A government panel tasked with finding ways to improve Alberta’s child intervention system met Wednesday for the first time since the group was chosen in January.
The panel was struck after serious concerns were raised about the death in 2014 of four-year-old Serenity. The little girl was emaciated when she arrived at hospital. An autopsy late found her body showed signs of having been sexually assaulted.
The 13-member panel, made up of opposition and government MLAs as well as experts in social work, started Wednesday’s meeting with a focus on how to proceed with the review.
So far, work of the panel has been bogged down in process, with members raising concerns about whether youth in care would be heard from, and if full transcripts of the meetings would be made public.
The new minister of Children’s Services, Danielle Larivee, told the panel there are 10,000 children receiving intervention services from the Alberta government and therefore “10,000 reasons to get it right.”
Initially, opposition parties had threatened to boycott the review unless the terms of reference were changed to speed up the process.
The panel will look at how to improve Alberta’s child death review process, how to strengthen the child-intervention system, and look at the systemic issues that lead to children coming into government care.