How Could You? Hall of Shame-Canada-Dawn-Child Death

Baby Dawn, as she is called in the investigative review, died in 2013. She was placed in a playpen with a removable bassinet beside her foster parents’ bed and sometime during the night was brought into the bed. There were eight other children in the home at the time of her death.

According to separate records obtained by the Edmonton Journal, the foster mother found the baby “tangled up in blankets,” not breathing, around 5:30 a.m. She was transported to the Grey Nuns Hospital and pronounced dead at 6:22 a.m.

The investigative review said the medical examiner determined the baby died “as a result of undetermined causes when she was bed-sharing with adults.”

“Please do not sleep while sharing a bed with a vulnerable infant in your care,” said the report from advocate Del Graff. “The potential consequences … can be catastrophic.”

Graff said bed-sharing refers to sharing the same sleeping surface, while co-sleeping occurs when an infant is within arm’s reach, but not on the same surface.

While caseworkers and foster parents are told about the dangers of bed-sharing, the report’s only recommendation is that a clear policy be implemented.

“Policy has not been explicit in saying don’t bed-share with infants,” Graff said in an interview Tuesday.

The messages for parents about safe sleeping practices can be confusing. Attachment parenting, for example, promotes bed-sharing to enhance bonding between the parent and infant.

In a statement, Human Services Minister Manmeet Bhullar said each child in care must have a separate bed or crib as a permanent sleeping arrangement. Policy on bed-sharing will be clarified, he said, and all foster parents who care for children under the age of three will now be required to take a training course called “Safe Babies.”

A joint 2013 Journal and Calgary Herald investigation into the deaths of children in Alberta’s foster care system, called Fatal Care, found one in three children who dies in foster care in Alberta is a baby. Infants account for one in 10 children in care.

Between January 1999 and June 2013, 18 babies died in their sleep, often after a foster parent employed unsafe sleeping practices.

The investigative review into Dawn’s death said the “very healthy and contented baby” was placed in a foster home when she was three weeks old because of the potential risk of abuse. When she died, Dawn was 45 days old and had been in the foster home for 24 days.

Her aunt was identified as a possible kinship caregiver two days after Dawn was apprehended. Background checks were undertaken and in the meantime, the baby was placed in a foster home.

The report also examined the number of children in the care of a foster parent. At the time of the baby’s death there were eight other children in the foster home: two biological children, two children who had been placed in the home for a year, and four children from another foster home the family occasionally provided respite care for, an arrangement in place for almost 10 years.

The number of children in the home did not exceed policy, the report determined. The home was licensed for four children, but birth children and children in the home for short-term respite are not counted in those placements.

An internal review took place after baby Dawn’s death and a fatality inquiry will occur but a date has not yet been set, Human Services spokeswoman Kathy Telfer in an email Tuesday.

In July, the Alberta government amended the publication ban that made it illegal to name or share photographs of children who have died inside the province’s foster care system. But the Child and Youth Advocate is governed by a different piece of legislation, requiring Graff to release a public report that does not identify the people involved.

Graff said keeping the identify of children in his reports undisclosed allows people to speak more openly and frankly during the investigation.

Wildrose human services critic Kerry Towle agreed that there is value in such anonymity.

“The Child and Youth Advocate’s role is to find issues and fix problems, and you don’t need to identify the children to do that. Naming them may prevent him from going forward in the investigation,” she said.”

Report targets safe sleep practices after baby dies while bed-sharing with foster parents[Admonton Journal 8/5/14 by CAILYNN KLINGBEIL]

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