Ontario coroner’s report highlights need for changes to child welfare system
TORONTO — Ontario’s child welfare system is letting youth down by ignoring their cultural and emotional needs and failing to allow them a direct say in their own care, the province’s chief coroner said Tuesday.
Dr. Dirk Huyer said the need for change is starkly spelled out in a report commissioned by his office after 12 youth in the care of a children’s aid society or Indigenous Child Wellbeing Society died over a three-and-a-half-year stretch from 2014 to mid 2017.
Two thirds of those children were Indigenous, most died by suicide, and all contended with mental health struggles while living away from home.
Huyer said the report, prepared by a panel of experts, shed light on a crisis-driven, patchwork system that risks leaving youth adrift and uncared for.