daphne bramham: sadly, children and youth are still not a political priority
b.c. government has ignored 89 per cent of the children and youth representative's recommendations over the past five years. shame on it.
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b.c.'s representative for children and youth jennifer charlesworth.
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there is no process in b.c. that ensures children held involuntarily under the mental health act are only kept in restraints and isolation after every other possible intervention has been tried.
no mandatory, periodic and independent reviews are held for those involuntarily detained. and no independent body is even notified when these kids are being held.
there is no comprehensive plan to provide effective and accessible mental health services to children and youth with special needs, including fetal alcohol syndrome. there is also no plan to reduce wait times for diagnostic services and assessments for them.
had the government taken to heart the recommendations of b.c.’s representative for children and youth, at the very least some progress would have been made.
but it has not. nor has the government made much progress on any of jennifer charlesworth’s 63 recommendations made in 10 reports over the past five years.
none of her 14 calls for engagement with first nations, métis and inuit organizations were heeded, even though the government is a signatory to the united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people that requires it.
of her recommendations, 89 per cent have been largely ignored. only nine have been implemented.
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there are “stalled strategies and delayed frameworks” with many recommendations stuck in what government officials described to charlesworth as the “pre-planning stage”. apparently, the dictionary of bureaucratese fails to recognize that term’s redundancy.
“there appears to be a lack of resources for policy makers to address both long-term, systemic change, alongside urgent, critical issues impacting families in b.c.,” the representative wrote in a special report delivered to the legislature on april 18.
given the slow progress, today’s babies may well be adults before changes are made on issues flagged by charlesworth as urgent.
she singled out the ministries of health and mental health and addictions as the least responsive, and rejected their suggestion that delays were due to the dual public health emergencies of the toxic drug supply and covid pandemic.
“a year-over-year analysis revealed inaction both before and after the pandemic,” the report says.
if anything, charlesworth suggested that covid was “an enabler of change”.
“stay-in-place orders and physical distancing prompted the rapid testing of innovative policy, practice and service delivery that has resulted in some lasting improvements for children, most notably for youth transitioning to adulthood,” the report says.
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“the swift and decisive action taken by government during this time demonstrates that timely and responsive change is possible when it is a public priority.”
that’s the key phrase: when it is a “public priority”.
to be fair, the government inherited a fragmented, under-funded collection of programs and policies touching on the lives of children and youth that could scarcely be called a system.
and despite nearly a decade at the epicentre of canada’s opioid overdose and housing affordability crises, the government has made progress on affordable child care, increased financial support for parents and foster parents, as well as child and youth addictions services.
long at the top of the list for having the highest child poverty rate, b.c. last year fell below the national average for the first time in 20 years, to 13.3 per cent.
in an echo of charlesworth’s comment about covid, the child advocacy group that tracks poverty rates credited the pandemic’s special income supports for the change.
but with inflation rising and those benefits ending this year, first call’s executive-director adrienne montani has warned that b.c. could quickly backslide.
first call’s 2022 report also highlighted that child poverty rates on the most isolated indigenous reserves was 33.9 per cent, and averaged 29.2 per cent across the province.
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still, there’s a mountain to climb.
of the 10,049 children and youth in government care, government data indicates that 4,273 are indigenous even though first nations people comprise less than six per cent of the population.
in the first six months of 2022, government data indicates that six children died while in government care, compared to 10 in all of 2021.
another 31 died by accident, homicide, suicide or undetermined causes while receiving services through the various ministries. in 2021, the annual total was 90.
it is because of b.c.’s dismal history of child protection that it has an independent children and youth representative, a position that evolved out of two inquiries in the early 2000s following shocking and high-profile deaths of children.
the representative holds a unique position. appointed by and reporting to the legislature, her job was established to ensure public confidence in the child welfare system and provide a strong system of accountability.
since the first representative was appointed in 2006, the office holders have made governments uncomfortable, often defensive, and, as charlesworth writes in her latest report, “struggling to implement change.”
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in other words, for the past 17 years, b.c.’s children and youth representatives have done exactly what they are supposed to do.
they have advocated for the most vulnerable children, youth and families.
that they haven’t yet succeeded in building a system of care that works isn’t on them.
that’s on the politicians.
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