Boy's death uncovers need for care system overhaul: B.C. rep

B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth is calling for a system-wide overhaul of the provincial child welfare system, three years after foster parents beat an 11-year-old boy in their care to death. 

On Tuesday, representative Jennifer Charlesworth joined First Nations leadership and provincial health officials to publicly announce their months-long investigation, which they said documents "the many missteps that contributed to Colby's death by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and a number of other agencies."

The report comes about one year after courts sentenced the foster parents to 10 years in prison for aggravated assault of the boy and his sister, and manslaughter. 

"This story broke our hearts," Charlesworth said on Tuesday. "But it also built our conviction that in B.C., we can do better and we must do better for our children."

The report is titled Don't Look Away – How one boy's story has the power to shift a system of care for children and youth.

It  shows how repeated inaction by the welfare system led to the death of the boy. The representative is calling on all levels of government to change regulations that would see more accountability for child welfare workers and hand over more agency to children, and where applicable, First Nations.

The death is not an isolated incident. The report says in 2023 and 2024, the representative received 6,437 reports of children in government and foster care being harmed. Nearly 3,000 of those reports indicate a child faced critical injuries or death. 

Courts have banned publication of the real names of the children involved in the 2021 case, their foster parents and biological parents, to protect the identity of the children involved. Courts have also banned publication of the boy's First Nation, its location and where the boy lived. 

The boy was not identified in the representative's report, but was referred to as Colby. His parents were called Violet and Colton in the report. Colby was one of five children Violet had with several partners. 

According to the report, he was a member of a First Nation in the Fraser Valley.

Colby was born in the spring of 2009 in Vancouver. For years, he experienced a turbulent home life as his mother struggled with abusive partners, substance use, mental health issues and unstable living arrangements.

According to the report, Colby was an avid soccer player and spent free time playing Minecraft. He adored monster trucks and Archie comics. In school, he excelled in math and sciences.

In 2017, he was put into an extended family care program with the ministry. A year later, he returned to live with his mother, but in 2019, the ministry removed Colby from her care after a man who had recently been released from prison allegedly sexually assaulted Violet and one of her children after a days-long party at their home, said the report. 

The ministry placed Colby in the care of Violet's cousin, which the report called Staci, and her partner, called Graham. The ministry made the decision despite Violet's wishes that Colby and his older sister stay with their paternal grandmother.

Colby, his eldest sister and another sibling were placed in Graham and Staci's care. 

At the time, the report says, there were also recorded allegations of violence between Graham and Staci and allegations of sexualized violence involving Graham and children.

According to the report, Colby asked several times not to be sent back to the home. Although B.C.'s Child and Family Development Ministry requires social workers to meet with foster children at least once every 90 days, he had not met with a social worker in seven months before he was found badly beaten in February 2021.

Paramedics flew Colby to a hospital in Vancouver, where he died. 

At the report release, B.C.'s Children and Family Development Minister Grace Lore said it is clear that the ministry failed Colby. 

"Like every other child in our province, Colby deserved safety, belonging," Lore said. "What happened to him is unimaginable. There are not words for what he endured."

Accountability, Indigenous governance

The report calls for all levels of government to overhaul how children are cared for. 

"If we want better outcomes for children and youth in B.C., we can't get there by tinkering in an old system that was based on colonial models from the 1950s and 60s," Charlesworth said. 

Recommendations include addressing violence and mental health at home, establishing systems that would allow welfare workers to be held accountable, and consequences for workers who fail to ensure child safety.

Some of the recommendations have already progressed since Colby's death.

At Tuesday's conference, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip said the only way to ensure Indigenous children have appropriate care is by allowing First Nations jurisdiction over their own welfare services. 

In 2022, B.C. became the first province in Canada to recognize Indigenous communities' rights to this.

"I am so happy to stand before you and know that we are making that shift to jurisdiction, where we will ... finally take over jurisdiction of our children and family,"said Phillip. "Which means that we will also have to be accountable."

According to the report, Colby's First Nation is in the process of taking over responsibility for the welfare of its own children, under provincial and federal legislation. 

Phillip said systemic anti-Indigenous racism, at all levels of government, played a role in the boy's treatment. 

Mary Teegee, executive director of Carrier Sekani Family Services, said while the shift in jurisdiction is good, welfare agencies need to make sure children like Colby don't fall through the cracks.

"We also have to think, first and foremost, about the accountability and the responsibility that we hold as a society," she said. "Colby is no longer with us because we failed him."

There were some efforts to hold welfare workers responsible for Colby's case accountable. In 2023, staff members involved lost their jobs, and the minister presiding over child and family development at the time was dropped as a cabinet minister by Premier David Eby in January. 

At Tuesday's event, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry addressed the province's failure to care for Colby, and committed to addressing the changes.

"This is a call for us to look at how we support those children, all of our children," she said. "We have obligations to address these issues for all of our children."