The recent report by B.C.’s acting representative for children and youth into the death of 18-year-old Alex Gervais is a stunning indictment of B.C.’s child protection system that has repeatedly failed to protect the most vulnerable.
Gervais’ story of being bounced around 17 different care placements – and the resulting downward spiral his short life took – is devastating reading.
It wasn’t Gervais’ fault that he was born to parents incapable – through their own mental illnesses – of looking after him. For what happened after that, however, we are as a society collectively to blame.
When government seizes a child from a family, there is an expectation that some kind of similar substitute arrangement will be provided.
But in Gervais’ case, that didn’t happen. He lived a life that no one would wish on a child and that nobody in a position to do anything about it, cared enough to fix.
He did not get the mental health- care he urgently needed, nor was finding a permanent home for Gervais ever a priority, despite that being what he so desperately needed.
Extended family members who tried to intervene were not supported and in fact were rebuffed by the system.
We are judged as a society on how we treat the most needy among us.
In Gervais’ case, a troubled child was given less care than we might give a dog.
It’s a heart-breaking story that should make people angry.
But whether they will be angry enough to warrant government action that will cost real dollars, is so far anyone’s guess.
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