How Could You? Hall of Shame-Canada-Amy Owens and Courtney Scott cases-Child Deaths UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Ottawa, Canada, “the last time Jeffrey Owen spoke with his daughter, Amy, she was crying and asking to come home.

“She was unhappy. She hated it there.”

Weeks later, the 13 year old was found dead in her room at the Prescott group home where she was in care, thousands of kilometres from her family at Poplar Hill First Nation. Owen was told that Amy, who was under constant supervision, took her own life. He is waiting for the official report into her death.

She did not have thoughts of suicide until she was removed from her community to become a ward of the child welfare system, he said.

“Her spirit was broken.”

Amy Owens died on April 17. Four days later, on April 21, Courtney Scott from Fort Albany First Nation died in a fire at her foster home in Orléans. The 16 year old was the only resident of the home who didn’t escape the fire.

The deaths of the two First Nations girls far from home in recent weeks are raising alarm bells and fuelling calls for an inquest and legislative change.

Poplar Hill band council officials have told Tikinagan Child and Family Services, the First Nations child welfare agency, not to take children into care until the community gets some answers about how they are being cared for and why they are being sent so far away.

“They shouldn’t have to move these children so far away from home,” said Jeffrey Owen. “They are disconnected from their families.”

Deputy Grand Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), which includes the home communities of the two girls, said an inquest should be held as quickly as possible “to fully address the issues behind these tragedies.”

A second teenager from Poplar Hill First Nation, near the Manitoba border, died last year while in a group home in Sioux Lookout. Kanina Sue Turtle, 15, had earlier received care in the Prescott group home where Owen died. Her parents were told she committed suicide. Her mother, Violet, said she finds that hard to believe. “She wasn’t like that at home. When she was in care … I don’t know.”

Family and friends called Turtle “loving” and “wonderful.”

Irwin Elman, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth, who called earlier for the province to make group homes safer for kids in care, said on Tuesday that he is alarmed by the recent deaths.

“This spike is very alarming. I feel like there is something at play here.”

First Nations children make up a high proportion of children in child welfare systems across the country, but it is not clear exactly how many are in care in Ontario. Elman said it is telling that the Ontario government does not even keep track of that number, or track how many young people are in care thousands of kilometres away from their homes.

“When you think about how difficult it is to be in the situation these indigenous children are in, you would think the ministry would be very concerned with the extent of that problem. If you don’t know, how can you begin to attack that situation seriously?”

Deaths of two First Nations girls in Eastern Ontario group homes raise alarms [Ottawa Citizen 5/3/17 by Elizabeth Payne and Alison Mah]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“The owner of a group home in Prescott, Ont. where a First Nations girl was said to have died by suicide while in their care last month says the 13-year-old girl had been transferred a few months prior to another home in Ottawa.

Amy Owen, of Poplar Hill First Nation, died April 17 and it’s been reported by media, including APTN National News, that she was in a Prescott group home at the time of her death based on information from her family.

“I cared for Amy like she was my own daughter,” said an emotional Esther Aiken, owner of Beacon Home. “It’s not us.”

Aiken said Owen was moved from her home Jan. 8 because she kept threatening to run on nearby railway tracks to kill herself.

“I had to get her away from those railway tracks,” said Aiken.

When she heard Owen had died her heart sunk, she said.

“I thought, ‘Oh my god. I made the wrong decision. I made the wrong choice,’” she said Wednesday breaking down in tears. “The poor kid. The poor family.”

Owens father, Jeffrey Owen, told APTN and other media that his daughter was in a Prescott group home when she died.

When reached on Wednesday in Poplar Hill, a First Nation on the Ontario/Manitoba border about 2,000 km from Ottawa, Jeffrey Owen was surprised.

He had thought all this time his daughter died in a different city.

“That’s news to me,” he said. “There’s no communication whatsoever.”

When his daughter was in the Prescott home she was under 24-hour care, with one-on-one supervision, meaning a staff member was with her at all times said Aikens.

Aikens said at night it was the hardest and Owen would try to self-harm or take off for the railway tracks.

“That is when she wanted to run,” said Aikens.

A staff member would be outside her door through the night.

She doesn’t know if the 24-hour supervision was lifted after Owen was transferred, but Jeffrey Owen said he was told it wasn’t and questions how his daughter was able to die by suicide.

Owen was one of three First Nations girls that died while living in Ontario group homes in the last six months.

Courtney Scott, 16, of Fort Albany First Nation, also died in Ottawa on April 21 after a fire in her group home in the Orleans suburb of the city.

Kanina Sue Turtle, 15, also of Poplar Hill First Nation, died in late October 2016 while living in a group home in Sioux Lookout. Her family said they were told it was death by suicide, as well.”

Prescott group home owner: Amy Owen didn’t die in our care [Apt News.com 5/4/17 by Kenneth Jackson]