Long Time No Rant; Fostering Dead Kids

More tragic news in BC's Children's Ministry (MCFD for short) when a teen still 'technically' under the government's care either fell or jumped out of a 4 story hotel window to his death.

this is the truest picture of group home kids
I could find in a google search

The predominant question in the media is: how come this child was living unsupervised in a hotel room for the last few months? This follows up on the recent overdose of Paige (no last name given), a 19 year old girl who aged out of 'care' and died in a Vancouver East Side communal bathroom to little announcement, other than the usual condemnation by BC Children's Advocate saying the usual words that start nearly every statement released by her office regarding a child who makes a tragic blip in the radar of local media.

"This is a tragedy," said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth.




For her part, BC's Minister of Children and Family's Stephanie Cadieux was 'shocked' by this news. The woman responsible for overseeing for most all of BC's social services had no idea of Alex's situation and was quick to lay blame directly on the agency involved with Alex.

"Ministry policy and practice is not to place youth or children in hotels except in extremely rare circumstances," said Cadieux. "And when that happens, it is policy that it is to be approved by a designated director and reported to the directorate of child welfare. It would appear in this case that that did not happen." 

Bullshit. I've had the privilege of working in that system for 5 years. BC's social services is nothing but paperwork and lack of supports. We all heard about the troubles the BC teachers had negotiating a contract ever since the Liberals came to power - that's nothing compared to the problems facing Social Services in this province over the last ten years. There's been times when kids have stayed many nights in hotels, there have been times when kids have stayed nights unexplained. Usual protocol was we phoned the Ministry's after-hours line, reported a child as being AWOL and wait a day to see if they come back or have been heard from. If they miss the next night, we report them being AWOL again. That's it. There is nobody out there truly worrying about them. If they are AWOL enough, their 'bed' gets put back into circulation. We might box up their stuff. At one group home we would burn their bed and furniture if they weren't coming back. Then repair damaged walls and doors with drywall and paint and prepare for the next kid. We'd say 'hello' to the new kid, and say 'good luck' when we left our shift. Their new world was not really our problem after shift change.

I digress. Here's what I believe happened to Alex, keeping in mind this is my only source of information;

He was disadvantaged from the very start of life; aboriginal children make up the highest percentage of kids in care. He came from a broken home, with parents unable to provide for him due to generational abuse; most likely his grandparents were in residential schools and as such had no idea of how to parent his own parents; thus, the circle of abuse continued with Alex until he was removed.

While I don't know how young he was when he entered care, he probably lived in a semi-stable foster home while he was young. However, he hit his teens when children generally stop being cute. His foster family probably experienced 'behavioral issues' with Alex and decided to put him back in the system. Or simply put, he 'aged' out of their home as more family environments were needed for younger children removed from their family. Given a choice, the ministry prefers children (those under 12) to be placed in a home. If the child has early onset behavioral issues, a group home is their only option. Imagine a child prone to violent outbursts and the only place to put him is in a group home with kids of the same issues.

Note: Raising a foster child is not financially rewarding. You do receive an 'allowance' for taking a child in but more often than not the risk doesn't equal the reward. Foster parents have little in the way of support - no cutting in line to access services, they have to find their own babysitters and if the birth family still has access to the child they could be removed at any time. Thus, a foster child rarely experiences a true life-long bond with their foster parents. They are just another stop in the journey.

Now the Ministry calls a room open in a group home a 'bed'. They pay the group home to use that 'bed'. Some of those 'beds' are short term occupied, others indefinite depending on the child's court order. Because a child doesn't legally become an adult until they are 19 in BC that child is in need of a 'bed' until that age.

So Alex wound up transferring around the system, the older he got, the more he was transferred. His last placement was in the care of a company in Abbotsford who ran group homes. It had 33 beds available but was closed by the Ministry in part because of complaints brought forth by the kids living in that company's group home environment. Filthy houses, empty cupboards, unprofessional staff with no training and no criminal record checks. Sounds like it was the bottom of the barrel in regards to group homes. We can only imagine what the other 30 kids were like but I'm betting Alex wasn't the best nor the worst of them in regards to court appearances or 'disciplinary action'.

So 33 'beds' or 'kids' are now gone from the Lower Mainland. Great for the BC government as they no longer are paying for those beds. An already overly-slim social services office is left to find 33 other beds in the area or in another jurisdiction who is willing to take on the child's file, which is really the word life but with the letters conveniently rearranged to negate the humanness of the subject in question.

The agency in question with Alex managed to do something on their usual shoestring budget but its doubtful the media or Ministry will ask for statistics on where those kids wound up. Some kids were probably returned to their parents with a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy because with one look you can see the kid will be coming back into care or a jail cell eventually. Some other kids may have been moved cities to fall down to the bottom of the pecking order in another group home. Everyone is basically waiting for these kids to turn 19 so they can wipe their hands of their file because there are four more waiting to take their place.

Alex, being 18, was already pretty independent. He probably liked to party, knew how to take care of himself on the streets. He probably had what they like to call Oppositional Defiant Disorder, in that he argued with those who tried to tell him what to do. As such I bet he was in a bridging stage called 'Independent Living' where kids nearly out of care are placed in an apartment or hotel for six months to get a crash course on what it will be like for them when they turn 19. They aren't allowed to live with other kids in care (as they could be a bad influence) and only in rare circumstances can one have a roommate who would have to undergo a criminal record check as Alex was still legally the Ministry's responsibility. Good luck if he was on medication as legally a 'certified' Ministry agent is the only one allowed to handle medications. Imagine being 18 and having to ask permission for an aspirin. Then you receive one tiny pill. Which is summarily recorded in your file. Because you had a headache. So Alex was probably weened off his prescribed medications as well because as a Ministry ward, he isn't legally responsible enough to take his meds.

There was probably a youth worker assigned to check in on him once a week for 2-3 hours, maybe take him grocery shopping, show him how to apply for welfare and type up a resume. Most likely Alex frequently missed his meetings with his youth worker as they were either too old, a woman, and wanted to meet at 10am (because all teens without jobs tend to be awake at that time). They are also overworked and are in a transitional phase of their careers. They ask the cursory questions without really following up on how Alex was really doing because they've circled the calendar from when his file officially closes.

Alex wasn't unusual nor was Paige. These kids are pushed out into a world where they are expected to survive without a driver's license (kids in care are not allowed to drive), bank account (all have a social worker guardian who allocates them an allowance), living skills (group home staff usually do the cleaning and cooking), therapy (a lot have unresolved emotional or physical trauma throughout their time in care) or education (in all my experience of working with kids in care, I know of only two who graduated high school).

Now for Cadieux to say she had no idea, I believe her. The problem is that's her job. She is supposed to know. That is her whole reason of being (paid). She is only a human shield for the Premier, much like the Minister of Education was in the teacher dispute. While Cadieux lays down that Cruella De Ville vibe in the interviews, there is no excuse for her not knowing. Maybe there's no room in the budget for her to have someone who charts where every 'bed' actually is or how often kids are AWOL or many 'youth workers' there are for the amount of kids in care. Perhaps that is all the MCFD subcontracting companies responsibility. A large infusion of cash is needed in social services just to get the bar to minimal.

Now to Alex's group home and closure. What is described doesn't sound unusual in my experience. Cupboards are bare? If one was truly to keep cupboards full in a group home full of teens, you'd have to easily triple the food budget. Kids in care will eat just the way kids not in care will; lots. Most families are lucky to only have one or two teens. Imagine five or six. That could be one box of cereal a day. Chips? Forget it -gone in two minutes. Vegetables? Yah, they will rot in the fridge. Food is kept under lock and key to prevent midnight raids from stoned teens with the munchies.

So allocate more money for food, you say - well, take with one hand, give with the other. Where's the money coming from? Cutting staff? Most staff I have met are either unskilled, uncaring or simply unable to handle being in an environment where the animals rule the zoo. As mentioned, most kids don't go to school. Most don't have jobs. If they leave the house it is most likely to go get high and scrounge cigarette butts in front of the mall. What leaves the house isn't necessarily what is going to be coming back. Day shifters love it when the kids are gone. Those on the night shift loathe when they come back. Those on graveyards hate if they haven't came back yet because a stoned/drunk teen at 3am isn't fun for anyone.

Those employees with social work degree use group homes as a stepping stone to better jobs and are out quicker than they come in. Also nobody wants to work past four because that is when the real shit goes down. I can't tell you how many times I've had to say 'you need to ask your social worker that' knowing full well the kid can never get a hold of his social worker.

I've thought of opening a group home but when the risk vs the reward is factored in, it's unfeasible. Only large companies can retrofit a home to meet the Ministry's safety specifications these days as it is a major investment which will only depreciate over time. I've entered group homes and could literally feel my soul darken. There's something in the air that is simply depressing. It is the sense there is no hope for these kids, just as there was no hope for Alex.

Unfortunately for the Government, Alex didn't wait a few more months to fall to his death. Because then he would have been a nameless statistic, much like his predecessor Paige, who we only got to know on a first name basis.