Social Policy in Ontario

How many children have to die in Ontario’s foster and group homes before the province’s chief coroner agrees to conduct an inquest that might shed light on the causes?

This should be a no-brainer. In the past six months five teens and one caregiver have died in provincial care, raising a host of questions about problems in the system.

The association representing Ontario’s children aid societies, a range of First Nations leaders and organizations, and the province’s child advocate have all joined in the call for an inquest. The chief coroner’s office should agree in order to get to the bottom of what’s behind the deaths.

Four of the deaths involve indigenous girls from northern Ontario who were living in provincial group home care. At least one took her own life, and a second reportedly also committed suicide. Another drowned and the fourth died in a fire.

All those deaths raise serious questions about what kind of mental health and social services were available to the girls, and why they had to be cared for hundreds of kilometers away from home rather than in their own communities.

Another teen in care, as well as a young caregiver, also died when fire swept through a privately run foster care home near Lindsay. As the Star reported this week, a door in the room where the two died was bolted shut.

On the most basic level, their deaths raise questions about lax safety standards in foster and group homes. Both serve children and youth who are taken from their families for protection by children’s aid societies, or sent there by parents concerned about mental health or behavioral issues.

There’s concern about minimum standards – including the frequency of fire inspections and whether homes have proper fire safety plans. Beyond that, staff in these homes have no minimum training requirements and tend to be poorly paid. It’s a formula for failure.

Ontario has more than 15,000 young people in foster and group homes. There’s plenty of evidence that they don’t get the kind of care they deserve, and the province’s child advocate, Irwin Elman, is sounding the alarm about the recent deaths. “These are human lives,” he says. “It is a huge loss and they die on Ontario’s watch.”

The province’s minister for children, Michael Coteau, agrees the problems run deep and promises a “blueprint for reform” in coming weeks.

That’s fine, but in the meantime the coroner’s office should take the concrete step of conducting an inquest into the recent spate of deaths. That would shine a spotlight on steps that can be taken quickly.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2017/05/17/call-inquest-into-group-home-deaths-editorial.html