Opinion:Edmonton Child Deaths in Foster Care

Occasionally, we will link to media opinions on aspects of adoption and child welfare that you may never have thought about. This opinion reflects on how there can be an illusion of justice when foster parents are convicted of murder and abuse yet the reasons for these poor placements do not seem to be addressed. State care responsibility is deflected. It follows on the heels of the Lily Choy case that we have been reporting on.

It gives a shocking statistic in the end. ” But between 2005 and 2010, four foster children from the Edmonton region, all of them aboriginal, were allegedly killed by their government-approved and appointed foster parents. Four foster child homicides in five years? You’d think there might be public outrage — but because we can’t ever name the children, or print their pictures, it’s hard to make those deaths resonate.”

Regarding Lily Choy, “In late 2006, when she first became a foster parent, she was a single mom of 32, raising two young children. She was also a registered nurse.

Back then, the province was experiencing a particularly dire shortage of foster homes.

Between 2005 and 2007, at the height of the boom, the Edmonton region experienced a nine-per-cent increase in children in care — and a 15-per-cent drop in the number of regional foster homes. The problem was so severe that children in care were routinely being housed in cheap motels in industrial areas on the edge of the city, or placed in foster homes that were already well over their regulated capacity.

And so, at a time when the region was desperate to recruit new foster parents, Lily Choy signed up.

As a rookie, Choy was only supposed to be caring for two foster children at a time. Instead, within weeks of becoming a foster parent, Choy found her home “overloaded” — to use the official provincial term. At one point, she had four high-needs foster children, who ranged in aged from toddlers to young teens, in addition to her own kids, who were then eight and three.”

Read more at Simons: Jailing foster parents who kill only provides illusion of justice
[Edmonton Journal 9/16/11 by Paula Simons]

REFORM Puzzle Piece