The girl, who can’t be identified because she is being tried as a youth, is now 18. She faces a maximum three years in youth custody and will be sentenced in February. An assessment will determine if she qualifies for a court-ordered intensive rehabilitation program.

The court heard a description of events that mirrored an exclusive Star story this month that quoted Triggs and other caregivers who survived or witnessed the blaze.

The girl, who is Indigenous, had recently changed medication, which made her more alert and prone to “outbursts and temper tantrums,” the court heard. She smoked and conducted smudging ceremonies with sage grass, so caregivers sometimes let her keep a lighter.

On Feb. 24, she was upset to learn she wouldn’t be going back home, to a reserve almost 2,000 kilometres away, when she turned 18.

She flew into a rage and pushed Triggs to the floor. Caregivers then withdrew with Kassy to an upstairs bedroom to let the girl cool off.

Downstairs, the girl used her lighter to set fire to books on a shelf, cardboard on a wall, and a couch, court heard. As the flames spread, she pulled the fire alarm to alert those upstairs.

Reid had called police. When they heard the alarm, they initially thought it was a hoax.

The upstairs bedroom quickly filled with smoke and the caregivers and Kassy ran to a window that was too small to squeeze out of. The court did not hear about a bolted sliding-glass door in the room, which Triggs told the Star they couldn’t break. The bolted door has raised questions about fire code standards for group homes and foster homes in Ontario.

After pulling the alarm, the girl ran outside, and fell to her hands and knees crying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” court heard.

By the time paramedics arrived, Kassy and Reid had collapsed in the bedroom. Triggs was left screaming for help at the small window. Firefighters rescued Triggs and used thermal imaging cameras to find Reid and Kassy unconscious on the floor.

“It’s the start of the healing process,” Hodson said after the hearing. “This is a tragic situation for everyone, including the young person,” he added, referring to his client.

The fire triggered investigations by police, government officials, children’s aid societies and the Star. They reveal a child protection system that doesn’t know if minimal standards of care are being met, has no qualifications for caregivers and is governed by a children’s ministry scrambling to perform its oversight role.

The province does not know how many children are being cared for in its 389 licenced group homes. At the end of September 2017, the group homes had 2,914 beds, almost one-third operated by private, for-profit companies. Another 2,005 beds were in foster homes run by companies, where the limit is four kids to a home.

Children taken from abusive or neglectful parents are usually placed in group homes as a last resort, when foster parents can’t deal with them. Most are treated with psychotropic drugs and are left largely in the care of workers who typically start at barely above the minimum wage, with no benefits.

In a 2016 report, a government-appointed panel of experts lambasted a system where the lowest paid, least qualified staff work with kids with the highest needs. The kids suffer from the trauma of abuse and abandonment, compounded by psychiatric and developmental disabilities.

At the site of the Quaker Rd. fire were two houses that operated as group homes for years. They were converted to foster homes run by a company called Connor Homes in September 2016.

A Star investigation found both homes were the site of almost daily violence in 2015-16. An analysis by the Ontario Child Advocate, released Tuesday, found young people in residential care homes were physically restrained 2,230 times by caregivers in a three-month period in 2014. The advocate, Irwin Elman, called that number “troubling.”

The province has been criticized for unveiling a blueprint that won’t see reforms fully implemented until 2025. They include tougher group-home inspections, minimum standards of care, better oversight, and reducing the overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous children in care.

Theresa Stevens, executive director of the Association of Native Child and Family Services of Ontario, accused the government of dragging its heels. She notes that scores of Indigenous children from northern communities are sent thousands of kilometres away because of a lack of resources in the North.

“We can’t afford to wait another eight years before those resources are developed,” Stevens said in a recent interview.

In a statement to the Star last week, Children’s Minister Michael Coteau called the Quaker Rd. fire “an unimaginable tragedy.” He made clear the timetable for reforms would not be accelerated, but said much of the work is underway.

“We aren’t simply improving an old system, we are building a system that has taken a patchwork approach to care for years.””

Teen pleads guilty in two fire deaths at Lindsay foster home

[The Star 12/12/17 by  Laurie Monsebraaten and Sandro Contenta]

Update 2:“An Indigenous youth with severe mental health challenges has received the maximum three-year sentence for setting a fire that killed two people in a Lindsay-area foster home.

The sentence was handed down Thursday after the court heard heart-rending statements from friends and family members of the victims — 14-year-old Kassy Finbow, a resident of the home, and her caregiver, Andrea Reid.

“These crimes have caused devastating, life-altering and immeasurable impacts to the surviving victims and to the family and others connected with the victims,” Justice J.A. Payne said during the sentencing.

The girl, who can’t be named because she was a minor when she set the fire, will remain in youth custody for almost another 26 months because of time already served. Most of the sentence will be served at the Syl Apps treatment centre in Oakville, where she will receive intensive rehabilitation.

She had pled guilty last December to manslaughter and arson causing bodily harm.

The sentencing came at the end of an emotionally charged day. At one point, the court was cleared after Reid’s 17-year-old son stood, swore loudly, and shouted, “I’m leaving. I’ve heard enough.” He then punched the door and stormed out.

The outburst came as the girl’s defence lawyer, David Hodson, explained the historical and systemic issues — including 50 years of mercury poisoning by a nearby industry — that have plagued Indigenous people in Grassy Narrows, her northern Ontario reserve.

The victim impact statements left many in the court wiping away tears.

Victoria Fowler, Reid’s mother, described how she felt on Feb. 24, 2017, the day of the fire that took her daughter’s life.

“Our lives were shattered. It was as if we had been kicked in the gut and all the life sucked out of us,” she said, speaking from a wheelchair as family members sobbed. “I never got to hold her to kiss her or say goodbye.

“Our family is split into pieces, our hearts are ripped open,” she added, referring to the impact on Reid’s husband, Rob, and their three children. “Our beautiful, friendly daughter is never coming back.”

Fowler said her 43-yer-old daughter was “ecstatic” when she landed the group home job. She brought the foster kids to her rural lakeside home for fishing, swimming and toasting marshmallows over the campfire.

“If there was ever a person who thought of others it was Andrea,” her mother said, adding that Reid was also a Scout leader, helped with the local school breakfast program and sat on the school’s parent council.

Kassy’s mother, Chantal Finbow, said her daughter “should not have died this way.

“Kassy was supposed to be in a safe place,” said Finbow, whose statement was read in court by an uncle, Andre Richer.

During the fire, Kassy was trapped with Reid and another caregiver in her second floor bedroom at an Oakwood foster home run by a company called Connor Homes.

The girl, who set the fire when she was 17, was also a resident of the home. She lashed out after learning that she would not be going home to Grassy Narrows when she turned 18. She used a lighter to set alight books, cardboard and a couch.

“It was a senseless and impulsive act on the part of a young person that resulted in the death of two beautiful people,” Crown attorney Ron Davidson told the court.

The upstairs bedroom quickly filled with smoke. The only window was too small to squeeze out of. A sliding-glass door in the room was bolted shut. The deaths have sparked multiple investigations by police, government officials, the coroner office, children’s aid societies and the Star.

They reveal a child protection system that doesn’t know if minimal standards of care are being met, has no qualifications for caregivers, and is governed by a children’s ministry scrambling to perform its oversight role.

Kassy died at the scene. Reid was declared brain-dead in hospital the next day, and was kept on life-support as a candidate for organ donation.

A third resident of the home at the time of fire described returning from meeting her children’s aid society worker to see smoke billowing from the Quaker Rd. foster home.

In her victim statement, she told the court she can’t forgive herself for not being in the home to help Kassy, her best friend, and Andrea, “who was like a second mother.” She said she struggles with anxiety and depression, has been hospitalized, and has tried to kill herself several times.

“I feel so lost without her,” she said of Kassy. Her only comfort is a tattoo she got in Kassy’s memory, which reads, “You’ll be with me wherever I go.”

The court heard the girl, now 18, who set the fire suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, schizophrenia, alcohol and drug abuse and a severe developmental delay.

Payne noted the girl stopped going to school regularly after Grade 2. She can’t read or count and has an “overall intellectual functioning lower than the 0.1 percentile.”

She was raised by adoptive parents and once tried to kill her adoptive father, who died of cancer last June. Her adoptive mother died when she was 13.

Payne described her challenging history as a mitigating factor.

“She has expressed sorrow and regret for her actions and for the victims of the fire,” he added.

However, the court heard the girl has six previous convictions for violent outburst, including twice assaulting police officers.

“She continues to pose a serious risk to the community,” Davidson told the court.

The last six months of her sentence will be served under supervision at the home of her biological grandfather in Grassy Narrows.”

Teen gets three-year sentence in ‘devastating’ foster home fire that killed two people

[The Star 3/22/18 by Sandro Contenta and Laurie Monsebraaten]