‘No support until it’s a crisis’: Katelynn Sampson and Canada’s flawed child welfare system

Katelynn Sampson

The story of Katelynn Sampson now playing out in an Ontario coroner’s inquest is one of unbearable heartbreak.

For a year before her death at the age of 7 in 2008, the girl had been living with her legal guardian, who, along with her boyfriend, inflicted more than 70 injuries on her over a period of months. According to her autopsy, she had broken bones, lacerations, and internal injuries. What makes the case especially devastating is that, according to the girl’s mother’s lawyer, alarm bells rang time after time again about the little girl’s well-being, but nobody intervened. This was despite the fact that three organizations were involved in her care: the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Native Child and Family Services, and the Toronto District School Board. Plus, her guardian had several criminal convictions, but a police background check was never carried out.

Clearly, Sampson fell through the cracks again and again. The country’s child welfare system system is complex, and different levels of government are involved. The provision of education, health and social welfare is designated as a provincial responsibility, while the federal government is responsible for Aboriginal lands and affairs. As a result, child welfare in Canada is made up of separate provincial systems. Plus, many provincial systems also have parallel child- and family-service systems for on-reserve Aboriginal people operating under provincial legislation and funded federally.

Lack of communication between agencies—as well as poor case management and overwhelmed case workers—partly explain why some children get bounced around, and ultimately lost, in the system. According to the statement of facts submitted to the coroner’s inquest into Sampson’s death, the CAS and Native Child and Family Service each maintain the other dropped the ball when it came to receiving all the information it needed about reports of abuse to act.”

ALSO SEE: Katelynn Sampson inquest hears guardian’s 911 call: ‘I think she died’

“Kids fall through cracks because systems don’t work together,” says Bob Pringle, the Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth. “Child welfare is bigger than social services. Social services don’t control the mental health system, they don’t control the addiction system, and it’s not a place where parenting courses are taught.

“What tends to happen is all the other ministries fall back on saying ‘It’s social services’ responsibility,’” he adds. “But social services by itself can’t solve poverty, and poverty and its implications drive the child welfare system.”

Children can come into care for a variety of reasons, including safety or protection concerns, to access medical treatment not available in their home communities, when caregivers need assistance to meet their needs—say, a parent is sick for an extended period, according to Ainsley Krone, manager of communications, research and public education in Manitoba’s Office of the Children’s Advocate. Legal guardianship does not necessarily transfer from the parent in all of those situations. For example, if a parent places a child or youth in care under a voluntary placement agreement (VPA), the parent retains legal guardianship even if there are child-welfare services and supports in place. When children come into care of the government for safety or protection reasons, it’s normally by way of apprehension, which involves the transfer of legal guardianship to a child welfare agency (In Manitoba, there are four culturally appropriate child-welfare authorities.)

Falling through the cracks happens when there are gaps between systems and stakeholders, Krone says. In Manitoba, one high-profile child death was that of five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair, who had been in and out of care and who was eventually murdered by her mother and her stepfather in 2005.

ALSO SEE: Katelynn Sampson’s mom hopes inquest into daughter’s death will bring her peace

“The public inquiry that occurred in this province also shone light into the gaps where Phoenix had fallen through,” Krone explains. “The issues identified there, as in many such similar cases, involve various service providers not communicating with each other, services that were provided not matching the needs of the child or family, gaps in follow-up and aftercare supports, incomplete documentation, et cetera.”

“In many cases involving children coming to the attention of child welfare, issues beyond the control of child welfare are at play—poverty, parental addiction, domestic violence, and inequitable access to social services such as mental-health supports,” she adds. “Many of these issues disproportionately impact our indigenous families and communities and are the living legacy of the residential schools and ‘60s Scoop eras. These are issues that cannot be solely solved by provincial child welfare services. To fill those gaps in the social safety net, Canada needs to address issues like substandard housing, family poverty, and domestic violence. Federal funding for services on reserve need to be brought up to the levels of provincial funding.”

Canada’s entire approach to child welfare could be overhauled to be more effective, says Pringle. Canadian systems are based on a “threshold model.”

“It basically means that families get almost no support until there is a problem,” says the chair of the Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review panel, which issued a 2010 report called For the Good of Our Children and Youth. “When there’s a problem, typically the first point is to remove children because we haven’t had the opportunity to assess the risk to children in those homes, so we put them in care.”

By contrast, some European countries, such as France and Germany, operate on a “wraparound system.”

ALSO SEE: CAS worker thought girl’s guardians could pose risk to children: inquest

“What happens there is the thinking and planning and decision-making doesn’t revolve around apprehending children as it does around wrapping services around the family to keep the family together,” Pringle says. “Here, it’s no support until it’s a crisis.”

The way forward, the report concluded, is by investing in preventive services: “having good family counselling programs, parenting programs that are culturally relevant and that ensure children are getting a good start in life, comprehensive early childhood programs,” Pringle says. “What we need to do is spend money investing in children and putting children first and actually meaning it…. There’s a lack of coordinated services to families that need them: family violence programs, addiction programs, mental-health programs—we need to coordinate those services for families when they’re in trouble.”

“We’ve got to move from crisis intervention to prevention and putting resources upfront to keep families together and recognize that the safety of children supersedes everything,” he adds.

And it really does take a community to raise a child.

“Government funding alone will not solve the issues of children at risk,” Krone says. “All people in all communities have a responsibility to watch out for children, to do their part in creating safe and interconnected neighbourhoods and communities where children’s needs are noticed, their voices are heard, and where we all commit to doing whatever is needed to make things safer for young people.”