Sorry to bum all of you out after the long weekend.
But that’s kind of my job.
And this story about Paige really bummed me out.
You’ve probably heard about her story via various media channels — 19-year-old woman dies of a drug overdose in a washroom adjacent to Oppenheimer Park in 2013 after years of abuse, neglect and “persistent inaction from front-line professionals and an indifferent social care system that led to this young woman’s demise.”
The quoted part of that sentence is courtesy of a report released last week by B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond. In releasing the report, Turpel-Lafond called it “one of the most troubling investigations my office has ever conducted.”
Which is saying something, considering her office conducted more than 20 reports over nine years that revealed how government failed vulnerable children and youth in this province. A major focus of the work conducted by Turpel-Lafond’s office has been advocating for better services for aboriginal children, youth and their families, an overrepresented population in the B.C. child welfare system.
Paige, whose surname wasn’t published, was aboriginal.
Before Paige’s story became part of the conversation last week, Turpel-Lafond’s office released a report in November 2013 that detailed how the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) spent $66 million over the past dozen years on aboriginal service-delivery discussions and projects, with no evidence of a single aboriginal child or family receiving better services as a result.
This is what Turpel-Lafond said then: “Aboriginal children and youth in B.C. deserve better. MCFD must make a real effort to improve the outcomes for those children by actually knowing what they require and what works to support them. Government needs to stop directing money into the big theoretical fixes, and instead shore up the front lines of the system.”
This is what she said when I spoke to her by telephone Friday: “I’m not confident change is going to happen unless we push hard and I can’t be alone. I need people to support me.”
She used the word “alone” twice in the 10-minute interview.
Here’s the second time: “I absolutely feel completely alone with respect to pushing this issue. I feel like I push, push, push. I go to the senior leadership in health, I go to the senior leadership in education and I go to the senior leadership in the Ministry for Children and Family Development and they continue to find many, many reasons why they can’t tackle it, none of which I find acceptable.”
That pushback, she said, is why she wrote in her report about Paige that “I could only call this institutional racism.” She added that “for some kids, I guess they’re disposable. But of course that’s not acceptable and they’ve got to be pressured to change this.”
Children and Family Development Minister Stephanie Cadieux’s initial response is that she was “horrified” by Paige’s story, saying “from the moment she was born, she faced obstacles that few of us can imagine or actually comprehend.”
The fact remains, she said, that despite the “dedicated and well-intentioned efforts” of ministry staff and repeated involvement throughout Paige’s life by a number of organizations and professionals, “the system ultimately failed to keep her from harm. The result is unacceptable.”
So, there you have it — Turpel-Lafond says it’s unacceptable, so does Cadieux.
But only Cadieux has the power to make some change.
So what’s she going to do about it?
For a start, she’s implementing a “rapid response team model for youth” in the Downtown Eastside.
“Because we need to catch kids as soon as possible before they become entrenched in one of the worst areas and neighbourhoods in our province — an area that nobody deems fit for a child or teen to live in,” Cadieux told reporters. “To help youth, we have to hear about them, though. And it shouldn’t matter which professional or service provider, or organization is that first point of contact for youth. There are lots of services available but they need to come together.”
While Turpel-Lafond welcomes any action, she noted the reality for many young vulnerable aboriginals like Paige who live in Vancouver is this: “Right now, the drug dealers, the pimps and the exploiters have more command of the social system than does the social care system.”
Read Paige’s story here.
@Howellings
