The former government-run group home where Traevon Chalifoux-Desjarlais died is seen in Abbotsford, B.C.Rafal Gerszak/The Globe and Mail
B.C. government counsellors helping Indigenous teens in foster care have no standardized way of reporting if their clients were suicidal, the official in charge of reviewing this care for the provincial Ministry of Children and Family Development told a coroner’s inquest into the death of Traevon Desjarlais-Chalifoux.
Trisha Myers, who began her 26-year career as a social worker and now is acting executive director of quality assurance in the ministry, said Wednesday on the last day of witness testimony that this glaring gap was uncovered by an internal government review, which was triggered by the Cree foster teen’s death in September, 2020, in the bedroom of his group home in Abbotsford, B.C. Ms. Myers told jurors and the dozen lawyers in attendance that the province will roll out a new toolkit “in the next couple of weeks” to help counsellors better identify and report if these kids in their care are suicidal.
“That was flagged as something that we had been seeing in a few reviews where this piece of work was not documented,” said Ms. Myers, who added that her team does about 40 such reviews a year of incidents in which youth die or are seriously injured.
Two days earlier, Caleb Reardon, Mr. Desjarlais-Chalifoux’s counsellor, testified the teen made a “quasi-threat” to harm himself badly three weeks before his suicide. But, the clinician – who had his caseload doubled at the time while he covered the neighbouring region – testified that he took no further action after determining the teen, who had been banging his head through his bedroom wall that summer, was not a high risk to attempt a suicide.
The inquest had also heard Mr. Desjarlais-Chalifoux, who had learning disabilities, fetal alcohol syndrome, ADHD and was a past victim of sexual and physical abuse, had wanted a female counsellor from the ministry, but none was available.
The inquest was called this spring after a Globe and Mail investigation into the death of the 17-year-old, whose body was discovered in his bedroom closet four days after he was reported missing. The Globe found serious deficiencies at the organization in charge of his care, Xyolhemeylh – also known as the Fraser Valley Aboriginal Children and Family Services Society. Xyolhemeylh is one of 24 Indigenous Child and Family Service agencies charged with providing foster care to First Nations, Métis and Inuit children and youth in British Columbia.
Ms. Myers, the penultimate witness to testify, also said that her internal ministry review was completed within a couple of months of his death, but that it took nearly two years – until this August – for all the involved parties to make the mandated improvements.
The inquest’s five jurors have the task of determining when and how Mr. Desjarlais-Chalifoux died, and making recommendations for systemic changes that could prevent other foster children from dying in similar circumstances.
James Wale, B.C.’s acting director of child welfare at the Ministry of Children and Family Development, was the last witness to testify. He stated how B.C. will soon begin piloting a new approach to the group homes that have failed Mr. Desjarlais-Chalifoux and other Indigenous kids in care, who make up about 70 per cent of the roughly 5,000 under such provincial guardianship.
He said the new model for these group homes will see staff with clinical training giving more wraparound support for youth with complex needs who can’t be placed with relatives or foster family staff. The inquest has heard how the staff members at Mr. Desjarlais-Chalifoux’s group home had neither the training nor skills to give him the care he needed.
“We need to reduce the number of children that are in staff models,” Mr, Wale testified.
The day prior, an executive with the Indigenous-led agency responsible for the teen testified how it failed him during his brief life by not connecting him to his culture and by not trying harder to keep him with his birth mother.