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New Brunswick’s legislature will hold hearings on failures on the child protection system.
The Liberal motion was passed unanimously one day after a report on the overdose death of a teen in the system.
“This is a story of a child … it’s a story of a child died in slow motion,” said Kelly Lamrock, the province’s youth advocate, when he released his 26-page report.
Lamrock said the system needs fundamental change, after providing a timeline of the teenager’s interactions with health and social service workers before he died.
He said the teen was periodically homeless and his mother was often using drugs. Even so, the teen’s file was referred to social workers 15 times and screened out 15 times.
His report detailed how the youth wanted to go to a rehab centre after an overdose but a social worker said his file had to be transferred from a different city. That referral was lost for two months, and by then, the teen had already left the city.
He died of an overdose that year.
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“Somewhere we are taking social workers who are coming into the system passionate and wanting to help and we are putting them in situations where they feel that they owe compliance more than they owe compassion,” Lamrock said Thursday.
On Friday, the MLAs voted unanimously to hold committee hearings on the report.
Social Development Minister Cindy Miles said she accepted all the recommendations in Lamrock’s report.
“We are doing our internal look inside our department right now to see what didn’t we do, what should we have done, what are we going to do, and what are never going to let happen again,” she said.
Meanwhile, Progressive Conservative Leader Glen Savoie said he backs the committee hearings but hopes the government will allow the opposition to call witnesses.
Shawna Morton, a former social worker with the province and president of the union that represents social workers, says she’s hopeful about the hearings too.
“I’m hoping that possibly some of the red tape gets cut and thrown away. I have been in a position where I’ve had to advocate for specialized placements for youth, and it takes years,” she said.
Morton said the report hit hard for a lot of social workers, who have had to deal with understaffing and a lack of resources.
“Sometimes it just feels like we know what best practice is, but we do not have the staff to role out best practice,” she said.
— with a file from The Canadian Press
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