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Death of child in foster care should be everyone’s business

When a foster child dies while in the care of the Alberta government, who’s business is it? Does anyone even care?

When a foster child dies while in the care of the Alberta government, who’s business is it? Does anyone even care?

Jamie Sullivan cares a lot and happens to believe, for good reason, it is her business, and everyone else’s.

Delonna Sullivan, Jamie’s four-month-old daughter, died earlier this year in foster care. Sullivan does not know what happened to her daughter. She’s still waiting for answers.

Until last week, children who died while wards of the government of Alberta have been nameless and mostly forgotten.

In Alberta, the law forbids — by way of a publication ban — identifying foster children, even after they are dead. The ban includes the names of others, such as a parent or foster parent, that could lead to identifying a child.

“No person shall publish any information serving to identify a child who has come to the Minister’s or a director’s attention under this Act or any information serving to identify the guardian of the child,” states the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act.

Privacy is understandable in difficult and personal matters of family, where children are involved, and social agencies, too.

But when a child dies in government care, it moves into the realm of public interest. There should be transparency. Secrecy does not serve the public interest and it definitely doesn’t serve the interest of children who die in government care.

How can something as important as the care of vulnerable children be judged to be adequate or inadequate when there is so little information available?

I’m not talking about one death here. There have been numerous deaths of children in government care in Alberta.

In 2010, six children died while in Alberta foster care. This year, there have been at least two more deaths, one being that of Delonna Sullivan.

When children die in foster care, there are many questions that should be asked. Was the care adequate? Are foster parents properly trained? Screened? Funded? Was the apprehension of a child proper?

The legislation serves to protect the government and forever silences the voices of dead foster children.

Four-month-old Delonna Sullivan was taken from her mother on April 5 and placed in foster care. Six days later, she was dead.

The reason we are able to know Delonna, and her mother’s story, is because Jamie Sullivan went to court and asked Queen’s Bench Justice M.D. Gates to lift the publication ban.

The justice said that naming Delonna was a matter of public interest.

“Finally I get to proudly display my beautiful angel and celebrate her as she deserves. I love you baby girl,” Sullivan posted on social media after the judge’s decision on Thursday.

Jamie Sullivan is fighting back. She wants people to know how her daughter went from healthy and happy to death in six days.

Delonna was taken when social workers and RCMP had an order to remove the children of an unrelated woman who also lived in the home.

They took Delonna because of what was described as “disharmony in the home.”

Jamie Sullivan said that when she went to see her daughter right after she was apprehended, she raised concerns about Delonna’s heath and wanted the foster parent to take Delonna to a doctor. The foster parent delayed that by a few days.

Jamie Sullivan didn’t find out her daughter had died until six hours after she had passed away in an Edmonton hospital. She’s been told she has to pay $55 to obtain a copy of the autopsy report. Jamie’s lawyer, Larry McConnell, told media that Jamie doesn’t have money to pay for a report.

Delonna’s death remains under investigation and the autopsy report is expected by the end of the month.

Whatever we think about Jamie, what we may know or don’t know about her parenting and her personal life, she’s stepped up to fight big government. And she’s set an example for other parents who see their children die in foster care under similar circumstances.

She’s had to fight to publicly tell her side of the story. She shouldn’t have had to.

Mary-Ann Barr is the Advocate’s assistant city editor. She can be reached by email at barr@www.reddeeradvocate.com, by phone at 403-314-4332 and on Twitter @maryannbarr1.