CPS Fail: Winnipeg, Canada-Phoenix Sinclair case-Child Death UPDATED

Five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair was murdered in June 2005 after being returned to her mother’s care. Her mother, Samantha Kematch, and her common-law husband Karl McKay were convicted of murder.

Now,  a “sweeping public inquiry, scheduled to run into December [2012], is expected to offer a rare public look into the workings of CFS.”

An inquiry into the murder of a five-year-old foster child heard Thursday the first social worker for Phoenix Sinclair only handled the case for a few days following the girl’s birth before stepping aside.

The social worker also described a child welfare system that struggles with a lack of resources in an increasingly complex world.

Phoenix was born April 23, 2000, to Samantha Kematch, a young mother who, after being abused and neglected by her own mom, was herself a ward of Child and Family Services until mere months before the girl’s birth. Baby Phoenix immediately became a CFS ward.

When intake social worker Marnie Saunderson went to collect Phoenix from the hospital, Kematch seemed “somewhat disinterested,” Saunderson said, something that would be unusual for a new parent.

“People are pretty emotional when they are leaving with their baby,” said Saunderson on the second day on the inquiry.

Unlike Phoenix’s biological father, Steve Sinclair, Kematch didn’t help dress the baby as the social worker prepared to leave with the infant.

Five days after Phoenix’s birth, Saunderson declared a conflict of interest in the case because one of her first cousins would be an advocate for the biological parents.

In her testimony, Saunderson, a veteran social worker, described an overburdened child welfare system in which a “lack of resources” are a constant problem.

“While we’ve gotten more money and positions, problems have gotten worse in the world,” she said.

Families are more “complex,” she said. There’s new gangs and new drugs hitting the street, posing new challenges for social workers.

“I’m not sure it has taken the bite out of the workload problems,” Saunderson said of additional resources.

In January 2009, Saunderson sent an e-mail to superiors highlighting workload concerns.

“I feel that things here hit a very critical stage wherein many of the workers are overwhelmed and can’t meet expectations any longer,” she wrote.

At times, Saunderson said she felt she was not meeting families in a timely manner, and often did work on personal time to make sure it got finished.

Kris Saxberg, a lawyer for three CFS agencies, pointed out Saunderson’s e-mail of concerns was dated 2009, well after she handled Phoenix’s case.”

Murdered foster child’s social worker says system overloaded

[Toronto Sun 9/6/12 by Tamara King]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “Manitoba social worker says she “probably could” have done more to check on a girl whose death is now the subject of a public inquiry, but she feared that being too aggressive would backfire.

Laura Forrest took on Phoenix Sinclair’s case in February 2003, when the toddler was brought to hospital with an infection from an object that had been lodged in her nose for three months. The hospital reported the matter as a probable case of neglect.

Forrest told the inquiry on Thursday that she went to the girl’s home and was met by her father, Steve Sinclair, who said Phoenix was being cared for by a family friend. Forrest said she went back to the home a few times over the next four months, always during the daytime, but there was no answer at the door.

Under cross-examination, Forrest said she could have taken other steps such as phoning other relatives, but didn’t.

“I probably could have done a few other things. I didn’t at that time,” Forrest said.

“I also don’t know what else was going on for me with other families.”

“Did you ever think of going there in the evening?” asked Jeff Gindin, the lawyer for Steve Sinclair.

“I did not, no,” Forrest replied.

“I’d left cards in the door. He knew I was trying to contact him.”

Forrest suggested social workers have to walk a fine line between monitoring a child and not making the family resentful and more secretive.

“It’s a decision to make as to whether or not invading somebody’s privacy … will impact on my ability to work with this person.”

Forrest never saw Phoenix, who was apprehended four months later when child-welfare workers received an anonymous call that suggested the girl was at risk because Sinclair was having drinking parties at his home.

Social workers went to the residence and found Sinclair drunk, along with two friends who had passed out on the floor. More social workers visited over the next 24 hours, by which time Sinclair had started smoking marijuana, the inquiry was told.

Some of the people in the home were identified as members of the Indian Posse street gang.

“You’ve got a little child of three with gangs, there’s violence and drugs and weapons, and no one seems to be taking care of (Phoenix),” said Kim Hansen, an after-hours social worker who called police to help her take the girl into care.

Phoenix was brought to a hotel to spend the night with other social workers. Hansen was taken aback by the way the little girl called every female she saw ‘mom.’

“She was calling me mom the entire time. I remember that. When I took her to the (hotel), she was calling the caregivers there mom. To me that just shows that there’s no consistent care provider. It’s a lack of attachment to a mother figure.”

The removal from Sinclair’s home was just one of many wrenching events in Phoenix’s short life. She was seized by child-welfare workers several times and returned to her mother, Samantha Kematch, a final time in 2004 — the year before she was beaten to death by Kematch and her boyfriend.

Phoenix was five years old.

The inquiry has already heard evidence that social workers failed to monitor Phoenix for months at a time. The hearings are to determine how the little girl fell through the cracks of Manitoba child welfare and why her death went undetected for nine months.

Her biological parents both had histories of violence and substance abuse. Phoenix was taken by child welfare workers days after her birth in April 2000, but was given back to her parents four months later under what was supposed to be regular supervision.

A 2006 internal review of the case by Winnipeg Child and Family Services, made public only last week, found that “from October 2000 to the last contact with this family, actual service was almost non-existent.”

On February 26, 2003, social workers were called by the Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg. Phoenix had an object in her nose — Kematch’s murder trial was told it was Styrofoam — which had been there for three months. An infection had developed.

The hospital wrote a referral to the child-welfare agency that called the infection a case of medical neglect. The internal review would later fault the agency for not immediately examining Phoenix’s living environment.

Instead, the agency categorized the case as a low-level risk and resolved to contact Sinclair only to ensure he was giving Phoenix antibiotics to treat the infection.

“Maybe in hindsight it would have been a better idea that I picked the moderate medical treatment (category), but I was also considering giving the assigned worker the ability to choose how soon they could go out and investigate based on their caseload demands,” Roberta Dick, the social worker who received the hospital report, testified Thursday.

Phoenix would spend the rest of her life in and out of foster care. In 2004 she was handed back to Kematch, who by then was in a new relationship with Karl McKay. In 2005, Phoenix was killed in the basement of the family home.

Kematch and McKay were convicted of first-degree murder. Evidence at their trial showed they had abused and neglected the girl, sometimes forcing her to eat her own vomit and shooting her with a BB gun.

The inquiry is still in its early stages. It has yet to delve into why child-welfare workers removed Phoenix from a foster home and gave her back to Kematch in 2004 and what, if any, monitoring followed. Kematch and McKay’s murder trial heard that a social worker went to visit the family in 2005, was told Phoenix was sleeping and left without seeing her.”

Manitoba social worker says she ‘probably could’ have done more to check on girl

[The Tyee 11/22/12 by Steve Lambert]

Update 2:    “Kim Edwards was put on trial at the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry Thursday as a government lawyer tried to shred her credibility.

She’s easy pickings. The child’s former foster mother is combative, snippy and incapable of remembering some of the significant traumas in her own life. She will contradict her own testimony, or imply she’s agreeing to facts because arguing is futile. She had what she vaguely calls “a lost year,” one she has alternately described as an early mid-life crisis or a medical problem.

She loathes CFS and, by association, the people she calls “suits.”

Family Services lawyer Gord McKinnon went after Edwards relentlessly. He questioned her inability to recall whether key events took place in 2002 or 2003 and her insistence many CFS documents have been faked or altered. He presented a seven-page timeline of Phoenix’s life that Edwards submitted to Manitoba Premier Gary Doer in 2006. Some of the dates were off by a couple of months, others contradicted evidence presented at the inquiry. He questioned and he prodded.

Edwards finally snapped.

“What really matters is the children. Not dates, not times, not splitting hairs,” she said, enraged and in tears. That may be the greatest truth told at this inquiry. McKinnon is one of those she considers a suit.

McKinnon tried being folksy, telling Edwards he’d never heard the term “couch-surfing,” an expression she used Wednesday to explain she didn’t have a home for a certain time.

“Maybe you’ve never been poor before, maybe you’ve never been homeless,” she snapped. If looks could kill we’d be eulogizing McKinnon today.

She is by no means an ideal witness. It’s impossible to follow the details of her story, mostly because she’s irritatingly vague. Was she living at a house on Selkirk Avenue with her estranged husband Rohan Stephenson on a certain date or not? One document says she was. He testified she wasn’t. Edwards launches into stream-of-consciousness answers, trying to figure out how old her children were when something was happening, musing that if CFS had put half the effort in taking care of children as they are trying to pick holes in her story, the kids in this province would be better off.

McKinnon questioned her about her alcohol use. She snapped back that when people in the suburbs have a party outside and there’s alcohol, it’s called a barbecue. When the same thing happens in the North End it’s a drinking party and the cops stop by and tell you to take it inside.

She would never drink in front of her children, she said, launching into lessons apparently learned from Jamaican parents. “Pickaninnies don’t come around adults,” she said crisply. “An adult’s business is not a pickaninny’s business.”

There isn’t much I can be sure of after listening to Kim Edwards testify for two days. She had her first child at 16. That baby was taken by CFS for a year because the child’s father was violent and Edwards couldn’t defend herself or the child. Two sons would follow. She married Stephenson and split from him quickly. They moved in and out of a relationship, one that saw them cohabiting at various times. She lived with him and the kids on Selkirk for some time but I couldn’t follow the thread of how many places she lived after that, couch-surfing included.

Stephenson was living part of the time (or maybe full time, who can tell) outside the city. At some point, he was living on Selkirk with Phoenix and either two or three of their teenage children. Edwards was either there every day or every two or three days and arriving either in the morning or later. God only knows what really happened, because we don’t. What we do know is the purpose of the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry is not to prove Kim Edwards is a flawed, angry person who hates CFS and those in its employ. She’d tell you that herself. Should she have done things better, faster, more honestly? Absolutely. But she’s not on trial. She gave one answer plain and clear, when McKinnon asked if she was afraid because Samantha Kematch had taken Phoenix.

“We didn’t think she was in danger because nobody knew that woman was a psychopath because we didn’t have her CFS file like all these workers who touched this file,” she snapped.

And that’s why the inquiry is being held, isn’t it?”

Foster mom sobs during relentless grilling

[Winnipeg Free Press 12/14/12 by Lindor Reynolds]

Update 3: “A social worker in Fisher River, Man., where Phoenix Sinclair was killed in 2005, says the first call he received about the five-year-old girl was a tip that she was dead.

The public inquiry into Phoenix’s death heard testimony on Wednesday from Randy Murdock, a social worker from Intertribal Child and Family Services, who was the first in Manitoba’s child welfare system to receive a tip about the child’s death.

Phoenix’s biological mother, Samantha Kematch, and her boyfriend, Karl Wesley McKay, were convicted in 2008 of first-degree murder in Phoenix’s death. They have both been sentenced to life in prison.

While Phoenix died in the summer of 2005, her body wasn’t found until 2006 on the Fisher River First Nation, wrapped in plastic in an unmarked shallow grave near the local landfill.

On Wednesday, Murdock told the inquiry that he took a call on March 6, 2006 — almost eight months after Phoenix’s death — from the mother of two of McKay’s sons.

Gruesome details

“It was the whole phone call — not something that I experienced before or heard about before,” Murdock said of the call, which he described as “gruesome.”

Inquiry lawyer Derek Olson read aloud Murdock’s notes from that call, which contained disturbing details of how McKay’s sons witnessed him abusing Phoenix.

“They witnessed physical abuse to a five-year-old female. They called it ‘choking the chicken,'” Olson said, reading from Murdock’s notes.

“‘Who was choking the chicken?’ according to Doe No. 3. Her son said it was Karl Wesley McKay.”

Doe No. 3 is the mother of McKay’s sons. A court-approved publication ban prevents her name, or the name of her sons, from being identified at the inquiry.

According to Murdock’s notes, the mother also said her boys saw Phoenix being thrown down the stairs.

“The two boys also said Karl Wesley McKay threw the five-year-old girl down the stairs. The fall down the stairs broke her skull open,” according to his notes.

Murdock said he referred the mother’s tip to police.

No other calls made about Phoenix, says agency

Intertribal Child and Family Services had no record of previous involvement with McKay regarding Phoenix, but authorities were involved with one incident in which McKay’s sons were returned to their mother, the inquiry was told.

Murdock’s notes from the phone call indicated that the boys’ mother told RCMP she had made several calls to Intertribal Child and Family Services to report that Phoenix was being abused.

The mother is expected to testify later in the inquiry that she had tried to warn the agency that Phoenix was in danger.

However, Murdock said he was unable to confirm that the agency received other tips regarding the little girl.

The head of Intertribal CFS also insisted on Wednesday that the agency did not take any other calls about Phoenix being in danger.

The Phoenix Sinclair inquiry, which has been ongoing since September but halted on several occasions, is trying to determine how Manitoba’s child welfare system failed the little girl and how her murder went undetected for more than half a year.

Phoenix had spent much of her life in foster care or with family friends in Winnipeg. The inquiry has already heard that social workers sometimes lost track of who had care of the girl, failed to monitor the family and closed Phoenix’s file without seeing her.”

Social worker recalls tip about Phoenix Sinclair’s death

[CBC 4/17/13]

Update 4: “If social workers had kept better tabs on her family, a little girl might  have been permanently taken away from the mother who would help beat her to  death, say newly released sections of an internal review.

The 2006 report by Winnipeg Child and Family Services and two other reviews  were released in their entirety for the first time Wednesday. Only portions of  the documents had been released previously at a public inquiry into the girl’s  death that started last fall.

“Most of the intervention in this case … seems to be phone calls or visits  by social workers to ‘warn and caution’ the family. It is clear this  intervention was unsuccessful in resulting in any noticeable change within the  family,” the report states.

“Perhaps if this case had been kept open for an extended period of time, a  social worker could have developed … a trusting relationship with this family  and positive change could have been supported. If no change had occurred through  intense proactive involvement, perhaps Phoenix would have been removed from the  parents’ care on a permanent basis with a clear rationale why it was  necessary.”

Manitoba child welfare has already been roundly criticized for failing to  protect Phoenix. She was seized from her parents, Samantha Kematch and Steve  Sinclair, after being born in April 2000 because the couple had a history of  violence and was not prepared to care for her.

The inquiry has already heard that social workers frequently failed to keep  track of Phoenix and would give her back to one or both of her parents without  enforcing conditions such as parenting courses or addictions treatment.

In the summer of 2000, Phoenix was returned to her parents under a plan that  included in-home support and parenting classes. The plan was never enforced and  social workers didn’t see the family for months.

In 2003, after her parents had split up, Phoenix was seized from her father  after a day-long drinking party at his home where suspected gang members were  present. Sinclair was ordered to undergo alcohol counselling before he could  regain custody and had told social workers he wasn’t ready to parent again.

But within a few months, Phoenix was given back to Sinclair, even though he  had not undergone treatment. Her file was closed with no followup.

“This action is even more alarming as the social worker states that Steven  did nothing to make changes in his life during Phoenix’s time in care,” the  review says.

“Regardless of parental wishes, a period of after-care monitoring and support  should be mandatory.”

In 2004, Phoenix was being cared for by a family friend named Rohan  Stephenson under an informal arrangement approved by Winnipeg Child and Family  Services. The agency had told him not to give Phoenix back to either of her  parents, but he returned the girl to Kematch anyway and did not tell the  agency.

The informal agreement is criticized by another review released in its  entirety Wednesday — this one from the chief medical examiner’s office.

“The agency, by condoning a private arrangement … afforded Phoenix no  protection at all,” it says.

“(Stephenson and his wife) had no legal authority to withhold Phoenix from  either of her parents and no legal compulsion … to report her removal from the  home.”

Unbeknownst to social workers, Phoenix’s mother was by that time living with  Karl McKay, a man with a long history of domestic violence that was outlined in  the family services central database.

Two months before the girl’s death in June 2005, two social workers acted on  an anonymous tip that she was being abused and visited the family’s Winnipeg  apartment. They talked only to Kematch, who said she had company and kept them  in the hallway. They left without seeing Phoenix and closed the file.

Shortly after that visit, Kematch and McKay moved to a house on the Fisher  River reserve. They neglected and abused Phoenix, sometimes shooting her with a  BB gun, and forced her to eat her own vomit. She was often confined to the  unfinished concrete basement.

One of McKay’s sons witnessed the 15-minute assault that killed Phoenix. It  was McKay who delivered the final blows, the son told the inquiry earlier this  week. McKay and Kematch then wrapped up the girl’s body in plastic and buried  her at the dump.

Her death in 2005 went undiscovered for nine months. McKay and Kematch  continued to collect welfare payments with Phoenix listed as a dependent.

McKay and Kematch were arrested in March 2006 and were convicted of  first-degree murder.

The inquiry is expected to conclude later this year with recommendations to  follow on how to improve child welfare in the province.”

 

Newly released document shines more light on death of Manitoba foster girl

[Vancouver Sun 4/24/13 by Steve Lambert/Canadian Press]

Update 5: Interesting commentary about poverty and neglect and Phoenix’s case

“CANADA’S aboriginal children end up in care so often mainly because of poverty that’s perceived as neglect, the inquiry into the death of Phoenix Sinclair was told Monday.

 

“There’s a tendency in child welfare to codify poverty as neglect,” said Cindy Blackstock, executive director of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. The woman, born in British Columbia and part Gitxsan, got her start as a front-line social worker with B.C’s Squamish First Nation.

 

She said she often saw aboriginal children making up the majority of kids in care not because their families didn’t care about them but because they couldn’t access the resources needed to care for them.

 

“Poverty, poor housing and substance misuse are things we can do something about,” she said. Generations of people taken away from their families to residential schools never received counselling for trauma and they’re echoing forward,” Blackstock told Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs’ lawyer Jay Funke.

 

“There is tendency for those with unresolved trauma turning to substance abuse,” she said at the inquiry that began in September. It was ordered after the 2005 death of five-year-old Phoenix was discovered in 2006. The Winnipeg-born child had been in and out of care her entire life before ending up with her mother Samantha Kematch and stepfather Karl Wesley McKay, who tortured and killed her on the Fisher River First Nation.

 

The inquiry heard earlier the couple had collected welfare benefits for Phoenix even after they’d killed her. It also heard Kematch smoked crack cocaine and Phoenix’s biological father, Steve Sinclair, who cared for her off and on until she was nearly four, was known to binge-drink. Both Kematch and Sinclair grew up in care after being taken away from parents with residential-school roots.

 

Blackstock didn’t refer to Phoenix’s case specifically, but said study after study shows the single best indicator of child welfare is income level, and as long as aboriginal kids are the poorest in Canada, they’re going to end up in care more often.

 

Every dollar spent on prevention of child-welfare problems saves society $7 down the road in social problems, said the woman, who holds a doctorate.

 

Her non-profit organization developed a program for First Nations communities called Touchstones of Hope that became a pilot project in northern B.C. aimed at improving the lives of children.

 

The program brought people from all parts of each community together to look for strengths in the community and how people could put them to use helping kids have a healthy life, said Blackstock. It could access housing funds if housing was the problem keeping a child down, for example, she said.

 

Child-welfare visitors from Australia with similar problems who wanted to see how the program worked were most struck by how well the First Nations people and the child-welfare workers worked together, said Blackstock.

 

“They focused on what was best for kids,” she said.”

The program saw the growing number of kids in care level off until it lost its funding, she saidPhoenix Sinclair inquiry hears from child-welfare expert

[First Perspective 4/30/13 by Carol Sanders/Winnipeg Free Press]

Update 6: “The former head of Manitoba’s advocate for children says her organization had a hard time getting answers about children believed to be at risk even after the case of a murdered five-year-old girl came to light in 2006.

Billie Schibler testified Monday that the Office of the Children’s Advocate had to —- quote — “send in the big guns” and threaten legal action to get responses from the child welfare system.

Schibler told the inquiry into the death of Phoenix Sinclair that she did that in 2007 out of a concern that not all children in care had been seen in person by their case worker.

That was a directive from the province ordered after Phoenix’s death was discovered in 2006, because her case was closed without a case worker seeing her in March and she was murdered that summer.

Schibler told the inquiry that phoning a caregiver to ask if the child is safe is not face-to-face contact, nor is hearing that another worker has seen the child in the community.

Schibler — who now heads the Metis Child and Family Services Authority — said she got a response saying the children in question were eventually seen and accounted for.

She said there needs to be a registry for social workers to hold them accountable and give the public an avenue for complaints.

She also said a truth and reconciliation process would help restore the credibility of the child welfare system in Manitoba.

If the number of kids in care is ever going to be reduced, though, more therapy is needed for broken families and their children who end up in the system, she said.

“It’s easy to be a good parent when you’ve had a loving, nurturing and supportive environment around you,” said Schibler. “We expect people to do that despite what they’ve been through,” she said.

“Those children in care today are tomorrow’s parents.””

Former Manitoba child advocate testifies at inquiry into child’s death

[Yahoo.com 4/29/13 by Associated Press/The Canadian Press]

Update 7: “The woman who cared for Phoenix Sinclair during much of her short life delivered a blistering and emotional personal impact statement Monday, asking the inquiry into the five-year-old girl’s death not to worry about “offending the guilty.”

Kim Edwards said the child welfare system and members of the aboriginal community did nothing to stop the abuse or death of Phoenix and it’s up to inquiry Commissioner Ted Hughes to tell the truth and call for change.

“We believe the purpose of Phoenix’s death is to change the system in a positive and fundamental way,” Edwards said Monday.

Phoenix was tortured and killed by her mother, Samantha Kematch, and stepfather, Karl Wesley McKay, in 2005 at Fisher River First Nation. Her death wasn’t discovered until March 2006. Several people had seen signs of abuse but didn’t report it. Some suspected and reported abuse to CFS but a social worker never saw Phoenix.

The lawyer representing Edwards and Phoenix’s biological father, Steve Sinclair, said the inquiry exposed a “system in chaos” — mistrusted by the people it was supposed to help and not held accountable by anyone.

“The silver lining in this dark cloud must be a recognition of what went wrong and recommend actions that improve the system,” said Jeff Gindin.

Notes that are crucial to child welfare cases were deliberately destroyed or disappeared, he said, calling for an overhaul of CFS reporting. Workers and their bosses lacked common sense and judgment, he said, pointing to an incident in March 2005 when Winnipeg Child and Family Services closed its file on Phoenix without seeing her.

“This is where the profound lack of common sense reaches a high point,” said Gindin.

After receiving a call that Phoenix was being locked in a bedroom and possibly abused by Kematch, Christopher Zalevich was sent to check out the complaint. He took along a senior social worker for his own personal safety but didn’t go inside the suite because Kematch said she had company.

The social workers didn’t see Phoenix but spoke to Kematch in the hallway while she held her seemingly happy, healthy baby, whose dad was McKay. There’s no note of Zalevich asking to see Phoenix or her whereabouts. In his records, he notes he mentioned to Kematch that the lock on the door was a fire hazard, then left. His supervisor, Diva Faria, testified earlier she agreed with him closing the file without seeing Phoenix because there were “no known protection concerns.”

“He left knowing no more than when they got there,” said Gindin.

The lawyer for the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union said heavy workloads, inadequate training and supervision prevented social workers from doing an effective job on every case and taking detailed notes. Trevor Ray said they spent the most time on cases where protection concerns were known. The union had complained to the government about workloads since 1999, said Ray. To illustrate how underfunded the system was at that time, he noted its funding more than doubled after Phoenix’s death — to $547 million from $215 million “to address systemic problems,” Ray said.

“Those numbers tell you about the status of child welfare when services were provided to Phoenix,” Ray said. “Despite the millions invested since 2006, the workload is still too high,” he said.

“Money alone will not solve this issue,” Gindin said in his final submission. “Even with all the money in the world you have to have good judgment and common sense.”

“There are too many incidents of the bare minimum being done. Not all social workers made mistakes. Most did. Many did nothing.”

Ray said social workers choose that field because they care about children. “Don’t blame social workers. If social workers had more time to dedicate to prevention, better outcomes might have resulted.”

“There was good work done on Phoenix’s file at times, when it reached the top of the priority list.”

The inquiry report is due Dec. 15.[2013]”

Don’t let Phoenix’s death be in vain: foster mom

[Winnipeg Free Press 7/23/13 by Carol Sanders]

“Kim Edwards, who looked after Phoenix Sinclair during part of her short life, told an inquiry that the child’s legacy must be one of hope and renewal.

All children in Manitoba are entitled to protection, but the same privilege shouldn’t be given to the social workers who failed Phoenix, Edwards said in her final submission Monday.

“The time for excuses must end with your report,” an emotional Edwards told Commissioner Ted Hughes.

“Our Phoenix will create a safer and better life for many other vulnerable children in Manitoba. Her legacy will renew the child-welfare system. All children must be equal under the law.

“We believe the purpose of Phoenix’s senseless death was to change the system in a fundamental and positive way for all children in Manitoba and across this great nation.”

Hughes is examining how Phoenix slipped through the cracks and how her death at the hands of her mother and mother’s boyfriend went undiscovered for months.

Final submissions are scheduled to wrap up next week and a report is expected by December.

The inquiry, which began last year, has heard from 126 witnesses and is estimated to be one of the most expensive inquiries in Manitoba’s history”

 

“The commission’s mandate is to determine the circumstances surrounding Phoenix’s death and to make recommendations for improving child welfare in Manitoba.

Hughes thanked Edwards and assured her Phoenix’s legacy will be a positive one.

“The prime and driving force behind this inquiry is to bring in recommendations that will make some fundamental changes and bring a positive lifestyle for children in Manitoba over and above what it has been,” he said.

Over the next two weeks, lawyers from all parties involved in the inquiry will have a chance to say their final piece.

Trevor Ray, lawyer for the union representing social workers, argued staff didn’t have a “crystal ball” and couldn’t have foreseen the girl’s death.

Child welfare is plagued by a lack of training, lack of resources, inadequate staffing and high caseloads — all of which make it hard for social workers to do their job, he said.

“These are not problems that are going to go away overnight,” Ray told Hughes. “Social workers try their best in very difficult circumstances … No one would ever knowingly leave a child at risk.”

“Jeff Gindin, who represents Edwards and Sinclair, said Phoenix’s death was the result of the failures of many. Social workers didn’t do enough to investigate McKay when he became involved with Kematch, he said. A simple background check would have revealed a violent history which should have raised the alarm, he said.

When authorities were contacted shortly before the girl’s death about allegations that she was being abused, a social worker visited Kematch and left without going into the apartment, let alone seeing if Phoenix was OK, Gindin pointed out.

Her file was closed.

“There is just no excuse,” Gindin told Hughes. “The file should never have been closed.

“Within three months, she was tortured to death.””

Hope and renewal: foster mom says girl’s death can renew Manitoba child welfare

[Ottawa Citizen 7/22/13 by Chinta Puxley]

Update 8: “Winnipeg Child and Family Services says it takes the blame for its social workers and supervisors “asking the wrong questions” about a child who bounced in and out of foster care before she was killed.

“Winnipeg CFS accepts responsibility,” lawyer Gord McKinnon told an inquiry into Phoenix Sinclair’s death.

McKinnon is the lawyer for the provincial Family Services Department, which is in charge of the child-welfare agency that handled the girl’s file from when she was born in 2000 until it closed the case months before her murder in 2005.

“I think the perception still persists, somehow, that an aboriginal agency was at fault,” McKinnon said during final submissions at the inquiry Thursday.

Phoenix’s remains were discovered at the dump on the Fisher River reserve in March 2006 — nine months after her mother and the woman’s boyfriend abused her so badly she died.

McKinnon said some people assumed an aboriginal agency was involved when child welfare agencies didn’t comment after the five-year-old’s death was uncovered. But that was because of confidentiality legislation, he said.

“When this story broke in the media many years ago, all of us were operating on the same restriction and couldn’t comment,” McKinnon said. “It’s important that this false impression be laid to rest.”

The Winnipeg agency alone handled her case and several reviews looked at what systemic problems may have led to her death. Heavy workload, a lack of training and supervision, poor note-taking and an outdated computer system were all noted.

“To just add more money and permit the same failures is no solution at all,” said McKinnon.

“More workers doing the same thing the same way doesn’t improve outcomes,” he said. “Training had to be significantly improved.”

Phoenix’s case was closed when it shouldn’t have been and not opened when it should have been because social workers and supervisors weren’t asking the right questions, McKinnon said.

It was closed one last time after a worker checking on allegations that Phoenix was being abused didn’t actually see the child or gather any information.

The union representing social workers said Phoenix’s case happened at a time when child welfare was funded at less than half of what it’s now. As well, talk of devolution to other agencies had workers feeling insecure. But that’s not why wrong decisions were made on her file, McKinnon said.

“We say that the failure … is fundamentally a failure to appropriately assess safety and risk,” he said.

“We now ask if the child is safe.””

Winnipeg family services agency admits it failed girl who died

[Vancouver Sun 7/26/13]

Update 9: “The Manitoba government says it will take years to implement some of the recommendations from a public inquiry into Manitoba’s troubled child-welfare system and the tragic death of Phoenix Sinclair.

Half of 62 recommendations from last year’s inquiry report have been put into effect or are works in progress, Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross said Wednesday. Among them is a call for an improved centralized database to ensure more children are properly monitored and don’t slip through the cracks.

“We’re doing a project scope for the technology and … it will take a number of years in order to get the technology implemented,” she said.

Another key recommendation to ease the load of social workers so they handle no more than 20 files at any time is still being dealt with through the hiring of more staff, she added.

Other inquiry recommendations, such as improved training for social workers and a regulatory body for them similar to those for doctors and nurses, is to be fulfilled next year.

The minister’s comments come 10 months after the government received the final report from the $14-million inquiry into Phoenix’s beating death in 2005. The five-year-old girl spent much of her life in care and was horrifically abused after being returned to her mother, Samantha Kematch. The child was beaten to death by Kematch and Kematch’s boyfriend, Karl McKay.

The inquiry was told Winnipeg Child and Family Services received tips that Phoenix was in danger on 13 separate occasions. The agency frequently lost track of the girl or closed her file, deciding she was fine, without laying eyes on her.

Kematch and McKay managed to conceal the girl’s death for nine months before they were apprehended and later convicted of first-degree murder.

The inquiry heard that social workers were often overwhelmed. There was so much staff turnover that 27 different workers dealt with Phoenix during her short life.

Social workers failed to identify Karl McKay when he entered the girl’s life in 2004. McKay had a history of severe domestic abuse laid out in a family services information system, but social workers only knew him as “Wes.”

The Manitoba government is committed to all 62 recommendations and plans to release a progress report early next year, Irvin-Ross said.

Dragging heels

The Opposition Progressive Conservatives accused the government of dragging its heels and said some of the problems highlighted in the inquiry report were first raised in internal investigations in 2006.

“It’s been quite awhile in process and we are looking at at least a year before any real action is taken on many of the recommendations,” family services critic Ian Wishart said.

Manitoba child welfare has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years due to several deaths, including that of Tina Fontaine, 15, in August.

Fontaine’s body was pulled from the Red River one week after she disappeared. She was in the care of Family Services, but was a frequent runaway. Her great-aunt, Thelma Favel, said social workers failed to keep track of Tina and lost her hours before she was last seen.

Union worries about ‘rushed’ new unit

Irvin-Ross announced Wednesday the province will soon open a six-bed shelter in Winnipeg, with heightened security, for high-risk girls.

The number of children in care has almost doubled in the last decade to 10,000. More than 70 per cent are aboriginal.

But Bill Anderson, director of negotiations for the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU), has some reservations about the government’s announcement.

“We have concerns that the new unit is being rushed, that staff require additional, specialized training to provide adequate care for the at-risk girls, and that the location of the facility is inappropriate,” he said.”

Some Phoenix Sinclair recommendations could take years, Manitoba says[CBC News 10/08/14 by The Canadian Press]