CHILDREN’S ADVOCATE
Annual report focuses on positives
The latest annual report from the Saskatchewan children’s advocate is a deviation from previous years: It focuses on the positive.
The 2017 annual report is filled with “promising practices,” highlighting the good things that are going on in the province to improve children’s health and welfare.
“We really want to focus on how we’ve stopped the tragedy and how our office can become a part of the solution,” said Corey O’Soup, who was hired as the Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth in August 2016.
The report is not all good news, though, as 18 children died in government care last year and a further 47 were critically injured.
In 2017, 79 per cent of deaths and 65 per cent of critical injuries reported to the children’s advocate involved Indigenous youths.
“The numbers tell the story actually,” O’Soup told reporters at the Legislative Building in Regina on Tuesday.
An estimated 70 to 90 per cent of children in government care are Indigenous.
In 2017, 18 children died (19 are listed, however, due to a belated report of a girl who died in 2014); 15 were Indigenous.
Two children died of suicide, while another 11 attempted suicide.
Ten deaths were children under age five; six children 10 months or younger died due to “sleep-associated risk factors” — preventable deaths as babies are smothered while sleeping with their parents.
All that said, “I would say that things are getting better,” said O’Soup, who calls himself “a forever eternal optimist.”
Taking children’s deaths, for example, 2017 was an improvement from 2016, when 23 children died.
“That’s four less kids that have died in this province in the care of government services. It’s almost a 25 per cent reduction,” said O’Soup.
INDIGENOUS GRADUATION RATES MUST IMPROVE
The high school graduation rate for Indigenous children is 43.2 per cent, compared with 85.4 per cent for non-Indigenous kids.
While Indigenous students’ graduation rates improved only 1.4 per cent from 2016 to 2017, “at least it’s not going backwards, it’s heading in the right direction.”
The government has set an ambitious target that 65 per cent of Indigenous students graduate Grade 12by2020.
While O’Soup does not believe that is attainable, programs such as Following Their Voices are responsible for positive change.
One of the “promising practices” listed in the report, since its 2015 pilot, Following Their Voices has surveyed students, caregivers, teachers and school administrators about what they need to be successful.
Implementing that feedback — including adding resource staff and expanding Indigenous cultural components at the schools — has resulted in increased attendance, better marks and improved graduation rates.
It operates at 26 Saskatchewan schools, including at Saskatoon’s Bedford Road, E.D. Feehan and Mount Royal high schools, and Regina’s Scott Collegiate.
“I think that’s something that we could invest more in. Of course there’s always a challenge with more dollars,” said O’Soup.
The government allotted $1.6 million in its 2018-19 budget to keep that program going.
MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM TOUTED
The budget also included $1.2 million in funding for a pilot project modelled after Alberta’s Mental Health Capacity Building in Schools initiative, which O’Soup believes will help reduce youth suicide rates.
It promotes early intervention and prevention in schools, giving students easier access to mental health services.
The wait time to see a child psychiatrist is as long as two years in some parts of the province.
“Young people in the northern, remote and rural communities have even fewer supports than those in the rest of the province,” said O’Soup. “I think that (program) can be a potential game changer for us here in Saskatchewan.”
The Office of the Chief Coroner of Saskatchewan found that Indigenous boys aged 10 to 19 were six times more likely to commit suicide, while Indigenous girls were 26 times more likely to die by suicide in Saskatchewan, based on data from between 2005 and 2015.
That problem is “not just here in Saskatchewan, it’s not just Indigenous kids,” said O’Soup.
“It’s rural kids, it’s farm kids, it’s kids from all across Canada and it’s kids from all across the world. So in one way I’m happy that there’s a spotlight on it because maybe we can do something about it. In the other way, it’s tragic that we have so many kids taking their own lives.”
As one of its four priorities, the advocate’s office is working to improve relationships with First Nations communities.
O’Soup said his heritage (as a member of Key First Nation) has made it a bit easier to break down barriers, where “there is still that historical mistrust of government organizations.”
Young people in the northern, remote and rural communities have even fewer supports than those in the rest of the province.