Caregiver calls for changes to curb runaways

The woman who raised a teen girl found dead in a river after she kept returning to the streets wants changes to Manitoba child welfare to prevent chronic runaways from ending up in grave danger.

Kids who run away constantly while in government care have become a recurring problem due to finite provincial resources and strict limitations under federal law.

Tina Fontaine was being exploited and had repeatedly run away from hotel rooms and a Winnipeg youth shelter in the weeks before her death in August 2014. She was last seen walking away from a hotel room where she had been housed.

Her body, wrapped in a duvet cover and weighed down by rocks, was found in the Red River after she rejected pleas from a social worker to stay in for the night.

“I don’t know what else we can do to keep a child like Tina (safe) — and there are so many other Tinas out there that just keep running,’’ said Thelma Favel, Tina’s great-aunt, who raised the girl on the Sagkeeng First Nation.

“I wish there was something they could do to keep them safe — maybe a placement where they’re not allowed to leave, for a period of time anyway, just to get some kind of counselling for them to show them what could happen to them out there.’’

The Youth Criminal Justice Act forbids placing kids in custody as a way to protect them. People can be locked up for a few days in facilities for severe drug addiction or extreme mental-health crises, but locking kids up in a foster or group home is forbidden.