Tough, emotional workload ahead for incoming children’s minister

Kootenay West MLA inherits portfolio recently rocked by deaths of two teens

Katrine Conroy, a power engineer and former early childhood educator representing Kootenay West, will take the challenging helm of the Ministry of Children and Family Development in B.C.’s new NDP government.

Conroy served three terms as MLA before being re-elected in May.

Advocates lobbied the Liberal government for years to invest more into child-protection services, and that intensified following a series of high-profile deaths of young people just before or after they aged out of foster care.

The NDP, with support from the Greens, has promised to enhance and improve child-protection services, and vowed to create a poverty-reduction strategy that addresses homelessness.

Advocates will now be looking for significant change from this new government.

Bernard Richard, B.C.’s representative for children and youth, said Conroy would “have her work cut out for her” in a ministry with important responsibilities.

Her portfolio covers matters that are often tragic and the work can carry a high emotional load, he said.

“No one can be impervious to the emotions that run through you when you’re dealing with kids who are vulnerable and that are damaged through their time in care,” he said.

Conroy replaces Stephanie Cadieux as minister. Cadieux held three previous cabinet posts before taking on the job.

Richard said he knew Cadieux had been “much maligned” in her role, but he found her to be sincere and dedicated and said she saw some success reducing the number of non-Indigenous children in care.

For Richard, the over-representation of Indigenous children in care is the biggest issue facing Conroy as minister, and he said it’s an area where he has seen little progress.

The second-biggest issue Conroy will face is children aging out of foster care, Richard said.

The deaths of two teens — Alex Gervais and Paige Gauchier — prompted loud calls for change at the ministry.

At age 19, youth in the child-welfare system lose the money and support they received from the government, and multiple studies show these vulnerable youth face more dire outcomes than their peers in more traditional families when it comes to education, employment and healthy living.

Months before aging out, Gervais, 18, jumped out of a window of an Abbotsford hotel where he was sent to live in violation of government policies. Richard released a report in February on Gervais’s death, recommending many changes that could have helped the Indigenous teen, who was using drugs and battling mental illness.

Gauchier overdosed in the Downtown Eastside shortly after aging out of care. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Richard’s predecessor, issued a report in May 2015 into her death.

“Paige was left for years in a situation that no reasonable person would find acceptable for their own child, yet no one questioned it,” Turpel-Lafond said.

The Liberals argued during the spring election campaign that they didn’t need to extend foster care beyond the age of 19 because the government expanded or created several patchwork programs to assist these youth, such as supportive housing, counselling and employment programs. However, in the party’s June throne speech, the Liberals did an about-face, promising basic income support and free tuition.

The Coroners Service of B.C. plans to launch a new death review panel in the fall, which will examine the systemic problems faced by foster kids around their 19th birthdays.