Lack of supports putting kids in care at risk of brushes with the law, people involved say

A lack of social supports in Manitoba is helping drive the province's especially high number of youth in care — and once children are there that same lack of resources puts them at a higher risk of getting in trouble with the law, people familiar with the system say.

The issue was again thrust into the spotlight earlier this week when Winnipeg police Chief Danny Smyth at a news conference announced a string of violent and random robberies that he took the rare step of saying appear to have been carried out mainly by youth living in group or foster homes.

Smyth's comments were criticized in part by advocates who said while the police chief's intentions were likely positive, his words could stigmatize the many among the roughly 9,000 kids in care in Manitoba who aren't committing violent crimes.

His comments came just a few months after an in-care 14-year-old girl was stabbed to death by another youth in downtown Winnipeg. A day before she died, a judge condemned the child welfare system for leaving the vulnerable girl without the housing support she needed.

Marni Brownell, a professor in the University of Manitoba's Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, says  the link between kids in care and their risk of involvement in the justice system has been clearly established — including in a 2020 report she co-authored that found Manitoba children and youth in care were more likely to have been accused of a crime than to have finished high school. 

Brownell says that's indicative of a lack of resources for youth in the child welfare system. But more importantly, she said, it raises questions about "whether there are too many kids being brought into care in the first place" in Manitoba, which has the highest rate of children in care in the country.

"We really have to start to wonder why in Manitoba do we take so many kids into care? And often … high rates of children in care are an indication that the kinds of supports and services that families facing challenges need, you know, they're just not there," Brownell said, adding issues including poverty, addictions and housing issues often contribute to kids being apprehended.

While incidents like the ones the police chief addressed this week are often what sparks a reaction from the public, Brownell says what's really needed is a hard look at what landed those kids there to begin with.

"Really, what we need to be doing is investing in prevention: preventing kids from going into care, providing supports to families who are facing challenges," she said.

"And it's really tough to do because it's — you know, it can be a huge investment and it takes a while to see the outcomes of that investment. But if we just keep reacting, things don't change."

Kids 'bounced around like luggage'

Brandi Delaine says she's seen the increase in violent crime among youth in Winnipeg up close as a manager of the West End 24 Hour Safe Space for Youth, where management has had to hire security due to violent incidents at and near the site.

But as a manager of that space, Delaine says she also works with the kinds of kids who end up getting involved in crime, and she knows that, most times, they're just looking for somewhere they feel they belong, even if that's in a situation that ends up being dangerous for them.

"These youth are being taken away very young and being put into foster care. And they're being bounced around like luggage, just not belonging in any one home," she said.

"They don't feel like they have anywhere to go. I feel like the system is failing them right now."

Longtime foster parent Jamie Pfau says she's seen the lack of resources for kids in care with her own foster children — some who, as young as seven, were stuck on a waiting list for therapy for more than a year.

"I think these children, and rightfully so, feel rejected. They feel not important, you know? I mean, imagine going through your life, being on waitlists, moving from school to school," Pfau said.

Brownell says that's one of the key areas where more support is needed. In her 2020 report, the researcher found roughly 70 per cent of the children in care who ended up in trouble with the law had a diagnosed mental health problem.

Pfau says another part of the problem is the inadequate payment for foster parents in Manitoba, who are required to do more and more with less. 

She says she's heard of desperate social workers asking foster parents to turn their dining rooms into bedrooms, or put off retiring from fostering so they can take more kids into their homes. In other cases, she says, foster parents are going into debt because they can't afford to cover their kids' needs, but they don't want to send them back into the system. 

'Setting these children up to fail'

The lack of training in dealing with the kind of complex issues kids in care often have — including fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, autism and mental health issues — also often leads to a pattern of placement breakdowns, where a child is removed from one home and put into another over and over again.

"So you can imagine that lack of development and lack of attachment is really difficult. It's just adding to the problem … We're setting these children up to fail," Pfau said.

"Something's gotta give here and and we're seeing this now in all of these new stories on both ends, right? We see children in care who have been victims of crime and now who are perpetrators of crime."

In an emailed statement, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine acknowledged that youth coming into conflict with the law speaks to larger societal issues, including "the underfunding and deterioration of social services which families and youth rely on to provide them a brighter future."

"We know the path forward means taking a whole-of-government approach to keep children out of the justice system. This is sacred work I have been committed to since my first day as minister," the statement says.

"We value and appreciate everyone, from foster parents to group care staff to social workers, who are dedicated to doing the same. As we work towards decolonizing the child welfare system, our No. 1 priority is the safety of our children and the communities in which we all live."

For researcher Brownell, the way forward doesn't have to mean starting from scratch.

There are already many programs in Manitoba working to help vulnerable youth, she said, but they often work on "shoestring budgets … worrying always that their funding is going to end" — so the first step is to give those kinds of programs the support they need to do their jobs.

"We've got a good start. We've got really, you know, a lot of dedicated people in this province," she said. "We just have to really emphasize that our resources should be placed in prevention."