Winnipeg mom says foster parents need more resources

A Winnipeg foster parent is happy Manitoba Child and Family Services (CFS) has promised to stop housing youth in hotels, but she says more still needs to be done to ensure youth are safe in the foster care system.

Tammy Aime has four at-risk teenage girls currently living in her home. While she is glad the province recently announced plans to end the practice of placing high-risk kids and youth in hotel rooms by June, she also thinks what prompted that announcement shows that the system is broken.

Manitoba's family services minister Kerri Irvin-Ross confirmed last week that the province will cease to house youth in hotels. It came after a teenage girl who was living in a downtown hotel under CFS care was seriously assaulted near a parkade. The girl remained in critical condition over the weekend.

• Children in care to be taken out of Winnipeg hotels after serious attack on girl

• Foster mom speaks out against placing at-risk teens in hotels

"We need to have emergency foster placements where the people providing those emergency beds are skilled and trained to handle youth who are coming in in crisis and have the skills and ability to stop them if they try to leave," Aime told CBC News on Sunday.

Aime has been a foster parent for more than eight years. She said that whatever the province ends up doing in lieu of housing youth in hotels, additional resources need to go to foster parents so that they can more safely house youth involved in emergency foster placement situations.

Aime said the Manitoba Foster Family Network is having an open meeting on Tuesday. Members of the public are invited to attend and discuss their concerns about Manitoba's foster care system.