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Nine months ago, her daughter was an honour student and involved in her community — someone people were drawn to.
But all that changed when the teenager began associating with people her mother described as “well-known” to Charlottetown police, missing school and leaving home for several days at a time despite her mother’s protests.
CBC News is choosing not to identify the mother to protect her child’s privacy.
“She was just the light of everybody’s life,” her mother said.
“It was just so shocking how quick the transformation happened with her getting into a bad crowd.”
The mother sought help speaking to Charlottetown police and Child and Family Services about how to best ensure her daughter’s safety — but ran into roadblock after roadblock.
A legislation change proposed by Liberal MLA Carolyn Simpson would allow authorities to get a warrant to bring kids who run away and are at risk back home. A mom whose teenager fell in with the wrong crowd and left home for “days on end” knows why the change is necessary. CBC’s Steve Bruce has more.
She and another mother recently appeared in the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly with a call for an amendment to the Child, Youth and Family Services Act that would give police and child protection workers the authority to bring runaway children back to a safe home.
“We understand children deserve rights and they have rights,” the mother said.
“We’re not trying to take away rights, we’re just trying to say this is a volatile situation. These children are in harm’s way.”
Parents have ‘no recourse’
Liberal Charlottetown-Hillsborough Park MLA Carolyn Simpson brought the amendment forward. She was approached last summer by a parent who believed this change would help and soon began hearing similar stories of parents who felt helpless when their children were in dangerous circumstances, compelling her to take action.
“Their children are finding themselves in positions where they are either being groomed or making decisions that are going to put them in harm’s way — physical harm, emotional harm,” Simpson said.
“When that happens and the child leaves home against the parents’ will, parents at this point in time have no recourse.”
The amendment would provide professionals the ability to assess a situation to determine what is best for a child’s safety, Simpson said. There is a clause within the Mental Health Act that allows police to intervene, but this amendment will allow intervention before that stage is reached.
“If we can avoid having a child get to that worst-case scenario where they’ve broken the law, where they’re being trafficked, where they’re using drugs … this is what this is going to work toward preventing,” she said.
While the legislation won’t stop a child from running away again, she said it will give authorities one more tool “to help a child before it becomes … that dire situation where a child is in incredible harm’s way.”
‘Overly broad,’ says youth advocate
Marv Bernstein, P.E.I.’s child and youth advocate, called the scenario presented to the legislature “distressing to hear,” but considers the legislation “overly broad.”
He said there are circumstances where a youth may leave home to protect themselves from abuse, and a parent could use this — potentially even fabricating information — to bring a child back to an unsafe place, which could lead to self-destructive behaviour.
“It’s important to identify the scope of the problem and to use a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer. And I think … the way this bill is framed, it’s using a sledgehammer,” he said.
“There’s nothing in this bill that speaks to the importance of youth voice, how that youth’s views are going to be considered.”
Based on what parents have said, Bernstein said “there appears to be a gap” in current legislation that needs to be discussed, but the amendment would also be open to parents who “aren’t as well motivated” to use the legislation in a way that could be harmful.
The mother stressed that such interventions would only be for homes deemed safe and would come at the discretion of involved authorities. She called the legislation “a slight amendment” that could help families in need.
Many resources currently available are intended for youth 16 and older, the mother said, revealing “this huge gap within the system” that scares her.
If the amendment had been in place when her daughter first started having problems, the mother believes “we would not be here today because it would have been a simple phone call.”
“Parents taught that the monster’s under the bed. She was living with real monsters and there was nothing I could do.”
