Pubdate: Fri, 21 Oct 2016
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Lindsay Kines
Page: A6

TEEN WHO DIED DIDN'T GET NEEDED HELP, REPORT SAYS

A 15-year-old Metis boy died in a court-ordered program in Campbell
River last year after his desperate parents turned to the youth
justice system for help with their son's drug addiction, a new report
shows.

B.C.'s child watchdog says in the report that Nick Lang ended up in
court after falling through cracks in the youth mental health and
addictions system.

"He was a teen in serious distress who did not receive the specific
supports he needed when he needed them - and neither did his family,"
writes Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.'s representative for children
and youth.

The report, The Last Resort, says Nick began exhibiting serious
behavioural problems in Grade 4, but never received a formal
mental-health assessment - even as his condition worsened.

Instead, he moved through five schools, began using marijuana in Grade
7 and eventually developed a full-blown problem with
methamphetamines.

His loving, middle-class parents, Peter Lang and Linda TenPas, tried
repeatedly to get him help, but were frustrated by long waits for
public treatment programs and Nick's reluctance to accept help
voluntarily, the report says. Peter Lang tried to find substance-use
programs for Metis youth, but was told none existed.

Eventually, Nick's parents, who were divorced in 2014, turned to the
justice system as a last resort, the report says.

After Nick assaulted his mother while he was high on drugs in 2015,
his parents decided to have him charged in hopes that he would get
services quicker and be unable to refuse them.

The court placed Nick in a government-funded program on Vancouver
Island that provided general and substance-use counselling, skills
training and academics. Less than a week later, he was found hanging
in a closet at the care home where he was living while attending the
program.

The coroner was unable to determine whether Nick deliberately took his
own life or died accidentally while playing the "choking game" in
which a person self-asphyxiates in order to experience a brief moment
of euphoria, the report says.

But if the cause of Nick's death remains uncertain, the events leading
up to it highlight the need for improvements, Turpel-Lafond found.

"The representative cannot say with certainty that receiving
appropriate services could have ultimately saved the 15-year-old's
life, but it is safe to assume that they would have given him a better
chance."

Turpel-Lafond called for a system of comprehensive substance-use
services across the province, including the "prudent and selective
use" of short-term involuntary residential treatment, also known as
secure care. She urged the province to put substance-use and mental
health workers in schools to diagnose and treat problems before youth
end up in the justice system.

Peter Lang says the report accurately depicts the struggle that
parents face.

"I'd like the public to know that, as things sit right now in this
province, we have to criminalize our children in order to get access
to substance-abuse or mental-health resources and that's a shame."

Linda TenPas urges the province to act on the recommendations without
delay. "Up until this point, we've been pushed under the mat and tried
to be silenced, so I hope they take note now of the problems there are
in this province."

Minister of Children and Family Development Stephanie Cadieux says a
cabinet working group on mental health is trying to identify gaps in
the system and develop a strategy to ensure that families get services
before they end up in a crisis.

She says voluntary treatment has been shown to be most effective, and
the province has no plans to offer involuntary "secure care."

Cadieux adds that any move to introduce involuntary residential
treatment would require legislation and likely face opposition.
Aboriginal leaders, in particular, have expressed concern about secure
care given the disproportionate number of First Nations youth already
in care, she says.

"It's certainly a challenge for a family when their child or youth
doesn't want to participate and doesn't see or doesn't want that
support," she says. "I feel for them, but at this point we haven't
decided that instituting an involuntary system makes sense."
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MAP posted-by: Matt