Haitian community group's program helps hundreds of Montreal children stay out of youth protection
CBC
Last summer, just after the school year came to an end, a Montreal father had an incident with his 10-year-old son that almost pushed his family off course.
The father was of Haitian origin, with four children and a fifth soon on the way.
One June morning, the 10-year-old decided to head to the local park alone, in search of friends.
He didn't find any.
Rather than head back home, the boy decided to lie down on a park bench, where he fell asleep.
"Someone who works in the park saw him and called police, and then the police called me," the father told CBC in a recent interview. Youth protection laws in Quebec prevent CBC from naming the family.
The boy was fine, but police reported the incident to youth protection — the Directeur de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ) — which opened a file on the family.
The father said the park is two minutes from the family's house, and he didn't see at the time what the problem was — and why his family was suddenly subject to intense scrutiny.
"It was very hard," he said.
Having a file opened with youth protection is no small matter. It means families suddenly face an investigation, which includes visits and interviews by social workers. A social worker's assessment can have a huge impact.
"They have the right, at their discretion, to remove a child from a family. Their fundamental role is one of surveillance and policing and making sure that children are protected through very invasive means," Alicia Boatswain-Kyte, an assistant professor at McGill who studies youth protection, told CBC in an interview.
For Black families, the risk is even higher.
Boatswain-Kyte, a former social worker for the DPJ herself, said the latest research shows that in Montreal, Black children are twice as likely to be reported to youth protection, to be taken away from their family during an investigation and to be retained in the system.
This overrepresentation of Black children is nothing new. Boatswain-Kyte said it's been steady more or less since the DPJ was first created in the late 1970s.
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