Boost academic support for children in care: advocate

VANCOUVER — More educational support is needed in B.C. for children in government care so youths who have often suffered trauma in early life have a better chance of graduating from high school, the province’s children’s representative says.

Bernard Richard said each school district should get funding to target the learning needs of students living in foster and group homes. He called on school districts to provide “point people” to advocate for students.

Richard made six recommendations aimed at the Children’s and Education ministries in a report issued Thursday, with specific steps for Indigenous children, whom he said would benefit from having elders and more Aboriginal teachers providing cultural connections in classrooms.

Simple changes by the Children’s Ministry, such as allowing foster parents to sign permission slips for field trips, would go a long way to making students feel included instead of ostracized, he said in a conference call with reporters.

“Children and youth in care are all too often left out of field trips because a permission form has not been signed by their social worker, which can sometimes take days. These forms should be signed by the adult who is responsible for youth on a day-today basis.”

One of Bernard’s recommendations is repeated from an auditor general’s report in 2015. It calls for development and implementation of a system-wide strategy to close the gap on academic outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

Richard said about 51 per cent of youth in care graduate from secondary school. The rate is 89 per cent for other students.

Only 44 per cent of Indigenous students finish high school within six years of starting because they don’t get enough support, including help with school work and mental-health needs, he said.

“In general, if the overall graduation rate in B.C. dipped below 51 per cent or reached as low as 44 per cent, protests would break out across the province, and rightly so.”

It’s tough for students to focus on learning when their history of trauma has not been addressed and it’s up to the government, as their legal parent, to provide support to help them succeed, he said.

Education Minister Rob Fleming said he accepted Bernard’s recommendations and that his ministry is having ongoing conversations with school superintendents to allocate resources to vulnerable youth and children in care.

The B.C. government said in its budget update last month that an extra $681 million over three years would be added to public education.

The achievement gaps between children in care and those who are not are “unacceptable,” Fleming said.

“We should be striving for a lot more.”