Boy’s ‘abhorrent’ neglect shows child welfare gaps
A 12-year-old autistic boy who lived with his impoverished, troubled mother essentially went “unseen” by the child welfare system until police officers responded to a January 2016 phone call from a concerned person that the boy might be unsafe.
Officers heard screams coming from inside the Lower Mainland basement suite and were shocked when “Charlie” answered the door. He was naked and covered with sores, dirt and bruises. Weighing just 65 pounds, he could not walk and appeared emaciated, with “his bones protruding all over (his) body.” He smelled of feces, and his bedroom was covered in garbage, soiled diapers and smeared fecal matter. The terrified boy clung to paramedics who took him to the hospital, and was uttering the
only two words he seemed to know: “mom” and “home.”
The neglect the boy had endured was “so abhorrent that first responders who arrived at the home were traumatized,” B.C.’s children’s representative Jennifer Charlesworth writes in a damning report released Monday.
Red flags had been raised multiple times about the well-being of Charlie (a pseudonym) and his mother, who battled mental illness and substance abuse, but the child’s horrendous living conditions went unnoticed because over-worked social workers never saw him each time the family was investigated.
The details of the astounding case has prompted Charlesworth to demand immediate changes to the child welfare system. This was not an isolated case, she added, and it is time to “reimagine” the way youth with special needs from vulnerable homes receive services from the province.
Minister of Children and Family Development Katrine Conroy acknowledged the “child protection system failed to act when this boy’s life was in critical danger,” and promised change.
Three years later, Charlie is now doing relatively well: He lives in a caring foster home, is back in school, and is healthy. “He is described by those who know him best as affectionate, clever and observant,” says the report, titled Alone and Afraid: Lessons Learned From the Ordeal of a Child with Special Needs and his Family.
But Charlesworth noted this is a very fortunate outcome considering Charlie’s appalling condition when he was found. He had reached this “shocking state” despite his family being known to the Ministry of Children and Family Development for a decade.
Police first contacted the ministry about Charlie in 2006, when he was three years old, after visiting the family’s home to investigate an argument between the boy’s parents. Doctors started voicing concerns that Charlie was being neglected when he was five years old, after he was admitted twice to B.C. Children’s Hospital and they were unable to find medical reasons for his “failure to thrive.” Principals and teachers reported he was missing too much school during kindergarten and Grade 1. Charlie was removed altogether from the education system at age eight.
Until police finally found him in 2016, there were eight formal reports to the ministry by sources concerned about the boy’s well-being, and four child protection assessments conducted by ministry. Despite all that attention on the family, “no child protection social worker ever laid eyes on Charlie during a protection assessment until he was removed from his mother’s care,” the report says.
Reporters asked Charlesworth on Monday how it is possible that the boy was never actually seen by a social worker despite all the red flags that were raised. She said it was likely the result of an over-burdened system in which social workers carry as many as 150 child-protection clients, and are under pressure to close files and move on to the next.
Although Charlie was removed from his home in 2016, there is no indication that child welfare workers are less over-burdened today, she added.
“The challenge around workload and caseloads persist, so it is highly likely that there are situations in which social workers are not laying eyes on the children in their care,” Charlesworth said Monday.
In an interview, Conroy disagreed with Charles worth’ s interpretation that this is still happening and insisted that files would only be closed when concerns about children are addressed.
“I’ve tasked the provincial director of child welfare to determine what steps will be taken to ensure social workers on the front-lines are able to respond to the urgent needs of kids and families,” Conroy said. “When mistakes are made, we need to collectively step up and be accountable.”
Among Charlesworth’s 11 recommendations are to examine funding, staffing levels and workloads, program delivery and waiting times, and to improve respite services, which Charlie’s mother never received.