But I’m just wondering if that issue sort of gets raised within the same context of a specifically identifying Métis or Inuit children and youth within that subset. I wonder if this is something that we, or the ministry, could perhaps be having a look at or listening to.

J. Charlesworth: Very good.

N. Simons (Chair): Next on my list is Ellis, calling from up north.

E. Ross: Good morning. I read the reports, and I do understand the concern of the Métis, not wanting, basically, to have comparatives to the First Nations communities on this subject matter. But you really can’t help it.

[10:40 a.m.]

If you interchange the name “First Nations” versus “Métis,” the narrative is almost exactly the same, including the injuries and any of the symptoms that they’re suffering from.

I understand this issue very clearly. It was 16 years of my life as chief and council, of trying to get a very reluctant chief and council to engage not only with First Nations members in our own community but with our First Nations that were living in an urban setting. It’s a very touchy subject, and it falls into the lines of financial, politics…. There are a lot of reasons why a First Nation chief and council — and leadership, for that matter — don’t want to get involved, except if you’re talking about an advocacy group like, say, the Summit or the AFN, who don’t really have direct responsibility in terms of finding a solution.

My question is really around the ethnicity. I hear a lot about First Nations groups and now the Métis group having similar problems, but is there any other ethnic group that has similar problems with the system itself? I’m talking about the Asian community, for example, or maybe the Hungarian community and, dare I say, the Caucasian community. Are there similar problems with other groups in B.C.?

J. Charlesworth: What a timely question, Ellis, in light of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner’s report, released several days ago, on the collection of race-based data. I’ll also reference that our own report, Caught in the Middle, said that we felt it was important for an appropriate collection of race-based data in order to better understand the unique experiences of different populations in our society.

I do want to say a couple of things, though. I appreciate your comment that there are significant similarities within populations, in terms of the kinds of injuries. But I think one of the things that was important for us with these two reports is that the communities themselves have specific questions about what the data can tell them.

When we went to the Métis community, Métis Nation, Métis Commission, etc., they said that they were particularly curious not only about the kinds of injuries but also about those children and what else was going on in their lives — mental health concerns, developmental concerns, etc. — and a different set of questions and concerns or curiosities, if you will, about the data arising in our consultations with First Nations. While you might see some similarities in the kinds of injuries, there are also different questions that are arising when you take a look at those injuries.

I’m going to look to Jenn and Carly, who are steeped in the data around First Nations, to say if there’s anything noticeable that you’d like to flag in terms of the distinction, Métis and First Nations, that might be helpful to give you a little bit of a sneak peak on this. Then I’ll come back to the experience of other groups.

J. Morgan: Yeah, I can talk to that a little bit. I’ve been working on the data around First Nations and non-Indigenous children and youth with injuries and deaths.

There are some similarities, but it was really interesting, even starting from the consultation stage, how different the questions were from the leaders, the service providers and the community members that we talked to. Both were really interested in finding out information about their children and youth, partly for the purposes of planning services, as they’re resuming jurisdiction or applying for funding and those kinds of things, whereas the Métis consultations that we did with people — who historically have been, as we note in the report, erased — said: “We want a report that specifically highlights issues, strengths, challenges for our children and youth, for families and the services that are being provided to them.”

It was very interesting that when we talked, especially to First Nations service providers, they said: “We actually specifically want comparisons with non-Indigenous children and youth, because it really highlights where our children and youth are being discriminated against and don’t get as many services or have a harder time accessing services than the non-Indigenous children and youth.” I think that comes out quite strongly in the First Nations report.

Even with the patterns of injuries and deaths that we observe across the two reports, the patterns are slightly different, as well as the service involvement. One of the things we noted in the Métis report was that a lot of the children and youth with serious injuries were not attending school. A higher proportion of the First Nations children and youth with injuries are attending school, which was a strength for them. I do think it is slightly different.

[10:45 a.m.]

The other questions that we were asked in the consultations were different. For example, with the Métis Commission there was a question around training for social workers. The Métis Commission has cultural safety agreements that they require social workers to participate in working with. They had recently introduced a new version of those when we started collecting data.

They said for our Métis children and youth, we want to know about cultural planning as a baseline — and then we can track that over time to see how they’re complying with some of the cultural safety agreements — whereas, with some of the First Nations consultations, they were more interested in the geographical comparisons. What is it like for kids who are living in an urban location, versus a rural location? What does that say about service provision? Does that have an effect on injury types and those kinds of things?

You will see that, for example, sexualized violence was high for both Métis and First Nations children and youth, but some of the other factors that go along with that were different across the two populations.

J. Charlesworth: Wonderful. Thanks, Jenn.

E. Ross: If I may, in general the narrative is the same in terms of First Nations, in terms of the issue. I’m not here to debate it or argue it. It’s just that everything I’ve read and experienced over the 16 years is exactly the same as what this report was talking about. Maybe even the levels are a bit higher, or there’s something different, but in terms of the issues, it didn’t surprise me.

The ethnicity question is more important to me. It’s something that was just said right now, and I wonder if it’s going to be followed up on — the idea that the services were actually being delivered under a discriminatory basis. That’s pretty serious when you’re talking about a government program. If it’s going to come out in terms of an assertion coming from an organization, whether they be Métis or First Nations or something other than that, that’s got to be explored. I’m just wondering if that’s going to come out in any kind of a paper.

Maybe I’ll look to the Chair to answer this question. Where do we follow up on that kind of a charge? Here’s what I’m looking for. I’ve never heard before that First Nations or Métis people were being delivered a service different from non–First Nations people. That’s pretty serious if it comes out in a paper, and I think somebody has got to follow up on it if that distinction is made officially.

N. Simons (Chair): Ellis, there have been repeated Human Rights Tribunal rulings calling for the federal government to fund Indigenous child welfare across the country at the same level that non-Indigenous communities have been funded. You see, the federal government was….

E. Ross: I understand that, but we’re talking about a service delivery here in the province. If this is really happening, somebody has got to look in to this. It’s so similar to what’s being delivered in B.C.

N. Simons (Chair): Does anyone want to…? I’m not sure exactly what specific charge you’re talking about, Ellis. But generally, I know that you’re….

E. Ross: It was just based on a comment that was just made. I know it’s not the subject matter here, but I’ll be looking forward to that paper to see that in writing. It’s not the topic here, though. I agree with that.

N. Simons (Chair): Okay. Thanks, Ellis. I appreciate that.

T. Wat: First of all, I’d like to thank the representative’s office for coming out with this study. Actually, my colleague Ellis might have answered some of the questions that I had. Once I saw this report in my email, there were so many questions that I had started thinking about. But I don’t think we have time for me to ask so many questions.

I was going to ask: why Métis? I’m glad that the office has decided to devote a special study to the Métis. I think it’s important. From what my colleague Ellis said, it looks like that the culture of the Métis is more or less falling in line with the same as other First Nations. Maybe we can talk about that on another day.

I’m glad that, as I said, the office has devoted this study to one First Nations cultural group. I’m going to ask about the race-based study. As we all know, B.C. is a multicultural province and comprises so many ethnicities. Is there any plan to try to target a study to different ethnic groups, as Ellis has said? That’s the overall question I want to ask.

[10:50 a.m.]

If we have time, I do suggest maybe we should devote a meeting to discuss this kind of multicultural approach. I would appreciate that. But not today; I know that.

Thank you, Dr. Charlesworth.

J. Charlesworth: Very interesting questions. One of the things you may recall. There was the Caught in the Middle report that we released — all the time is blurring — I think it was in late 2019. Right? It’s like: what is 2020?

At any rate, one of the things that we talked about there was this young child, as you may recall. He identified as having Caribbean heritage, and that was important to him. Yet there’s no mechanism by which that kind of data or that information, that sense of identity, is captured in the typical ways of collecting information and demographic data on a file. So it makes it very difficult.

It might be some information about identity or ethnicity that’s within a file, but it’s not routinely captured. So it makes it very difficult for us because there isn’t a field that we can go to, to say that we have confidence that it’s being used, that allows us to say, well, in fact, there are so many South Asian children being served, or there are so many children of eastern European background being served, or there are so many children who are immigrant — for example, first generation or refugee.

It’s a tricky area, which is why the Premier, I think, asked the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Human Rights Commissioner to take a look at how best to collect that kind of information to inform public policy. So I think we’re right on the cusp of trying to figure out how to do that better. But right now we are hampered by the fact that that kind of information is not routinely collected in such a way that we can aggregate that and have confidence in the data.

I look to Carly — if you want to add anything more along those lines.

C. Hyman: I think you’ve captured it. The only thing I would add is we made that recommendation to the ministry regarding the collection of disaggregated race-based data. It was reiterated in the Human Rights Commissioner’s report from earlier this week, and we’ll be monitoring its implementation and reporting publicly on it.

J. Charlesworth: I’ll just add, too, that this is also a conversation that we’ve had with the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, who also feels that it’s a very important area for us to start working on because there are differences. Yes, there are similarities, as you’ve pointed out, between the Métis experience and the First Nations experience, but there are also differences.

It’s important for us to understand, because a one-size-fits-all is often not in the best interests of child and youth well-being. And we know how important identity is. In fact, in our work, we now have five areas of permanency that we look at, one of which is identity. It’s a new area that we think is really important because that’s where young people can, potentially, find a sense of belonging, a sense of who they are, where they come from and their uniqueness in the world in the sense of belonging, which we know is so critically important.

So we’re very supportive of moving forward in the direction that I know you’re very interested in too.

R. Singh: No question, Chair, but just a comment. I just wanted to thank Dr. Charlesworth and the team for all the great work that you always do and the important issues that you bring forward. I’m glad the committee members are feeling that about the systemic issues that we have been hearing since I joined the committee. I’m glad, in a way, that we feel outraged about why there are systemic barriers, because that’s what the real issue is — the systemic barriers that our Indigenous populations, our visible minorities and all the marginalized populations go through.

The work that your department does — I really, really appreciate that because these reports need to come out. Only then are we able to take some action and follow up on them. My hands go up for you. Thank you so much.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you, Rachna. Thank you for expressing that.

[10:55 a.m.]

It is interesting as we contemplate how it is that children become involved in the child welfare system. I think that there are a lot of possible variables to look at, but I think that when we look at the constitutionally identified groups that are served by our system, it’s fundamentally important to see if and how the differences might manifest themselves. I see economic factors having a huge influence on families’ involvement in the child welfare system and the tools that they have to maybe avoid this system completely. But anyway, all these together help us understand the broader system.

We have a few minutes left if anyone has any final comments on this report.

I just thank everybody for their comments and for the work that went into….

Oh, Ronna-Rae. Go ahead.

R. Leonard: I want to say thank you, and I also wanted to highlight, just in passing, that you had mentioned that this is like a baseline report. It’s captured just until 2017. So I think people will be hungry to see what has transpired since then to see if we’re going in the right direction.

I really appreciate all of this conversation. You have given us a springboard to have that conversation around discrimination within our systems. It’s not an easy conversation, and it’s not an easy one to tackle, so thank you.

I just have to say that. Sorry.

N. Simons (Chair): You don’t have to apologize. Thanks for saying that, Ronna-Rae.

With that, we have one more item on our agenda for this morning, and this is the review of the second representative’s report, which is on an issue that, as a social worker, often came to my attention and I think is probably a widespread issue in our communities. I’m just so pleased that the representative decided to have a look at this area.

Without any further ado…. I just don’t have the exact title right in front of me. It is called A Way to Cope: Exploring Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in B.C. Youth.

Jennifer, I’d like you to go ahead.

A Way to Cope: Exploring Non-
Suicidal Self-Injury in B.C. Youth

J. Charlesworth: Great. Thank you. Yes, this report was released yesterday, and it’s a different type of report for us. We’re departing from past practice in a few ways. Like Invisible Children, it doesn’t include recommendations for government. Rather, it sets a baseline and provides an opportunity for government to review our findings and to take action to address the concerns we’ve outlined. It’s really a learning opportunity about a difficult and complex subject.

In our consultations, we learned from many different people that these are the kinds of situations — these cri­tical, pervasive, non-suicidal self-injuries — that keep them awake at night, because we just don’t have the capacity to respond. I’m hopeful that this report, despite the fact that it’s not directive, will foster the systemic changes to support children and youth with complex needs, as well as their families.

In the past — some clarification on definitions and terminology — non-suicidal self-injuries, or NSSI for short, were often referred to as self-harm, but that term doesn’t provide an accurate description of the behaviour. So our multidisciplinary team partners who worked with us on the report thoughtfully recommended the change in term, and we agreed.

What do we mean by NSSI? The term refers to the intentional and direct injuring of one’s body without suicidal intent. Skin-cutting is the most common form. It’s one that we hear about a lot and probably the thing that we think of most often, but it takes myriad other forms as well: scratching, burning, banging body parts, limiting food intake, even unsafe sex and poisoning. And it’s prevalent. This was a remarkable thing for me to learn as the representative. It’s far more common, in fact, than most people think, and I’ll come back to that in a few moments.

[11:00 a.m.]

Given that young people with serious NSSI regularly come to our attention through reportable circumstances, we wanted to understand how systems of care currently respond and what could be done to improve the responses to better support these young people. So while the focus of our report is on severe and repeated NSSI, we recognize that any episode of self-injury is serious to the young person who is experiencing it and to the families and caregivers, and I want to acknowledge that.

Serious and repeated episodes of NSSI, the subject of this report, can have profoundly negative outcomes. In some cases, youth end up entering the care system because their families can’t give them the supports they need to keep them safe and because the system is limited in the supports it can provide to children who are not in care. In some cases, youth end up in hospital, and evidence shows that youth who engage in repeated NSSI may also be at increased risk of suicide.

The injury reports that we receive often describe the case management of youth who are engaging in extreme NSSI as being in crisis mode, with everyone scrambling to meet the needs of these kids and keep them safe the best way they know how. And you can certainly understand how that would be the case, given some of the injuries that were reported in this report.

The data we receive, however, puts us in the unique position of being able to take a step back from that crisis mode and review the cases we’re seeing and to do further research into the reasons youth engage in NSSI and discover solutions that evidence shows are effective.

For youth engaging in NSSI and their families and caregivers, there’s a real urgency to find effective tools that go beyond addressing the symptoms and that get to the underlying reasons for the behaviours. That’s my hope in this report, that that becomes quite clear.

We had the opportunity to consult with service providers with expertise to better understand the challenges that families, caregivers and child-serving systems face in trying to support these young people. And it’s our intention with this report to provide an opportunity for collaborative learning and knowledge sharing with government decision-makers and service providers. The report concisely provides clarity on the needs that NSSI fulfils for the young people who engage in it and the effective tools and support that they need.

What’s our approach? We used a blended approach in this report to illustrate what’s going on with youth with NSSI in B.C. This is a new approach for us. We looked at aggregate data of critical injuries of youth who receive government services and engage in NSSI, we comprehensively reviewed the files of five young people, we did a literature review, and we convened a group of experts. We analyzed aggregate data for 78 youths over a period of 20 months. And for those 78 youths, we received 112 critical NSSI injury reports.

The aggregate data did a good job of showing us trends, but our comprehensive file review of five young people provided the opportunity to see how NSSI had been manifested in their lives and the impacts that it had. This was particularly illuminating. All five youths that were comprehensively reviewed were female. All experienced repeated NSSI — multiples. Two were First Nations, one was Métis, and two were non-Indigenous. Each had multiple mental health diagnoses, and some also experienced substance use. Sadly, one young person passed away at the age of 18 due to an accidental overdose.

We think their stories illuminate the extreme challenges they and their families and caregivers and clinicians who serve them face. Together they paint a picture of youth who require complex and nuanced supports and services. This blended approach provided some clarity for us around the common characteristics of NSSI. The research shows that female youth experience NSSI more often than males. It’s also very common amongst gender-diverse youth.

The most recent B.C. adolescent health survey done by McCreary Centre Society, for example, found that 24 percent of female youth across the whole province versus 11 percent of male youth engaged in NSSI. Think about that: 24 percent of our young people, our young women, and 11 percent of our young men engage in NSSI in some way. And 47 percent of gender-diverse youth reported engaging in NSSI. The prevalence of NSSI amongst First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous youth is also high. Of the reports we received, almost half the youth who reported NSSI in the time period we studied were First Nations; 9 percent were Métis. So it’s much more common than perhaps most people think.

In fact, it would be a mistake to believe that it’s some kind of outlier behaviour. It’s simply not. Our research revealed that up to one-third of youth engage in some form of NSSI in their adolescence. If so many young people are engaging in NSSI, there’s an immediate need to reduce stigma around it and to encourage youth and their families to seek help.

[11:05 a.m.]

Our research showed that NSSI appears to peak in adolescence and decline in the adult years, so age is an important factor to consider when examining NSSI, especially in these teen years. This finding also shows that the act of keeping youth with repeated NSSI alive is an end in and of itself. I used to think, when I was a front-line worker, that one of the best things I could do was to support young people until they reached young adulthood, because so many things happen developmentally and some of the risk factors go down.

One of the key questions around NSSI is: why do these young people do this? For those who don’t engage in NSSI or it’s not familiar, it may seem puzzling. But the fact is that it fills a real need; hence the title A Way to Cope. It fills a real need for these young people, and the answers are not simple. The why of NSSI is complex, nuanced and specific to each youth, but patterns can be discerned.

Our research showed that young people often engage in NSSI to regulate their emotions. For example, they might do it to calm themselves down, to punish themselves or to stop feeling numb, given what’s going on in their lives. Young people have said they do it for social reasons as well — to create physical evidence that they feel awful, to kind of show others their pain through their actions if their words aren’t working, or even to fit in with their peers. So there’s both an emotional regulatory function and a social regulatory function.

There’s also a demonstrated link between childhood trauma and NSSI in adolescence. In particular, some studies have demonstrated connections between physical or sexual abuse in childhood and later NSSI. We also saw a significant connection between child-parent conflict and NSSI behaviours, which speaks to how do we support families and young people in their conflicts?

What have we learned about the tools to support youth with NSSI? Kids are often cared for by family members, caregivers and diverse health care professionals. They’re served by multiple health service streams, MCFD, health authorities, school districts, non-profit agencies and private practitioners. But for many, it’s not working, for a number of reasons — wait-lists, for one. Youth trying to access child and youth mental health services often have to wait.

In addition, we’ve found that, in some cases, multiple references to Child and Youth Mental Health resulted in only one cursory contact and limited follow up, despite escalating symptoms. We found that while trauma was common and the youth had multiple mental health diagnoses, few of the youth were able to access services and supports for children and youth with complex care needs, pointing to a framework and services that are simply not meeting the needs of these young people.

In itself, that’s not a new revelation. Of course, we’ve brought numerous reports before this committee, in my time and before, identifying the lack of mental health supports for children and youth, and this well-known shortfall continues.

Research also showed limited evidence that culture was considered in working with youth with NSSI. As I said, many systems responded from a crisis orientation and didn’t take the step back to think about what could be protective and what is the importance of the cultural connection. So it’s interesting, in light of the conversation we had with the previous report. This is all despite the evidence that cultural connection can serve as a protective factor for youth with complex needs. Given the prevalence of NSSI for First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous young people, this is a concern that represents an opportunity for change.

This report also found that families and caregivers, not surprisingly, are deeply impacted when caring for a young person engaging in NSSI. Related to that, support in skill-building opportunities may be imperative for supporting caregivers of these young people. In particular, our research suggested that a family’s understanding of NSSI, their reaction to it and their participation in interventions leads to improved outcomes for youth — having a more normative reaction to it and to support young people without escalating drama, for example.

In fact, the limited accessibility of supports and services available to families and caregivers is a concern because it may contribute to these missed opportunities for prevention and early intervention. Sometimes youth were seen as engaging in NSSI to seek attention rather than being genuine mental health issues, with the result that they weren’t adequately supported, and they were dismissed. This is a conversation I had with one of you around this circle in the last couple of days.

[11:10 a.m.]

One of the major barriers to service for youth that we saw come up again and again was being labelled as “difficult to engage” or “unwilling to engage” or “performing.” There are, obviously, serious problems with labelling a youth in that way, first and foremost because it places responsibility on the youth for a successful fit between the youth and the service rather than recognizing that it is a disconnect in the system.

What did we learn about opportunities for change? What’s encouraging about this report is that there is hope for these young people and there are opportunities for change. It’s important to recognize how vitally important parents and guardians are here. Family and caregiver support can make a positive difference for these young people in working through the conflicts as well.

Treatment can be effective, but with the caveat that it needs to be attuned to the underlying reasons that the youth is engaging in NSSI — so again, not a one-size-fits-all. It needs to be accessible, timely and culturally appropriate.

One of the most effective strategies that research shows for youth engaging in repeated or severe NSSI is cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. Another effective tool for supporting youth and reducing the occurrences of NSSI is dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT. These treatments were found to significantly reduce occurrences of NSSI, but the comment was made by the clinicians and expert that it’s rarely a fulsome access to CBT or DBT in the child and youth mental health services.

Research shows that prevention of trauma or early intervention after trauma could prevent the onset of NSSI, so we’d like to see the full implementation of MCFD’s 2017 trauma-informed practice guide, which hasn’t yet hap­pened.

In conclusion, the report, once again, sets a baseline. Our plan is to follow up this research with an update on services for children and youth who engage in NSSI, in 2022. I’m hopeful the government decision-makers will use this report to inform service improvements for this cohort of youth. I think it’s particularly important in light of the Pathway to Hope, for example.

That’s the overview. We’re pleased to answer any questions you might have. Again I will draw on my fine colleagues Carly and Jenn, who are steeped in this work.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you so much, Jennifer. I think you have highlighted something that may be below most people’s radar, and that is the prevalence of self-harming behaviour.

It might be interesting at some point to find out from adults — like to do a survey of adults — what in their lives might have changed after they may have been self-harming. In my circle, I know people who know others who’ve talked about their childhood and some of the behaviours they engaged in as young people. It’s a very interesting and important topic, and I thank you very much.

The first person on my list is Deputy Chair Michelle.

M. Stilwell (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Nick, and thank you to Jennifer and her team for providing us with the report.

I agree with Nicholas. It’s insightful, and it has highlighted the prevalence of the issue. It certainly recognizes some of those service gaps and points out the limited supports and services that can help with that prevention and intervention.

I think there’s no doubt that it’s a very complex subject. Critical, pervasive injuries such as SSI behaviour…. It’s complex, and the capacity is not there to change at this time.

I think I just want to raise the point and acknowledge that the report doesn’t really include the many youth that don’t have touchpoints with the ministry. Those children, those youth who are living at home with their families, with their parents and….

I think it’s more common that we think. There’s so much shame and stigma around it that there’s a lot of hiding, not disclosing, just trying to make it within their own family circle, so I think it’s far more prevalent than we know. But of course, the good news is that the research shows that the majority of youth grow out of it and that they peak in adolescence.

I recognize that the report doesn’t actually make any recommendations to government. It recognizes CBT or DBT or part of the care plan.

[11:15 a.m.]

But I guess what I’m wondering is what role education or an awareness campaign can play to talk about the stigma about it, to make it more just like mental health in general. How do we talk about it and normalize it so that people have a better understanding of what it is, why people engage in it, why our youth engage in it and how that can enable parents — both ones that have had touchpoints with the ministry but also all those parents out there who are dealing with it or trying to deal with it independently — to support their youth through the emotionally challenging times of adolescence?

Whether it is because they’ve had some kind of trauma in their life or they’re using it as a calming measure or whether it’s, as you mentioned, the social reasons, to fit in with their peer group, it’s pretty common to see in high schools and junior high schools around the province. I’m just wondering if you have any comment about a campaign around education and ending the stigma.

J. Charlesworth: Well, thank you so much for flagging the prevalence and how important it is that we be mindful of the shame and the stigma connected to that. It is something that I’ve been wondering, and I certainly welcome feedback and direction from the committee about the ways in which we could be most helpful.

You’re absolutely right that we have this narrow slice in — children that are known to the system, receiving services through the system, and furthermore, that these are serious critical injuries. We recognize that we have just a small slice of the awareness here. But I think the intention of our work was to highlight that it is much more common than we thought, that it serves a purpose and that families are often left to figure it out on their own. They’re not getting the supports that they should be getting.

Furthermore, in the absence of that and with escalation in the lack of services and supports, both to support the family and to support the young people, it increases the likelihood that a young person would be coming into care. And there are some clear intervention points following traumatic experience or trauma. It’s really important that care and attention be paid to ways of intervening as well.

All of those points you’ve eloquently raised, and I think that’s something that’s important here. I think our report…. My hope is that it actually has wider pickup and that we’re able to use that as a way of identifying the shame and stigma and speaking about it. It’s also an area that I could see us, through our social media challenges and with our social media youth interns, trying to use our channels to talk about something that, as you say, has so much shame and stigma for many families.

It’s been my experience as well. I’m the parent of a 28- and a 26-year-old. We have had many young people living in our spare room because they’re not able to live at home because of a conflict and have been self-harming. I know that there’s a real cloak of fear and silence that’s attached for many of these young people in really not knowing where to go.

I completely appreciate your point. How could we reduce the stigma and shame? How do we raise awareness about how this is a coping mechanism and here are some things that would help? Hopelessness is devastating for families, as we well know.

That’s my little thing. We’ve thought about how we can use our social media platforms. We welcome any insights from the committee on that as well. I think you’ve highlighted something critically important. Thank you.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you, Jennifer.

Just to note we have until 11:30. Thank you.

Ellis, go ahead.

E. Ross: Thank you for this report, because this is common knowledge in First Nation communities. I had no idea it was common in the non–First Nation communities. It’s starting to spread, especially in the cutting, to the males, which was quite surprising, in the past few years.

Now, I hear a lot of talk about the cultural component. One thing that I haven’t seen yet, though, is the cultural opposition to what First Nations perceive as weakness, and it’s probably why you don’t see much engagement.

[11:20 a.m.]

I’ll give you an example. In northwest First Nations culture, it’s actually considered taboo to commit suicide. You don’t celebrate that. The family is put in shame. This is recent. My mom’s generation still lives by this rule, and they taught my generation. It’s just now that we’re starting to talk about the self-mutilation, the suicides. We’re just starting to talk about that now.

I’m trying to convince my community about this. In terms of trying to have a different conversation, I’ve been trying to tell them: “Look, the First Nations kids of today are a lot different from when you guys you grew up.” They’re facing a lot of different things. The anxieties are different. They’re not thinking about winter supply food or how to heat their homes. They’re thinking about a lot of different things.

The stigma you talk about is actually cultural based as well. I thought I was getting away from this when I became an MLA, but actually, as an MLA, my office in Terrace is filled with these kinds of stories, and there doesn’t seem to be an answer. I’m not sure the government’s side is actually the answer itself, but I do applaud the idea of this report actually bringing more awareness and having a more open conversation about it. Thanks.

Nicholas, I’ve got to jump in a car and head to Prince George.

Thank you very much for that report, and we’ll see you guys soon.

N. Simons (Chair): Safe travels, Ellis, and thanks for those comments. I think they’re good comments. We’ll see you next time, buddy.

I don’t know if you wanted to answer or if you wanted to just maybe get Ronna-Rae’s and Rachna’s comments on the record. Then we can go into…. How about that?

Okay. Let’s go with Ronna-Rae.

R. Leonard: Okay. I’ll try to be quick.

Thank you very much for the report. I have a couple of questions. One of them is around…. We have instituted a lot more Foundries across the province, with more to come. I know in my community we’ve got one of more than a handful of pilots that are doing integrated mental health teams within school districts.

When we talk about accessing services, I see movement there to provide more youth services, and I’m wondering what access you have to aggregated data that can help inform future reports. That’s one.

The second question I have may not be answerable. In terms of implementing the trauma-informed practice guide, what is it that it’s going to take to get us over the hump? Is it around post-secondary education? Do we not have enough in-service training for it to happen? What is it going to take, if there is an answer?

I’ll leave it at that.

J. Charlesworth: Thank you. Great questions again.

I’m going to look to Carly and Jenn. I think there are a couple of things there. Maybe we could take a look at….

I think, in a general sense, the impact of the Foundries and the integrated teams associated with the schools — things are in very early stages. When we recently had a briefing pertaining to complex care and what was called step-up, step-down — that’s referenced in the report — what became apparent is that a lot of the initiatives to try and address these very complex, nuanced areas of service are in their very early stages. It’s impossible for us to say: “Is this going to be impactful? Is this going to be helpful to these young people? Are they even showing up?” I think we’re a ways from that.

I’ll look first to Jenn and Carly, in terms of the data and accessing data from those other sources.

C. Hyman: If it would be helpful, I can share some data on wait times for child and youth mental health services. We received a recent briefing from the ministry; I believe it was in June. They reported to us that as of April 30, there were over 2,500 young people waiting for CYMH services. The average wait time in days was 54 days.

No wait time was experienced by 647 young people who were identified as having urgent needs. Now, that was reported as including self-harming behaviour, so there’s a bit of a discrepancy from that data and what we saw in this report.

J. Charlesworth: Thanks, Carly.

N. Simons (Chair): Thanks for that. It’s startling. I don’t know whether it should be surprising — 2,500 young people, non-urgent but mental health service requests.

Rachna, would you like to make your comment now?

[11:25 a.m.]

R. Singh: Just a very quick comment.

Thank you again for this wonderful report. It brings this issue out for the public, more awareness. I think it’s very important. As Michelle said, there’s still a lot of stigma around mental health issues and to discuss these issues. I know there are resources that are being put in the communities, like Foundries and in-school services. I agree with Jennifer that they are so new that we are not getting the results…. We won’t get the results quickly, how they are impacting.

My one question would be…. I know youth who are having trouble, and they try to…. Underlying issues come out in different kinds of behaviours, especially this self-harming, especially with the situation that we are going through now with COVID and all the stress that is creating in our youth. Have you seen any increase in these kinds of incidents since then, or has that research not been done yet?

J. Charlesworth: Well, one of things that this amazing team that Carly leads and that Jenn is a part of too…. Of course, we get hundreds of reportable circumstances every month, and we are taking a look at some of those trends.

Jenn or Carly, do you want to jump in, in terms of whether we’re seeing any increase in the non-suicidal self-injuries? I know we are, in areas of suicide attempts as well.

J. Morgan: We are seeing a big increase in the number of reportables overall, and we see the patterns shift over time. It’s always tricky to say what the causes of any changes in our data are. I do know that MCFD has been doing a lot of training with different practitioners around reporting requirements and those kinds of things.

I can’t say for sure that we’re seeing an increase in non-suicidal self-injuries as a result of COVID. We did, in the report, suggest that we would do an update in 2022, I think.

Just to go back to the previous question about the Foundries, the health authorities, the schools, we limited the scope in this project to MCFD services only, but we would be very interested in looking at the confluence of other types of services.

Another thing we could do in the update is an analysis over time and look at whether there was a spike during this period — did it decrease afterwards, did it stay high, those kinds of things. That would be something really interesting to look at.

J. Charlesworth: One of the things…. It really speaks to the stigma that Michelle talked about. I think that overall, what we have learned through our community partners is they’re seeing an increase in the number of mental health challenges that young people are facing, but they may not be coming to the attention of the ministry. They may not be accessing services, particularly with non-suicidal self-injury. The shame and stigma might…. Or that sense that they’ve made an effort and they aren’t getting the services they need, so they’re backing away from the services. They might not come to our attention.

Just to give a little foreshadowing, one of the lessons in the pandemic that we’ll be bringing before you is some work that we’ve done in collaboration — or funded — with Simon Fraser University’s Dr. Charlotte Waddell. It’s taking a look at what can be learned about natural disasters and pandemics and the mental health impact — and the residual impact long after the threat, in fact.

It’s alarming to see what’s happening. I am very concerned. There are lots of concerns I have as a result of the pandemic and the residual impacts, but mental health and the well-being of our kids is very significant.

N. Simons (Chair): I’m just wondering, Jennifer, if you had any thoughts about what might be affecting young people and their families with the pandemic in terms of more isolation, more overcrowding perhaps, stress around jobs. Have we been able to identify what factors are influencing — beyond perhaps the training for reportable circumstances, which may be a factor, as Carly or Jenn might have mentioned? Just your thoughts on that, and then we’ll wrap up.

[11:30 a.m.]

J. Charlesworth: Okay. I think there are all sorts of different factors, and Dr. Waddell has identified a number of them. Certainly, there is the societal factor, so the experience of isolation, separation from community and from activities — prosocial activities, for example, whether it’s sports or recreation or friendship groups and things like that. So there’s that.

There are the heightened stresses on families, especially, as you can imagine, with many families experiencing economic distress — or uncertainty, at the very least. That has a trickle effect through to the families and the well-being of the kids. And of course, families are under stress, too, of having to take on many roles that they didn’t used to.

I would say those are two significant areas of what’s happening for kids in social isolation and then what’s happening for their context, their familial and their social context. It’s contributing to a heightened experience of depression, anxiety and all the resultant behaviours associated with that.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you very much, Jennifer. I know this has been quite jam-packed with information, and I know these reports are a reflection of real situations and lives. We go through it sort of in a way that at least we acknowledge that these are stories that are being told to us for a purpose, and our response to them really is what the community watches us for.

I want to just thank you and all the staff from the representative’s office for being here. It’s nice to meet Samantha.

Thank you for being here. All of your work — Jenn, Carly, Alix…. It’s nice to see Alan.

I’d like to thank Jennifer, of course, and Katey for being here from the Clerk’s office — and everyone at Hansard, as well, for transcribing our thoughts, our words.

With that, I just thank you again, and I look for a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:32 a.m.