Group-home deaths must have inquests, leaders say
First Nations want legislative change so that cases trigger automatic reviews by coroner
Indigenous communities are in the dark as to where their children are when they are placed in care and when a child dies in a group home, a mandatory inquest must be held, urges Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. The Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), a political organization of 49 northern Ontario First Nations, will introduce a motion at the Chiefs of Ontario special assembly in Gatineau on Wednesday, calling on the Chief Coroner of Ontario to hold an inquest into the deaths of the two girls last month who were living in group homes.
“We want them to change legislation to make (the review of ) these types of tragic deaths mandatory. They should automatically be reviewed by the chief coroner. We need to find out more about the true situation about these cases. We are concerned, overall, about the number of children who are in these types of situations,” Fiddler said.
The inquest must probe systemic issues that led to the girls’ tragic deaths so that any death of a youth in a group-home setting will automatically result in a mandatory inquest, he said.
“The actions we are calling for shouldn’t just apply for First Nations kids, but for all children,” Fiddler said.
Poplar Hill First Nation’s Amy Owen took her life on April 17, at an Ottawa-area group home.
Poplar Hill is a remote First Nation of about 500 people, nearly 120 km north of Red Lake on the Manitoba-Ontario border.
Jeffrey Owen, Amy’s father, said she was a “smart, outgoing girl who liked to have fun.” “She wanted to come home, she didn’t like where she was,” he said in an interview on Monday. He added she was supposed to be supervised around the clock. “We want justice for them. I’m sure Amy wouldn’t want us to give up.”
Fort Albany First Nation’s Courtney Scott, 16, died in a fire at her group home on April 21 in Orleans, Ont. Her family, originally from the James Bay coast, has many questions about how Scott died.
As well, the Star learned of a third girl, Kanina Turtle, 15, who died on Oct. 29, 2016. Her Poplar Hill First Nation family told the Star someone told them Turtle committed suicide but they said they have not been officially contacted by medical professionals and they are still trying to find out exactly how Turtle died.
All three girls are member of NAN communities and NAN has inherent jurisdiction over their well being, regardless of where they live. Kids who are put in care, for a variety of reasons and including access mental health care, are often taken out of their communities and placed in southern urban centres because the appropriate care is unavailable up north.
The longer term objective to the inquest, Fiddler said, is for Ontario and Canada to work with NAN to bring these services closer to home. “Our kids shouldn’t be sent 1,000 miles away for them to be able to support these services so they aren’t disconnected from their families,” he said.
The owner of the group home that Amy Owen spent more than one year in before she was transferred to a more secure site, says there needs to be a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 13-year-old’s death.
Esther Aiken is the director of the Beacon Home in Prescott, Ontario. Aiken and her staff knew Owen well and have been grief-stricken since they heard of Amy’s death.
Owen was with Beacon for one year before she went back home to her Poplar Hill home for nearly eight months in 2016. However, she re- turned to Beacon last fall until she was transferred to an Ottawa home in January that was better equipped to handle her suicidal tendencies.
“We felt she needed a safer environment than what we could provide. We have rarely asked for a child to go to another home. Amy was an extreme exception,” Aiken said.
Clients usually come to the girlsonly Beacon Home for six months to one year. The home is small, a sevenbed facility with two to seven kids at the home at any given time. Aiken said the majority of her clients are indigenous kids who have to come to Beacon in order to access proper psychiatric and medical treatment in the Ottawa area.
“The children brought down south to group homes are brought here to access mental health services they don’t have in their communities,” Aiken said. “There are pre-existing problems that warrant the kids to be brought here in the first place. Many of the kids are suicidal and they need specialized care.”
Aiken said the majority of their girls are dealing with addiction issues with alcohol or drugs, those who selfharm or have suicidal ideation.
First Nations kids are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system, said the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Irwin Elman.
There are no accurate numbers as to how many of the 3,000 children living in Ontario group homes and another 15,000 living in foster homes, are Indigenous or where they are.
“Young people have told us they feel isolated in these homes. First Nations children, for sure, who are thousands of kilometres away from their home, their culture and language and ways of life,” Elman said.
“There is an urgent situation and we have to do something right now so another child doesn’t die,” he said.
Young indigenous people should be placed closer to their homes so they have community support, he said. They are often taken out of their communities and sent to homes that aren’t trained enough to handle them for particular reasons and they end up getting bounced from home to home.
“Their journey in the system can cause more issues . . . young people, First Nations and others, sometimes talk about they know some child and youth workers in some places talk about the places they are at, as ‘storage.’ ”
Youth feel there is no where else to go. “If they don’t see their worker and don’t have connection to their family, what is it if it is not storage? Is this what we want to tell the child we make a covenant to, telling them we will care for them? It is not acceptable.”
He remembers one call from an indigenous, 13-year-old child who called the Advocate’s office asking for help to call home and talk to her mom, who she hasn’t seen in over one year. “Why should it be that a 13-year-old or14-year-old child has to call our office to arrange for a Skype call with her mom? In some homes, that is the situation and conditions children are living in and it’s not acceptable,” he said.