Group home closed after youth taken on drug runs
A Lower Mainland group home for foster kids was closed in May after a staff member with gang connections took a youth on drug runs, smoked pot with him, and offered him cocaine, B.C.’s children’s representative says.
Bernard Richard then blasted the ministry for children and families for not acting faster to improve these homes, especially given the damning report he released last year about the suicide of 18-year-old Alex Gervais, who was put in a hotel room after his dysfunctional group home was closed.
“Children and youth in these facilities continue to be exposed to risk. This is clearly unacceptable,” Richard said in a statement Tuesday.
In the Gervais report, Richard called on the ministry to review the background and qualifications of all staff providing services to youth in these agencies. But one year later, 46 of B.C.’s 96 agencies have yet to do this screening.
Children’s minister Katrine Conroy said the ministry brought in more people to verify that all contracted, residential facilities have completed criminal record checks on their staff, noting in a statement: “I’ve asked for monthly updates on our plan of action and progress. If things aren’t moving fast enough, we’ll add resources.
Conroy also promised no new group homes will be opened without the approval of a senior ministry official, and she vowed her ministry will review the 800 youth living in these facilities to ensure needs are being met.
“The representative rightly outlines a number of flaws in the system,” she said. “Kids shouldn’t be placed in a resource simply because it’s what’s available at the time. That’s what currently happens in many circumstances, and our children and youth in care deserve better.
“I hope, and expect, this (review) will result in moving some of those children and youth back to family-based foster homes.”
The ministry would not name the group home closed in May, citing the privacy of former residents, but said this is a systemic problem, and not just one involving a particular caregiver or agency.
In January, the ministry removed 18 youth from this unnamed home.
An investigation found only 10 of 33 staff and caregivers in this home had undergone criminal record checks. Nine caregivers were fired and barred permanently from this type of work, and 13 others are being further screened “due to concerning information,” he added.
Richard cited two other recent closures of bad group homes, which caused a total of 70 youth to be moved.
Gervais was among 33 moved out of a Fraser Valley group home in 2015, after several staff were found to be “unqualified and unsuitable as caregivers.” He was placed in an Abbotsford hotel, against ministry polices, with an unsuitable support worker and little other help. He jumped to his death.
In July 2016, another residential facility in the Lower Mainland was closed due to staffing concerns, uprooting 20 youth and children.