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Province failing to protect children

It’s now been 20 years of failure when it comes to the most vulnerable children in this province. Based on the scarcity of commitments from leadership candidates, another dismal decade could lie ahead.

It’s now been 20 years of failure when it comes to the most vulnerable children in this province. Based on the scarcity of commitments from leadership candidates, another dismal decade could lie ahead.

The Representative for Children and Youth has released her latest report, on the deaths of 21 infants whose families had been involved with the children’s ministry in the year before the children died.

Many people in “the system” — the ministry, health authorities — knew the risks for them were high. But the response was fragmented. The people who could have helped were overworked and unsupported. We failed them.

None of these were easy cases. The children faced tough lives even with the best support in the world. The families were dirt poor. They lived in dismal housing: Mould-ridden hovels, motel rooms, overcrowded houses.

Most of the families had issues with addictions, mental illness and domestic violence. Almost three-quarters of the children were aboriginal.

The measures that could have helped aren’t all complicated or expensive. The representative found there are no provincewide rules or guidelines for child protection workers involved with a family expecting another child. (And where there are protocols, they weren’t followed.)

In three-quarters of the cases, the ministry had received reports that children already in the home might be at risk while the mothers were pregnant. Investigations were slow and in some cases inadequate. In only three of the cases was there evidence of planning for the infant on discharge from hospital.

Perhaps as a result, there was little support for the families after the babies were taken home.

B.C. still has no provincial plan to address its ranking as the worst province in Canada for childhood poverty.

Just before the 2001 election, I wrote about the New Democratic government’s cruel mismanagement of the children’s ministry.

The column quoted the final report of Children’s Advocate Joyce Preston, an independent legislative watchdog foolishly eliminated by the Campbell government.

She described a decade of failure on the part of the NDP. “For the most part it has been a case of all talk and no action,” she said. Under the NDP, the ministry was underfunded, short-staffed and mismanaged, I wrote then.

Gordon Campbell promised much better. I believed him. But it was all empty talk. The most obvious broken promise was the 2001 election campaign commitment to stop the “endless restructuring” that wasted resources and created disorganization.

Campbell had also stood in the legislature and urged an end to partisan fighting over vulnerable children. All MLAs should figure out what the children and youth needed and find the money to support them, he said. He repeated the promise in writing before the election. The children and families spending would be based on the need, not some arbitrary budget allowance, he pledged.

Campbell and the Liberals did the opposite. Budgets were slashed, without any analysis or plan.

The Liberal government has defended its poor performance. It’s tough to keep social workers. There were staff shortages. We’re trying. Things will improve.

It was all exactly what the NDP government said a decade earlier.

Infants, children and youths who, at risk, or in danger, deserve protection. Families need help. And for 20 years, the provincial government has failed them.