Is government failing our troubled youth?
by Kathy Ramsey - News Reporter
A Yukon News Archive story originally published October 30, 2000

The Health and Social Services department has yanked Sandra Gibbs' contract to run the Klondike Group Home. But Gibbs says the decision is merely an attempt to muzzle her and hide the department's failure to adequately treat troubled youth. The contract, which was terminated on October 20 by the family and children's services branch, only applies to one of the four group homes Gibbs runs in Whitehorse. The director of Gibbs Group Homes says she has tried repeatedly over the past two years to alert the Health and Social Services department to the increasingly complex psychological problems of the youth referred to her homes, in particular the Klondike Group Home. Many of these youth were diagnosed with severe personality disorders - in some cases, long before they became teens, she adds. She says her concerns were ignored by the government and she was continually pressured to accommodate troubled youth whose behavior was detrimental to other youngsters housed at the home. Subsequent attempts to raise the issue in other forums, such as with the Health and Social Services Council, an independent body, led to the termination of her contract, she says. Gibbs' three other group-home contracts - for Mountain Ridge, Diamond Willow and Canyon Mountain - remain intact. These homes haven't been the source of past controversy. "If they think I'll shut up and go away quietly because they've left my other contracts in place, they're sadly mistaken," says Gibbs. "They have a lot invested in keeping me quiet on the fact that they're not addressing the needs of the children. "But I won't shut up. I won't go away. I will not rest until something is done. It's not about Sandra Gibbs being unemployed, it's about the children," she says tearfully. "I run the real risk now, because I'm going forward, of them yanking my other contracts. I know that, but that's not the issue." In 1998, as a result of recommendations from the government's review of group homes, Gibbs hired local psychologist Janet Webster to develop a staff-training program and a behavior-management program for youth. After she subsequently began to review the youths' files, says Webster, she started to notice a definite pattern emerging from their backgrounds. Not only did many have a history of physical and sexual abuse, but many endured multiple foster-care placements, in some cases even before their first birthday. "As a psychologist, I'm horrified at the number of placements that very young children are being put through when I know that that relates to the development of the self, of emotions, of cognition and of who they are as people," says Webster, her voice quivering. "We're talking mega-placements, 10 to 40 placements during the prime developmental years. "Then they arrive at the teenage years, which we all know can be problematic, with social, emotional and behavioral problems, which to my mind are a direct outcome of the instability in emotional, physical and basic care." Webster and Gibbs say they tried to discuss this trend with Health and Social Services last year, and again in March with Anne Wescott, the director of the family and children's services branch. "We were hoping they'd recognize the nature of the problem and work with us to address it," says Webster. A slower rate of youth referrals, consideration of the nature of the youth sent to the homes, and separate facilities for boys and girls were some of the suggestions the two women made to the government. "I'm a provider of service; I do not have the authority to bring about the type of change that was needed," says Gibbs. The government refused to listen, she and Webster say. Instead, they were asked, increasingly, during Placement and Review Committee meetings, to take on difficult youth whose problems were incompatible with children already in the home. "The girls were being presented and they had increasing problems with acting out, violence, alcohol, drugs and so on," says Webster. "And the boys were presented and they have increasing problems with acting out sexually as well as in other ways. "And so we would say things like, 'How advisable is it to have a 16-year-old-male with a history of sexual-acting-out behavior placed in a home with a preponderance of girls?'" That's when Gibbs and Webster became thorns in the government's side, they say. "As we raised issues, we were met with increasing hostility and, in some cases, outright anger," says Webster. "We were seen as being difficult and holding up the process," interjects Gibbs. "The Children's Receiving Home was backed up and we were told that movement needed to happen." Gibbs and Webster say they then decided to pursue their concerns in other ways. On September 8, they met with the Health and Social Services Council. But the following week, they were instructed by Charles Pugh of family and children's services to take a government representative with them to all outside meetings, they say. An October 5 meeting with the Council of Yukon First Nations' advisory council on child welfare was cancelled by the government, says Gibbs. Less than two weeks later, on October 17, Gibbs says Pugh cancelled her annual group-home evaluation. Three days later, she was told her contract to run the Klondike Group Home would be cancelled within 60 days. "This is supposed to be a democracy," says Webster. "You'd think that responsible citizens should have a forum where they can take their concerns. "That's what we think we did by going to the Health and Social Services Council after trying for over a year internally to build an understanding that the needs of the children are paramount and that there's a real need to take a close look at what's happening with our children in care." "We want to be proactive," adds Gibbs. "Why do we need to wait until a death happens?" she asks, referring to the Gove Report, a 1996 inquiry into BC Family and Child Services that followed the death of a six-year-old boy. "Something needs to be done; it's a crisis and no one is listening." Both Gibbs and Webster say the extent of the crisis is well documented by incident reports, month-end reports and the youths' files. "The documentation is overwhelming," says Webster. "It's absolutely overwhelming about what's going on. But it needs to be brought out into the open." But, the women add, the only way the full extent of the crisis, case histories and all, can be brought into the open is through a public inquiry. "There have always been children, generally, who have ended up with major social, emotional, and behavior difficulties, but the question I'm asking myself now is do we have a crisis?" says Webster. "To what extent has this become an enormous problem and how does it relate to the kind of caregiving the children have had?" First of a series