Alberta child advocate concerned about office budget cap, calls for action to support youth with disabilities

Published Jan 24, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 5 minute read

Terri Pelton was appointed Alberta’s child and youth advocate on April 5, 2022. Photo by supplied

Alberta’s child and youth advocate says a budget increase cap next year could make it more difficult for her office to investigate the deaths of young people in government care.

While the next provincial budget isn’t expected until the end of February, a legislature committee approving the budgets of independent offices of the legislature, including the office of child and youth advocate Terri Pelton, voted Tuesday to cap increases for several offices at 2.1 per cent in 2024-25.

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Pelton’s office is legally mandated to publish an investigative review within one year of notification of a death.

“I am concerned about how we are going to meet that mandate,” Pelton told Postmedia Wednesday, adding the office will need to “make some hard decisions.”

“We’ll make it work no matter what, but it’s hard work investigating child deaths, and when the numbers are rising, the way they’re rising, it’s a lot to ask of staff to meet those timelines.”

In 2022-23, Pelton’s office recorded the highest number of fatalities among children and youth under government care or receiving supports since 2012. Forty-four deaths demanded a mandatory review — an increase of 10 from the previous year.

At a committee meeting Dec. 1, independent officers including Pelton, auditor general Doug Wylie, who examines government spending, and ethics commissioner Marguerite Trussler, whose job it is to ensure compliance with ethics rules, each pleaded their case for budget boosts amid increasing demands.

Pelton requested a budget of $16,913,000, an increase of 4.4 per cent from the previous year’s budget, including to add three full-time positions to help complete mandated investigations. UCP members used their majority to approve a $16.5-million budget, arguing that the Alberta office of the child and youth advocate is still receiving an increase amid an affordability crisis that demands prudent spending by the government.

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“I wasn’t asked what a smaller increase would mean to my office, and so I’m disappointed that they didn’t ask the question,” Pelton said of the UCP-led committee. Since before 2020, the size of her office staff has gone to 78 full-time positions from 83 full-time positions, the committee heard.

Government action needed for youth with disabilities: report

Pelton said the budget squeeze will impact her office’s efforts to get important input from young people with lived experience to ensure their rights are being respected.

That kind of work directly informed a new report released Tuesday on young people with disabilities in the child intervention and youth justice system. In it, Pelton makes eight recommendations to four government ministries — reiterating some unaddressed calls that date back to 2021 government reports.

“These young people are experts in their own lives, even when they have disabilities, and so it’s really important to include them,” said Pelton.

Pelton said many of the report’s recommendations are about helping support families and prevent young people with disabilities from falling through the cracks or being forced to rely more on government intervention in the future.

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“Sometimes the placements that they’re provided don’t meet their needs, and so they might end up on the streets or homeless or in a shelter that doesn’t meet their needs. They really need that upfront support,” said Pelton.

Most of the report’s calls are directed at the Seniors, Community and Social Services Ministry, including to expand access to its family support for children with disabilities program. Pelton said it is often the first avenue of support a family with a child with disabilities will go to.

“If not helped there, they might end up in child intervention,” she said. The report pushed the government to act on 2021 recommendations to improve the persons with developmental disabilities program, including by changing eligibility.

The advocate also said she worries about incarcerated youth, and recommended the justice and public safety ministries talk to experts and young people to improve supports for those involved in the justice system, including by making court processes easier to understand.

“If the staff that are working with them don’t understand their needs, the chances of them being released and ending up back in the system are very high. We need to tailor services and support their needs,” she said.

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Diana Batten, NDP children’s services critic, said in a news release Wednesday the report highlights the UCP’s failure to address longstanding issues.

“The need to act is at an all-time high. It is absolutely unacceptable for youth with disabilities to be living on the streets or being held in correctional facilities because there is nowhere for them to go,” said Batten.

In response to the report, Ashli Barrett, press secretary to Children and Family Services Minister Searle Turton, thanked Pelton’s office for its work.

“All ministries are reviewing their recommendations from the office of child and youth advocate. All recommendations issued to Children and Family Services, including those outlined in the office of child and youth advocate’s Beyond Barriers report, have been actioned in a way that will make a positive difference for children and families,” said Barrett in a statement to Postmedia.

Budget cap ‘cannot be justified’: NDP

NDP MLAs at Tuesday’s legislative offices committee meeting railed against UCP members’ decision to cap the budget increase to Pelton’s office.

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Court Ellingson, NDP MLA for Calgary-Foothills, said it cannot be justified.

“Nickel and diming this office is the most egregious amendment brought forward to this committee today,” he said.

Marie Renaud, NDP MLA for St. Albert, argued the government should be doing more to “bulk up” Pelton’s budget to stop the alarming trend of rising deaths.

Renaud also quoted a Dec. 15 letter from the ethics commissioner calling the cap an “unprecedented attack” on the budgets of independent offices.

However, Grande Prairie UCP MLA Nolan Dyck agreed with the smaller increase, saying Pelton’s is the best funded office in the country.

“I agree their work is important.”

Taber-Warner UCP MLA Grant Hunter said that Alberta’s office of child and youth advocate gets a a bigger budget than British Columbia’s office of the representative for children and youth by some $3.8 million. He also pointed to Turton’s ministry, “which does the actual work in the trenches,” receiving a similar budget boost.

However, Pelton noted Wednesday that part of her office’s budget includes a $4.4 million program that the B.C. office doesn’t have, offering legal representation for children and youth.

“That’s a separate, really important program that we’ve had in place since 2007. It’s really a model that I think is something for other provinces to strive for,” said Pelton, adding that Alberta has a higher population of young people than B.C.

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