“The various activities and initiatives undertaken by MCFD during the past decade have created only an illusion of action and progress,” Turpel-Lafond wrote. “There has been no concrete resulting change in the aboriginal child welfare service-delivery system or demonstrable improvements in outcomes for aboriginal children, youth and their families.” She says she understands the money was given to the agencies with sound intent, but adds that many of the child and family reps have no clear spending strategy and no understanding of their roles in the community.

The report concluded with recommendations for the government: develop a comprehensive plan to transfer control of child and welfare services to aboriginal organizations; suspend “open-ended initiatives” that don’t benefit aboriginal self-governance; and create ways to close the gap of education and health between aboriginal and non aboriginal youth—on or off reserve

The deadline for these government drafts were February, March, and April. As of today, nothing has been submitted.

The only change came in January—when the provincial government “cut funding to 18 indigenous-run projects” two months after Turpel-Lafond’s report. It has not yet addressed what may be the next steps (or any steps) to help aboriginal kids in foster care, who made up more than half —almost 4,500 of 8,106 —of B.C.’s kids in the system.

“The ministry has been overly focused on transferring the responsibility to provide services instead of ensuring aboriginal children and youth are getting the help they desperately need,” Turpel-Lafond told CBC. Which sums up her opinion of throwing money around without knowledge of the outcome.

Ministry officials have said they generally appreciated the report, but also criticized it for being one-sided. Much of the $66 million, says the government, helped give aboriginal peoples a public voice.

“I don’t want it to be misinterpreted that government spent $66 million to have these discussions around governance and jurisdictional issues without receiving some benefit,” Minister Stephanie Cadieux told the Tyee. “There are better working relationships with indigenous communities. First Nations, in many cases, have increased capacity to provide culturally relevant care for their own children, including child protection mediation.”

The child and youth watch dog is aware that her report’s guidelines are complex. Since November, Turpel-Lafond has seen more money donated to indigenous agencies that were “crippled by underfunding”. Yet, these organizations need government coordination along with the money allotted them.  As the report states, “the ministry needs to re-focus, and dedicate the time and effort required.”

The lesson here is to start fresh, start planning, but start.

CBoC reports this wage gap will cost our economy approximately $7.5 billion over a 10 year span. It also forces some youth to remain dependent on welfare which will cost all levels of government about $126,000 per former foster youth.

This is Canada’s first comprehensive look at the lack of social and economic opportunities available to those leaving a children’s welfare system. Despite Canadians requesting a deeper analysis of the issue and better support of it for years.

In early March, York U professor Stephen Gaetz wrote a report titled “Coming of Age: Reimagining the Response to Youth Homelessness in Canada.” His research specializes around national homelessness solutions.

“Difficult transitions from care often result in a range of negative outcomes,” he wrote, “such as homelessness, unemployment, lack of educational engagement and achievement, involvement in corrections, lack of skills and potentially, a life of poverty.”

He explained these transitions occur because many youth “age out” of foster care without a safety net.

The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies released a survey in 2010 stating that 44 percent of foster children leaving the system at age 18 graduated from high school. Compare that to the 81 percent of the “average Canadian”. Those numbers tend to swap in mental health scenarios with foster youth needing more support than their peers.

This is something many other Canadians noticed a while ago. And something many Canadians have been living. Finally, we have the data behind it.

Louis Thériault, CBoC’s executive director of economic initiatives, believes our nation needs a substantial strategy for youth in foster care organized by the federal government and supported with data collected at all government levels.

The conversation has begun. Let’s make sure we act on it.

Mental health care for foster children is desperately needed, but patients are being failed by an underfunded system. Illustration by Graham F. Scott.

Susan Chamberlain says she’s reluctant to complain about money. We’re talking about the difficulties in providing mental health care for foster children, and the problem is essentially one we hear from so many reaches of health care policy. The ‘R’ word: resources. There’s not enough money.

“There’s no question that the kids need it,” says Chamberlain, the Director of Residential and Day Treatment Services at the George Hull Centre for Children & Families in Toronto, of mental health services. “The problem is getting access to it. The system is cash-strapped, kids are on waiting lists—in many ways, children’s mental health services is the least sexy issue.”

Late last year the Canadian Medical Association Journal ran an editorial entitled “Health care for foster kids: Fix the system, save a child,” which called for better mental health services for Canada’s foster children.

Mental health is an issue that Canadians struggle to talk about publicly. Recently, efforts have been stepped up by journalists to report on issues like depression, anxiety and postpartum depression. Most of the time the reports come from the standpoint of grown-ups, and how we can use treatment to bring them back to stability.

But mental health and children is rarely discussed. According to another CMAJ article, the rate of antidepressant prescription for young people has been on the rise over the last decade, though some see this as an extension of over-parenting and obsessive diagnosis.

At the same time, thousands of children enter foster care and group homes each year, and as Paul C. Hebert writes, there’s no doubt that many of them have mental health problems that need treatment.

“What is astounding is that one of the richest countries in the world doesn’t provide these children with supportive health care that could mitigate or, even better, prevent some of the devastation caused by parental abuse or neglect, alienation from family and becoming part of a system outside of the mainstream.”

But they’re not getting it: wait lists are long, private treatment is expensive and previous medical records can be hard, if not impossible, to locate. It’s common for children to move from home-to-home, so establishing any sort of mental health care regime for children who need it is practically impossible.

“There’s no big bad person withholding money,” Chamberlain says. There’s just not enough of it to go around. Chamberlain notes that the issue often comes second to education and traditional health care.

“Not everyone has child mental health issues to relate to. I don’t envy politicians and bureaucrats who want to get re-elected. Focusing on education and health care keeps more people happy.”

When I ask what can be done to help the issue, Hebert mentions the need to relax current adoption laws, making a comfortable home life easier to find for foster children.

“We came to the conclusion that the system was causing huge problems, there’s never a chance to remake a family,” he says.

“It’s easier to adopt overseas than in Canada…”

The editorial suggests that a number of steps be taken to improve the current state of care for foster children, including establishing universal and portable health records and increasing collaboration between medical professionals and foster care workers.

But most of all, it calls for action now:

“It is time for our governments, institutions and health care providers to commit to building these children and youth instead of trying to fix them as adults.”