The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth is calling on the government to provide improved placements for kids in care after tracking serious injuries for the first time.
The findings from the advocate’s serious-injury program that launched July 1, 2023 are highlighted in the MACY annual report released Wednesday. The independent, non-partisan office of the legislature reviewed 73 serious injuries to children and youth receiving services from child-welfare agencies from July 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024.
It found 63 per cent required hospitalization, 29 per cent were life threatening, 32 per cent were the result of sexual assault and 89 per cent were Indigenous children and youth. Most (57) of the children seriously injured were age 17 and under. Sixteen were young adults aged 18 to 20.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Sherry Gott, the Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth, is calling on the government to provide improved placements for kids in care after tracking serious injuries for the first time.
A serious injury is defined as one that is life-threatening, requires admission to a hospital or other health-care facility and is reasonably expected to cause long-term physical/psychological impairment or is the result of a sexual assault that causes serious physical harm or is reasonably expected to cause long-term psychological impairment.
Two trends emerged from the reporting: sexual assaults by an offender known to the victim and penetrating wounds, such as a stabbing or gun shot.
The report classified 29 per cent of serious injuries as a penetrating wound (gunshot or stabbing), 21 per cent a sexual assault in which the offender is known to the person, 14 per cent resulted in a broken bone, 12 per cent a wound requiring stitches, 12 per cent a sexual assault by an unknown offender, 11 per cent involved self-harm or a suicide attempt and 10 per cent a drug overdose.
The risk factors present for serious injury were also reported, with substance misuse listed more than half the time (56 per cent), followed by mental-health concern/diagnosis (32 per cent), victimization: abuse, neglect, assault (32 per cent), unplanned home absences (25 per cent), self-harm concerns (19 per cent), sexual exploitation (18 per cent), domestic violence: witness or victim (16 per cent), criminal activity (15 per cent), suicidality (15 per cent)and school absenteeism (15 per cent).
“These numbers highlight the ongoing need for a youth addiction and mental-health strategy, and the need to improve placements to meet the complex needs of young people,” the MACY report said.
They also show how interconnected the risk factors are, and the need for a whole-of-government response rather than a fragmented response from individual departments or service providers, it said.
“We are not taking this report lightly,” Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine told the Free Press. “We’re listening to the concerns that are brought forward. It is, literally, a basic principle of our government to ensure that more children make it to their 18th birthday; that is something that the premier routinely reminds the public, but also reminds his cabinet and his caucus.”
Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth Sherry Gott said she is waiting to see a whole-of-government response and strategies.
“They keep saying that — everything that they’re doing is a whole-of-government approach,” Gott said. “We’re still waiting and we’re looking forward to reviewing that strategy.”
The province needs to develop more placements, especially for children at high risk, she said.
“It is urgent. There needs to be a government response or a strategy developed in the areas of mental health and addictions,” she said. “Those need to be addressed, and I keep saying this over and over.”
The goal of collecting serious-injury information is to improve public services and the well-being of young people in Manitoba, the MACY report said. Providing a centralized place for the reporting of serious injuries sustained by children receiving publicly funded reviewable services fulfils a recommendation from the provincial Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry.
Phoenix was five years old when she died in 2005 after being severely beaten and abused following reunification with her mother and step-father. The inquiry into her death resulted in 62 recommendations to protect children in care.
A serious-injury team was created to collaborate with MACY advocacy officers and service providers across Manitoba to assist injured children and identify recurring trends.
The majority of serious-injury reports have come from agencies mandated under the Southern First Nations Network of Care, Métis Authority and Shared Health (which includes Health Sciences Centre and the Manitoba Adolescent Treatment Centre).
The MACY report said it is aware that serious injuries are under-reported and that it needs to get the word out about the new program. The children’s advocate will be doing strategic outreach to ensure serious injuries to children, youth and young adults receiving services — including intake agencies, youth justice and community and school-based mental health and addictions programs — are being reported.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.