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Death throws spotlight on Alberta's foster care

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Canadian Press

EDMONTON -- The death of a young foster boy has thrown the spotlight on Alberta's struggle to cope with a shortage of foster parents and a high turnover of social workers made worse by an economic boom.

Edmonton police charged the three-year-old boy's foster mother with second-degree murder on the weekend after the toddler died in hospital from injuries that are reported to have included severe bruising and massive brain swelling.

Investigations into his death must consider the pressures facing the foster parent system or more children will fall between the cracks, advocates said Monday.

"The system is stressed and we need foster parents like there is no tomorrow,'' said a veteran front-line social worker who declined to be named.

"Was this foster parent properly qualified? Did the case worker actually see the child? Was there a delay because a case worker couldn't get there because they were overloaded?''

The woman charged is reported to be a single mother who had two of her own children and a second foster child in her care. She can't be publicly identified under provisions of Alberta's Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act.

Social workers were wondering if the woman, who worked part-time in the health faculty of an Alberta college for the last five months, called a special 24-hour crisis line set up for foster parents needing help.

"Every foster parent in Alberta is able to call the crisis line. It is not unusual for us to be called in the middle of the night and go and pick up kids,'' the social worker said.

Alberta Children's Services estimates there about 6,000 children living with foster parents or relatives under government supervision in about 3,100 homes.

Norman Brownell of the Alberta Foster Parents Association said there has been a drop in the number of foster parents at the same time that more people are moving to the province to cash in on the energy-fuelled boom.

He also said it is becoming more difficult to find foster parents willing to accept high-needs children suffering from problems such as fetal alcohol syndrome.

"It puts a lot of stress on foster homes,'' said Brownell, who added the boy's death has shocked the foster parent community.

"We need to fix the situation. We need more foster homes. The kids don't stop coming. They are coming at a rapid pace and it puts a strain on the system.''

Children's Services Minister Janis Tarchuk was tight-lipped about the challenges facing the foster child system.

She declined to answer questions about the number of foster parents, the turnover rate among social workers or the government's policy on allowing single people to be foster parents.

Tarchuk would only say that a government review of the boy's death will be broad in scope.

"We will take this review very seriously,'' said Tarchuk, who called the boy's death on the weekend an isolated incident.

"This is a time for questions. Albertans have an awful lot of questions.''

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees estimates that more than half the staff who work for Children's Services have been on the job for no more than about two years.

The turnover is especially high for those providing front-line services such as case workers, who deal with the children, and support workers, who meet with foster parents.

"The job is just too stressful. You don't get the support you need to do your job,'' said a social worker, who suggested Children's Services workers are the top users of Alberta's government employee assistance plan.

"You can't sleep at night. You become depressed. We have the youngest workforce with the highest turnover.''

AUPE officials say the government has refused to sign a workload standards agreement with the union for staff who deal with foster parents.

Alberta Liberal Weslyn Mather said the death of the boy and the calls by foster parents and social workers for change will be difficult for the government to ignore.

She said the life of a child has been lost and Albertans deserve to know why.

"We talk about family values over and over in this government, and yet we are not providing the adequate resources to support the children that we take from a home and say `we can do better,''' she said.

"This is not better. This is not acceptable. We need to look at the causes and we need to act quickly.''

www.ctv.ca
2007 Jan 29