Yukon gov't hires investigator to do 'deep review' of youth group homes

The Yukon government has hired an external, independent investigator to examine how government group homes are run.

The development comes on the heels of a CBC story that revealed vulnerable youth were denied help, despite the department's denials that it would ever happen.

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Health and Social Services Minister Pauline Frost said the government has hired labour and employment lawyer Pam Costanzo from B.C. to conduct an immediate investigation of Transitional Support Services (TSS), which is the branch that manages government group homes. 

Frost told media she couldn't explain why departmental officials stated unequivocally last month that children are never turned out of group homes where they are living, or that a child would ever be deemed "too high risk" to take into a group home.

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"Those are the questions that we ask ourselves — we ask ourselves every day, 'How well is the department working? How long has this been going on? What can we do to ensure that the children are safe?'" Frost said.

She suggested that senior staff within the department had been misled.

"We are trying to determine why we were given information that was perhaps not accurate, what do we have before us, and why the misrepresentation," she said.

Frost said she and deputy minister of health and social services, Stephen Samis, are "frustrated," and promised "corrective action" if any wrongdoing is revealed by the investigation.

"With respect to what we were told previously... that's a huge concern for us. If my [deputy minister] has been given wrong information, that is problematic. If [we] were misled, most certainly we will address it."

Frost said "individuals" also recently met with Samis and officials from the Public Service Commission to share information of alleged wrongdoing within TSS, but Frost would not offer any details.

'Review of the whole system'

Frost said Costanzo will review "policies, procedures and staffing" within the group home branch.

Frost promised that Costanzo's "deep review of the whole system" will deliver results in the coming weeks.

"We're not going to be dragging it on for months — in a few weeks, we'll have an answer and a response."

The government has also brought in a lawyer from the Yukon Justice Department to "oversee the files of all youth currently living in group homes," and report directly to Samis.

Meanwhile, Yukon's child and youth advocate is also conducting a review of Yukon's youth group homes. Annette King expects to make her findings public by March 2019.

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