MORE BAD NEWS ABOUT THE MINISTRY OF CHILDREN

             The B.C. Ministry of Children is in the news almost every day. The items are invariably unpleasant. Two more headline stories this week, indications of a systemic limitation - control and accountability. It's not Stephanie Cadieux's fault. The Honourable Minister is an honourable woman. She cannot be responsible for what social workers and their supervisors decide and effect. Ministers change yet the negative press repeats year after year. Protection of children and care for vulnerable children is undeniably difficult and problematic. Before she is moved on, she and her office must genuinely dialogue with Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Representative for Children and Youth and official watchdog over the Ministry of Children, and address jointly constructed plans, policies and action steps to transform this Ministry. The window of opportunity may be small since Turpel-Lafond's 10-year term is finishing.

            So here are the two newsmaker articles this week.

DANNY FRANCIS IS DEAD & SO ARE SOME OTHERS

The Ministry of Children and Family Services is in the news again. Every few weeks another story breaks. This time MCFD's regrettable connection may relate to legislation as opposed to case management. The case? Danny Francis. 18 years old. Dead. By his own hand. That is enough to grab our attention. Now consider that three other teenage children also committed suicide within past months, and each one was a ward of the system. The occasioning factor of their suicides? A couple of them were ageing out of Ministry care. These have received government care, foster parenting or financial support, benefits … and with the changing of a calendar date, it's gone. Now they are gone. The desperation of these young people has to be the subject of an official inquiry of course, but a few people with a salary will have to make policy and legislation that better equips children in the CPS system so they are not overcome by loneliness and hopelessness.

There is so much more to each of these four youths' stories. Will reviews ever care enough?