System failed five children discovered in horrific neglect case: N.B. report
Posted January 28, 2019 1:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
FREDERICTON — A report on a horrific child-neglect case involving five children under nine years of age has found New Brunswick social workers failed to meet protection standards.
Child and Youth Advocate Norman Bosse says social workers need to understand and use their authority to enter a home and remove a child who may be in danger.
Sheriff’s deputies in 2016 discovered the children, ranging in age from six months to eight years old, in a filthy Saint John, N.B., apartment smeared with human and animal feces, and little food for the children to eat.
A child protection file had been opened six months earlier on the family, but the children were malnourished and several had rotting teeth, while the two school-aged siblings had missed most of their school year.
Their parents were later sentenced to two years in jail.
Bosse says social workers with the Department of Social Development have a heavy caseload and face difficult situations when confronting families at their homes.
Miguel LeBlanc, executive director of the New Brunswick Association of Social Workers, says the system failed in this case, and is hoping government acts on Bosse’s recommendations.
Green Leader David Coon says there’s no committee of the legislature to receive Bosse’s report, but is hopeful the minister will take the recommendations into account.
The Canadian Press
