Sherry Gott, Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth, sits in her office in Winnipeg, on Oct. 20, 2022. Youth and groups that work with young people are voicing their concerns over the state of addiction services in the province in a new report released by Ms. Gott's agency.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Young people with addictions are facing severe barriers to access support services in Manitoba, leading to an increasing number of deaths from substance use, says the province’s independent agency representing the rights and interests of children.
The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth, in a 35-page report issued Thursday, identified several gaps that prevent at-risk young people from getting the help they need. Drawing on feedback from dozens of participants and more than 120 service providers, the agency found long waiting lists, geographic inequities, staff shortages and other critical limitations across the system.
“These concerns are not only acute, they have very well caused our youth to keep dying,” said advocate Sherry Gott, presenting her findings at a community centre in Winnipeg.
Ms. Gott’s agency has been studying the causes of death among young people since its inception. Her team found that, between 2018 and 2023, at least 56 youth have died because of possible substance use or drug overdoses.
Many of them were Inuit, Métis and First Nations youth, who are disproportionately represented in the agency’s systems. For Indigenous peoples living in northern communities, resources are particularly inadequate, the report noted. A majority of programs have a requirement that participants live in Winnipeg, where services are clustered.
Sunday Queskekapow, a two-spirit Swampy Cree from northern Manitoba, told the crowd gathered at the report’s launch about their difficult experience finding a shelter in Norway House Cree Nation, an area where there were no available options.
“I had to be essentially extracted from my community to receive care that would keep me alive,” said the 23-year-old through tears, which Ms. Gott wiped away, wrapping them up with a quilted blanket, an honour among Indigenous cultures.
But even when youth ask for help, the province remains unqualified to meet their complex needs, the agency said.
The report observed that service providers often do not take the time to address the trauma that causes substance-use dependency among young people, such as troubled childhoods, sex trafficking, poverty or generational grief.
Many teens and children are turned away because they went to the “wrong door” for a service, which is why they often abandon their search for help, while some don’t have the opportunity to learn about what is available to them until they have been incarcerated, the report said.
The findings also point to concerns around safe supply for substance use, which nearly one-third of all participants that spoke to the agency for its report said they did not have access to because of the lack of supervised drug-use sites and harm-reduction services in Manitoba.
The agency has asked the province to come up with a strategy for youth that focuses on addictions, but government has failed to deliver on its previous promises, Ms. Gott said: “It is clear that fundamental structural changes are urgently needed.”
Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine, who was expected to attend the agency’s event, was not present Thursday. However, in a statement released shortly after the report was presented, the Manitoba government announced new funding and services aimed at tackling the concerns highlighted by Ms. Gott.
The government is allocating $2.4-million to the children’s emergency department at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, coupled with $1.5-million directed toward mental-health clinicians in other parts of the province.
It is also working on a virtual-care service operated by Shared Health, the regional authority. Bernadette Smith, the minister for addictions, homelessness and mental health, described it as “part of a broad approach to prevent kids from falling through the cracks.”
Jaye Miles, the director of child and youth treatment services with Shared Health, said the new service would be of particular use for Manitoba’s northern and rural communities. It will be a hub for school-based counsellors, physicians, social workers and other community care providers, Dr. Miles said.