She says that instead of supporting her, the agency forced her to surrender her son — who had several developmental challenges — but failed to provide him with the care and mental health supervision he needed. “What’s the point of taking kids if they can’t help them, but… you blame the parents in the first round, saying they can’t help them? What good is their help if your child ends up in a situation like this their care?’ he said. The boy’s grandfather shared his daughter’s frustration, saying he went from seeing his grandson struggle in school and needing care to watching police arrest him. “It still hurts, to see my young grandson go out, and [he] he had his hands up,” said the grandfather. “I went and cried with him because I don’t know where this is going for him.” WATCHES | The video of the grandfather from the arrest of the teenager in August:
The grandfather gets emotional when the teenager is arrested
The grandfather of a 15-year-old boy accused of killing two people in a series of attacks in Winnipeg’s Point Douglas neighborhood in late August shot video as police arrested the teenager. The family of the boy, who cannot be identified, says he did not get the care he needed in the child welfare system.
The mom said it’s important to talk about it now because she knows there are other kids out there like her son.
“What happened, it could have happened to anyone, anywhere – but I really think things could have been different if we had the support,” he said.
Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the woman and her father, who were interviewed at a location in their community, cannot be named as this would identify the 15-year-old accused.
On Monday, August 22nd, people in Winnipeg woke up to the news that several people had been attacked in less than two hours in the Point Douglas area. The attacks, which police later said were random, left two dead and a man in critical condition.
Two 15-year-old boys have been charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of Danielle Dawn Ballantyne, 36, and Marvin William Felix, 54.
They are also charged with aggravated assault for wounding another man in his 50s. The Winnipeg Police Service said Monday that the man remains in critical condition.
He was forced to care, says mom
The mother who spoke to the CBC said her son had been on ADHD medication since the 3rd or 4th grade, but the dosage was always a problem. Sometimes the side effects were so bad “he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat,” his mom said. Other times, the medicine was weak and he lost control of his anger. Dakota Ojibway Child and Family Services intervened when he was 11 years old after he “blew himself up at school and did some damage” to school property, his mother said. “We were just sorting out his pills … so he could get the right medication.” She said the only option the social worker gave her was to sign a voluntary placement agreement for six months, during which time he would be stabilized on his medication. If their family refused, Child and Family Services would take the boy into custody, his mother said. “I was forced to sign it … It wasn’t by my choice. And then that was it,” he said. “They didn’t try to do any home visits to try to work with us, to try to fix the problem.”
Poor supervision, few updates: mother
The boy became a ward of Dakota Ojibway Child and Family Services, a non-profit agency authorized by the province of Manitoba to provide child and family services to members of the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council in the province. His mother says he was placed in a group home in Brandon, Man., where he lived in what his grandfather described as “just a box he sleeps in” and was exposed to gang activity. His mom said on one occasion, he was hit on the head with a bat by an adult in the community. He was shot twice with a BB gun by a group of boys and was also attacked with a bear knife, he said. He said he begged to be moved to a home where he would be better supervised and receive specialist care. “His behavior… [was] it’s changing,” he said. He received some care at the group home, his mom said. One of the workers told her that an assessment was done, which found that “she can’t sit in the regular classroom – she won’t fit and she can’t write for very long,” she said. However, she was given no document outlining what the underlying issue was, she says. He wanted to be evaluated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, saying he can be fine one moment and then “just blow up somewhere.” That evaluation would help ensure he’s getting the right medication, he said. But his mother says the home never stabilized him on his medication – the reason he was taken into care in the first place – which she knew would “affect him long-term”. The family says there were two or three voluntary placement agreements, but after each one ended, the agency delayed returning the child, leaving them increasingly frustrated. “I would have to catch him in a good mood to explain to him … that I had no control over going to get him,” she said. “Otherwise he would have been arrested, then that was it — I would have lost him forever.” Dakota Ojibway Child and Family Services referred CBC’s request for comment to its attorney. Dean R. Kropp, the agency’s general counsel, said in an email that the Child and Family Services Act — which regulates the agency’s group homes — prevents them from commenting on the child’s family’s allegations or responding directly to CBC inquiries about the child or their family. “The agency works very hard to provide the appropriate and necessary resources to help families and children,” Kropp said, adding that a parent can withdraw from a voluntary placement agreement at any time. Additionally, Kropp said that when a child is in care, either under a voluntary agreement or under arrest, the parent remains the child’s legal guardian and thus “will have full authority not only to make decisions about medical care, but also to receives medical information’.
“Don’t sign anything”: advocate for the family
Cora Morgan, a Manitoba Chiefs family advocate, said voluntary placement agreements are sometimes “sold to mothers” by child welfare workers as the best option to get the counseling and support children need. Many parents accept them because they believe it will help them get their children back sooner than if they are arrested, he said. Typically, however, so many requirements are eventually built into the agreements that “many children became permanent wards of the system under a voluntary placement agreement,” Morgan said. Her office has worked hard to convince parents to avoid them, she said. “Don’t sign anything… Let the agency prove that the child needs protection.” Morgan also said it’s not uncommon for parents to be left in the dark about what happens to their children once they enter the welfare system. Few ever have the right “to know what’s going on in their child’s life … even when they’re supposed to be involved in medical decisions and different things,” she said. The result is not only the breakdown of the bond between parent and child, but also parents who are left unable to hold child welfare services accountable, Morgan said. The 15-year-old boy’s mother said she fears for her son and can’t stop thinking about the other families involved in the situation. But “there’s nothing I can do but pray for my son and pray for the families,” he said.
