The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth has made six recommendations for public systems in the release of a special report into the death of an Indigenous boy who died in a motor vehicle collision in a rural community in June 2016.

The report marks the first time the Manitoba Advocate has publicly released the details of a child death investigation under expanded powers the office received through legislation which came into effect in March 2018.

The special report titled “Documenting the Decline: The Dangerous Space Between Good Intentions and Meaningful Interventions” explores the life and death of a boy who ran away from home after learning at age 13 the man who had raised him from infancy was not his biological father. The report says after learning about his father, the boy, who’s identified in the report by his spirit name Circling Star, came into contact with Child and Family Services, the justice system and struggled with mental health and addiction.

“There was little effort made to communicate between service providers and important information was not shared, weakening each service area and their respective plans,” said Manitoba advocate Daphne Penrose. “It is sad to look backwards and wonder what might have been different if a short burst of intensive and coordinated service could have been mobilized to support the family when Circling Star was only 13.

“Instead of coordinating their interventions in the small region in which Circling Star lived and attended school, these public systems worked in isolation from each other and, as such, delivered disjointed services to Circling Star and his family.”

Six recommendations were made in the report:

  • Implement a provincial strategy regarding information sharing across systems;
  • Conduct an urgent review of the current use of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions and develop a province-wide strategy to limit, reduce, and phase-out exclusionary practices, except in situations of imminent safety risk to students and staff;
  • Improve access to and coordination of mental health services;
  • Immediately respond to the lack of effective substance use treatment services and prioritize the development of a youth addiction action strategy;
  • Improve communication within the Department of Justice and evaluate the department’s capacity to provide programming for youth to meet their probation conditions;
  • Clarify training content and expectations of CFS workers and supervisors with respect to minimum provincial standards.

Five days before he turned 18, Circling Star died in a motor vehicle collision on Jun. 23, 2016 when the vehicle he was driving skidded sideways into the ditch, hit the side of the ditch, and became airborne.

The report says the boy and two friends had been drinking but it’s not clear if they were drinking in a specific location or if they were drinking while driving.

“The manner of death was ruled ‘accidental’ by the chief medical examiner and the cause of death was blunt force injuries as a result of a motor vehicle collision,” the report stated.

The report says the boy started high school in a new community after learning about his biological father where he began with minor acting-out which declined into significant levels of risk-taking.

“Circling Star was regularly disciplined and suspended – sometimes for many weeks at a time – for minor infractions that began with refusing to stand for the national anthem,” the report said. “There were many missed opportunities for the professionals in Circling Star’s life to intervene in meaningful trauma-informed ways at critical junctions of his life.”

Penrose said two more reports, including one involving the death of Tina Fontaine, will be released in the next six to eight weeks.

A press secretary for Manitoba Families Minister Heather Stefanson said the government has received the special report but will need some time to go through it before responding.