I recently viewed a 12-minute YouTube video which re-awakened some painful memories from my early childhood.
I thought I had put all this mental stress to bed many years ago, but somehow the pain lingers on. I suppose those uncomfortable and painful memories will always be there, surfacing periodically to remind me of how fortunate I am today.
The title of the 2013 You Tube video is “ReMoved”. It deals with the physical and emotional pain and horror experienced by a nine-year-old girl who was removed from her parental home and was subsequently shuffled around several foster homes.
Unfortunately, foster children and any other children suffering from these cycles of abuse sometimes simply don’t know there are ways out of the madness and that somewhere there is a better answer and someone who really cares.
Although it’s been almost 70 years since I endured the cold, sometimes mean and uncaring loneliness of foster homes and the emotional and physical abuse of my parents and step-father, nothing has improved for foster children and other young people left to the mercies of officialdom.
In the old days, we were the victims of the Children’s Aid Society, which imposed a tyrannical domination over everyone in its care. Today, foster children and other children in the care of various government ministries are better off, mainly due to the existence of Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the government appointed children and youth advocate.
To be fair, not all foster homes or foster parents are monsters or fiends; nor are all social workers and child care counselors.
But they are fighting an uphill battle and the provincial government seems to not care enough.
The system is simply dysfunctional and totally inadequate because of ongoing turf wars between various ministries and a chronic lack of adequate funding.
When these issues are coupled with the provincial government’s ministerial lack of understanding of the impact of not dealing competently with foster children and other troubled youth in government care, failure is not only a predictable result, it is almost a certainty.
Tragedy after tragedy has unfolded in recent years with several suicides or other untimely deaths of teenagers in government care. It seems that whatever inadequate services the government does provide for these unfortunate young people, it is no longer available once they reach 18 years old.
Many of these young people are already teetering on the brink of a mental crash.
One of the worst things about the tragedy being played out everyday in the lives of troubled youth is the casual lack of response from neighbours, relatives and all the other people who can easily observe the escalating social and mental destruction of these young people.
The future of young people who have been left with no social or spiritual role models to follow frequently leads to drug addiction, homelessness, violent anti-social behaviour, and death.
Many so-called normal people react with a smug attitude and consider how lucky they are that they aren’t personally affected, but they are so wrong. They aren’t lucky and they are affected.
The impact of the ineptitude of several decades of bureaucracy charged with caring for the welfare of children and youth is utterly devoid of even minimal success, and when coupled with societal indifference, the results can be seen everyday in our streets, in our jails, in our homeless shelters and in our cemeteries.
The wrecked lives of so many young people affects everyone in our communities. If you don’t agree, just stop to consider the recent deaths by suicide and the other tragic results of abandoning these unfortunate young people.
We are in danger of creating an entire generation of hopeless, homeless and lost young souls.
– Sandy Macdougall is a retired journalist and former city councillor.