The B.C. government says it is taking action through new child welfare measures, announcing changes to its approach following the release of a report that outlined a “web of actions and inactions” that ultimately led to the death of an 11-year-old boy at the hands of those chosen to be his caregivers.
The Don’t Look Away report by B.C.’s representative for children and youth (RCY) was released Tuesday, noting the ministry that is supposed to be protecting British Columbia’s children made what she says was a “massive error,” resulting in the torturous death of the boy, identified in the report with the pseudonym Colby.
Jennifer Charlesworth identified a series of recommendations, including a review of the assessments done on potential caregivers, dedicated supports for extended family members involved in kinship care, and that public bodies that have previously received recommendations from her office revise their timelines.
The B.C. government says four major themes were outlined in Charlesworth’s report: the prevention of intimate partner and family violence; enhanced family support services; better inter-agency collaboration; and better support for those providing kinship care.
In an effort to undertake a new approach to child welfare, the province says it’s establishing a cross-ministry group comprised of “senior public officials.” The group will be tasked with guiding the development of new strategies.
The work will focus on several areas, which the province says will include:
- developing a child and youth action plan for all of government that focuses on child and youth well-being;
- developing an outcomes-based framework for measurement and accountability to make sure that actions taken are working to improve the lives of the most vulnerable children and families;
- strengthening information sharing between ministries and service providers so when children and youth are struggling, they are connected with the supports they need;
- requiring that government policy decisions consider the implications for children and youth;
- working across ministries to address the causes and ongoing impacts of family and gender-based violence, especially for Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit people and children;
- examining what functions of family supports and child protection can be separated to provide a more co-ordinated approach that focuses on the well-being of children with their families;
- exploring the reconfiguration of child and family services across ministries including for Children and Youth with Support Needs and Child and Youth Mental Health; and
- exploring the establishment of a body for the purpose of supporting Indigenous governing bodies with the resumption of jurisdiction.
In her report, Charlesworth said Colby’s death is not an outlier, but rather an example of ways the child welfare system has let down children and families in B.C. and across Canada, despite decades of reports making hundreds of recommendations for change.
She added the boy had complex medical needs and was one of three siblings placed with the couple who would go on to be convicted of manslaughter for his death in 2023.
The placement was approved by both B.C.’s Ministry of Children and Family Development and the family service department of the boy’s First Nation, but the report says the ministry did not complete background checks or visit the home before the siblings were moved there.
She says the lack of communication, due diligence and process would “prove to be a massive error” because those in charge of the boy’s safety could have learned the woman had prior involvement with the ministry over physical abuse of her child and there were documented concerns about her partner’s “conduct with children.”
A summary of Charlesworth’s report avoids going into specifics about how the children were abused but says what they suffered was “strikingly similar in nature to the horrors inflicted on many Indigenous children who attended residential schools.”
Charlesworth says there was no one thing or one person who could be held wholly responsible for the boy’s death, but there was a “web of actions and inactions and dozens of missed opportunities across an entire system.