Advocate seeks wider help for CFS kids who go missing

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This article was published 27/02/2018 (2530 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Young people in Manitoba need more access to mental-health services, drug-treatment programs and family supports if officials hope to address high rates of missing-person reports arising from child-welfare agencies, Manitoba’s Children’s Advocate says.

Daphne Penrose said she’ll keep a close eye on what changes will happen amid some "good movement" toward more collaboration between Child and Family Services and other local organizations.

“I think I’ve been pretty vocal about our need for systems to come together to provide the services that these kids need around the areas of mental health and addictions, family contact and support from CFS. I think that a lot of those services and supports need to be in place. Those departments and those organizations need to be able to provide those services in a robust way so that children can go there," Penrose said, speaking to the Free Press after a Freedom of Information request revealed the majority of missing-persons reports in Winnipeg have for years come from Child and Family Services agencies.

“There’s some good movement in the system right now around trying to make some changes, and we’re going to watch carefully about how that happens for children and listen to children and see if we see some of those services more accessible for kids and more available," she said.

Last year, missing persons reports for youth in the care of Child and Family Services accounted for 63 per cent of all missing persons reports received by the Winnipeg Police Service, according to data compiled in consultation with the WPS crime analysis and missing persons units in response to the Free Press request. In 2016, that proportion reached 70 per cent, a jump from 53 per cent in 2015. Data from previous years was unavailable on the number of missing-person reports for CFS youth, but it’s clear they account for hundreds of reports to police each month.

 

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The Winnipeg Police Service has said it’s working with CFS agencies on a more collaborative approach to help investigators handle missing-persons reports, aiming to reduce the numbers.

Collaboration is key, but an over-broad policy isn’t the answer, Penrose said. Sometimes when a child is reported missing from CFS care, she said, child-welfare workers will have some idea where they are — "and sometimes that place is really not safe."

“The collaboration between the police and the (CFS) system is a really good start, and being able to identify the level of vulnerability or risk of the child that’s missing," she said. "You would hate to say, if you know where the child is, the child isn’t really missing, therefore we shouldn’t call in a missing persons report on that child. You would hate to make a blanket policy like that, because then you run the risk of a child who really isn’t where they’re supposed to be and is somewhere else and in danger, and then nobody’s looking for that child."

Kids leave their CFS placements for a variety of reasons, whether they want to be with their families, they’re caught up in drug addiction or they just don’t like their placements, Penrose said. Whatever their reason, they need a place to go, and they need support to get there, Penrose said, referring to work done by community organizations such as Street Reach to track down vulnerable kids.

"Kids will vote with their feet when they really want something. And that’s why it’s so important to involve a youth in the planning for them. When we do make plans for youth about where kids are going to stay and where they’re going to go, it’s important to hear their voice when we’re moving forward to create a plan for them.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay