A Representative for Children and Youth in BC is happy to see the province get rid of the practice of Birth Alerts.
Birth Alerts is a ‘child welfare practice’ where child welfare agencies are advised, without any consent, when it’s believed there’s potential safety risks to infants at birth. Jennifer Charlesworth says it definitely targeted certain populations more than others. “Most notably indigenous families and families living in vulnerable circumstances associated with poverty, substance use, etc. So I think it had a disproportionate impact on those who were most vulnerable and those who actually need more supports rather than fear.”
Charlesworth says she’s seen a number of families that were afraid to ask for help out of fear their children would be removed and there is some worry that kids could still be removed from their families, it could just come at a later time. She says a major issue with them was that often times families weren’t even aware that they had been identified. “Cause it could be done without consent. So often times families were well down the way of having a more intrusive measure before they were even aware that this was triggered by birth alerts and therefor we didn’t see the numbers you might expect we would see.”
It often prevented people from asking for help out of fear their child could be taken away and now Charlesworth has concerns about what additional supports and interventions are going to be made to these families. “If there aren’t those kinds of supports then it could just be a matter of weeks and then the same kinds of removals could take place. However, I think the government has been saying that what they want to do is do more wraparound preventive services to prevent the need for protective intervention or more intrusive measures.”
The issue of birth alerts has been highlighted in Kamloops with the case of Baby-H. The APTN reporter who broke that story says Baby-H is now in her 5th foster home in just three months of life. To hear Melissa Ridgen’s interview on The Jeff Andreas Show check out the link below.
https://soundcloud.com/user-965676831/jeff-andreas-show-mel-ridgen-sept-19
