Indigenous youth suicide a national issue, Alberta's child advocate says
'This is becoming a national issue — the issue of Indigenous young people who are dying by suicide'
Alberta must address the outstanding problem of young people dying from suicide especially in Indigenous communities, the province's child and youth advocate told a ministerial panel looking at the child intervention system Thursday.
Last spring, Del Graff issued a report that detailed investigations into the suicides of seven Aboriginal youth who had received child intervention services.
Graff told the panel he believes it would "make a difference," if recommendations from that report called Toward a Better Tomorrow were implemented in a "decisive and committed way."
Nearly one year after the report was released, one critical recommendation has yet to be addressed, according to Graff.
Alberta has yet to adopt a province-wide suicide prevention strategy for young people that can be applied in Indigenous communities.
"Those kinds of measures, in my view, have got to be taken," Graff said.
"Manitoba's got the same issue. Ontario has the same issue. This is becoming a national issue — the issue of Indigenous young people who are dying by suicide," Graff told the panel.
Indigenous people need bigger role
While he remains hopeful the panel's work will improve the system, he remains worried about the lack of involvement of youth and Indigenous people.
"This is a system that affects them directly," said Graff. "It's not good that there isn't a greater Indigenous presence."
The panel also heard from RCMP K Division, Assistant Commissioner Marlin Degrand who touched briefly on the case of Serenity, the four-year-old child who died while in kinship care in 2014.
Degrand said the RCMP "continues to have a conversation with Crown prosecutors" about the case, but that it is still "a very live matter as to where the investigation is going to go."
The panel of MLAs and social work experts was hastily called late last year, after serious issues were raised about how Serenity's death was mishandled.
Graff also told the panel that the caseload of his office grew by 21 per cent in 2016.
"We are busy, we are busy in every program area that we have," Graff said pointing out his office is trying to cope with a greater need and more public awareness of what his office does.
Since April 1, 2016 to the end of January 2017, his office received 63 reports of children who have either died, or been seriously injured, Graff said