Child and Youth Advocate Jackie Lake Kavanagh released two reports today: “No Time to Spare” and “Blanket of Insecurity”. The investigations were completed independent of each other, but identify similarities in these children’s situations and struggles while in the care or under the protection of the Department of Children, Seniors and Social Development.

These investigations point to the critical importance of timely interventions and decisions in the life of a child. They show the chaos and instability in a child’s life when there are multiple moves, and multiple caregivers in and out of their young lives. They reveal the elusive nature of permanence for some children. They demonstrate that while kinship care providers may be less intrusive care options in the life of a child, it is still critically important to conduct thorough assessments and monitoring to ensure the child is in good hands. They point out the importance of transferring information and decisions related to the child’s welfare over the course of their involvement in the system. They identify the significance and consequence when the many professionals who are frequently involved in the lives of these children fail to collaborate.

Jackie Lake Kavanagh said, “Babies and young children need stability, nurturance, and constancy to develop attachments to the adults in their lives. Secure attachments developed in infancy and early childhood have a broad range of positive impacts for the developing child. Every child deserves this.”

Public services are not static and they change over time. While efforts are being made to improve responses to children in need of protection, issues raised in these reports continue for far too many children and youth. While these reports focused on two individual children over a specific period of time, they are about more than these two children. These issues are systemic in nature and reflect challenges that exist today. They must be addressed on a systemic level.

These reports are on the OCYA website.

The Office of the Child and Youth Advocate can be reached by calling 1-877-753-3888, emailing office@ocya.nl.ca and on Twitter @OCYANL.

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Media contact
Wilma MacInnis
Office of the Child and Youth Advocate
709-753-3888