When children or young adults perish, we should surely take a long hard look at what we are doing wrong.
Certainly, there are seldom simple answers, or even any one correct path that guarantees better outcomes where youth in care are concerned. But there is common sense.
And common sense tells us that youth without lifelines to adults who care and adults who listen and adults who can advocate on behalf of those young people are youth that are in peril.
Today we read about one young woman’s tragic death, and a mother who wants answers. Carly Fraser’s death may have been 20 hours after she “officially” left government care, but that is a pure technicality.
During the last month, we also learned of a young man who committed suicide or fell to his death when he was placed in a motel by himself. He had told his friends that he felt lost, and was tired and frustrated of having to deal with social services.
And then there is the tragic story of Paige, a young aboriginal woman who died of an overdose in a washroom in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in 2013. She had been moved more than 50 times, often living in single-room occupancy hotels from 2009 to 2013.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.’s representative for Children and Youth, was told that no young person would be left alone in a motel or hotel again. When interviewed after Gervais’ death, Turpel-Lafond was angry that the ministry had placed yet another young person in a hotel.
In Paige’s case Turpel-Lafond said that the young woman’s death pointed to a “broken system” characterized by persistent indifference from frontline government workers.
Minister Stephanie Cadieux, in charge of the children and family portfolio, promised a review of why and how Gervais ended up alone in a hotel despite a ministry directive that prohibited exactly that. But that is not enough.
The system is broken.
We don’t know whether it is understaffed, overworked, confused with conflicting directives, dealing with internal technical issues such as computer systems that are either not updated properly or are inaccessible, staffed by people who are either burnt out or who have given up, disorganized and disillusioned. It doesn’t matter why it is not working – it does matter why we are not doing something about it right now.
This is a government that ran on a campaign of “families first.”
We know that was just spin, but surely even political animals have hearts and can acknowledge when something needs an independent review and overhaul.
