This week we learned about a troubled girl who committed suicide just a day after “aging out” of B.C.’s beleaguered child welfare system.
It was the latest in a string of tragic cases, including an 18-year-old Abbotsford youth who jumped or fell to his death while living in a hotel, in violation of ministry policy. There was the overdose death of 19-year-old Paige, who died after being shunted countless times around the foster care system.
Each one of them has resulted in a political response pledging to get to the bottom of the problem.
Yet according to child advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the situation in B.C.’s child and welfare system is getting worse rather than better.
The system is chronically under-staffed and under-funded. Turpel-Lafond has called on the government to immediately hire 200 more front-line workers and we agree.
So far, however, the province has resisted, which perhaps isn’t surprising. The current government wasn’t elected on a promise of creating a more humane child welfare system.
As the minister points out, it is difficult work and there are frequently not easy answers. But providing the necessary resources so that social workers can meet their own basic standards of care should surely be among those.
The chronic underfunding of the system is a very real-life example of government priorities in action and it’s these kids who are paying the price. Unless we too put pressure on the province to make changes, we are all complicit.
