Omg. A strongly worded letter.. That will fix all.. The only way to fix the problems because has is by getting rid of Clark..

So it’s the government’s fault, not the kids or the parents… awesome society we live in. Unless, of course, it’s an issue with our wonderful Federal government, it can’t be their fault because Trudeau is a savior.

From the linked site about the raid on the house
huffingtonpost.ca/2015/12/02/b-c-house-with-10-000-dirty-needles-connected-to-youth-in-provincial-care_n_8698710.html

Douglass said it wasn’t the first time officers had been called to the house and found young people there. A previous raid in August resulted in the arrest of a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy.

“It’s not all that uncommon,” said Douglass. “We do find kids of all ages in these [type of] residences at times. Sometimes it’s toddlers crawling on the floor, sometimes it’s teenagers.”

Douglass said RCMP contacted the teenagers’ guardians and alerted the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

The ministry declined to comment on these specific allegations, citing privacy issues.

The government should not be able to hide due to privacy issues. The issue is not who the victims are and their right to privacy. The issue is why is government not doing anything about it IMMEDIATELY.

A letter is not going to do a thing. Set up a meeting in Victoria with the Premier and the Minister responsible and send a delegation of Mayor and whoever else there for a meeting with the view of coming to an agreement before leaving the office.

Forget about trips to China. We need better communication between the Province and the municipalities. In fact, an immediate telephone call from the Mayor to set up the meeting is indicted here.

PG101 … you sound like you attended the same classes as James Moore.

“So it’s the government’s fault, not the kids or the parents… awesome society we live in. Unless, of course, it’s an issue with our wonderful Federal government, it can’t be their fault because Trudeau is a savior. ”

Yes, it is the government’s fault for not helping high risk kids. These are the most vulnerable and if they’re not helped, the cycle will continue. If we turn a blind eye to it, the problem would only get worse.

And are you really trying to spin this as a Trudeau issue? Yes, it’s the guy who was elected 2 months ago. It’s all his fault. Nothing to do with the decade of Conservative government preceding him. It’s all about that first two months.

We always hear that the Ministry of Children and Families are underfunded, however we never hear any amounts. As a result we get many comments on the issue with many (so called) solutions, however nothing to indicate what is needed.

So the question is.

1. How underfunded is the Ministry.
2. Where is the bulk of funding now going.
3. What portion of the available funding is being spent in Prince George and how is it apportioned. Ie; per capita, per case file, other.

By tying the problem to funding are we actually coping out of the solution. We know that this crack house has been visited by police before. We also know that there are many situations in Prince George where children live in less than desirable situations.

Is the solution for us to have all these children taken away from their families, and housed in Government facilities, or put up for adoption.??

Do we need to enforce laws and incarcerate the parents of these children for not providing proper care?? Would it help the situation having the parents of these children in jail??

Seems to me that this is a huge problem through out BC and while more funding may help the situation is certainly will not solve it.

So where are our local MLA’s on these issues in this area? Is it possible they are looking for a good news story someplace so they can have their picture taken or just maybe would not want to say anything to upset Christy; it might cost them their job.

Have to agree with Palopu! We do not know whether the Ministry is underfunded. The social problems caused by drugs, alcohol, broken families, the “staggering number of single parents,” poor living conditions and so forth may simply be overwhelming the efforts in spite of enough or more than enough funding. The whole issue is way more complex than expecting more money being thrown at it will be the cure-all.

I think what they’re telling us they want is more ‘social workers’. To write more reports. Telling the government that it needs to provide more funding. To foster families that are the guardians of these children. And to pay more to more social workers, too, to better police those families, and write more reports on their failings. Which could all be remedied by still more funding. Ad infinitum.

What seems to be lost on those making this call is just WHERE this additional funding is going to come from. Is it any wonder the government was pinning such hopes on LNG? For how else can you fund anything than from money that comes in from outside the Province? The Province can’t create its own credit, not in the form and substance of money, like the Federal government can. That’s forbidden.

It has to either GET money from outside its jurisdiction, or try to ‘re-distribute’, through taxation, what’s inside it. But how can you ever make a ‘sufficiency’ of the funds that are needed out of an ‘insufficiency’ of funds that are available in total to those you’re trying to tax? The totality of ‘money’ is always less than the totality of goods and services PRICED in ‘money’. It’s like trying to divvy up a pie when too many sit down at a picnic table. Everyone might get a slice of it, but that slice is so small they’re still all going to go away from the table hungry, too.

You want to deal with these issues, get the money system corrected first. Trying to go the way we’ve been going just simply isn’t going to work.

Time to get the social workers out in the field like they were meant to be to see what is going on. They don’t have to be bogged down with paperwork in some office. Get someone else to do the paperwork.

Pg101, have you ever volunteered to help these kids, ever worked in the field? If not then you are just flapping your gums.

This government thinks if a social worker gets a hour a month with one of these kids they can help them get their life back on track.. These kids are put in group homes..some are legit and actually care about the kids.. Others are just in it for the money.. The government has cut back big time on tracking, inspecting etc these homes.. It has cost lives.

The burn out time for a social worker is approx 7 yrs.. Wonder why that is..

Someone tell me what the parents are supposed to do. With todays laws the parents hands are tied. I have know kids who came out of good homes and where a waste of air. Other kids who came out of bad homes and are good people.

One issue is the complaints against a social worker and that person is still working. The kids under that persons watch will not do well. Kids where removed from a stable foster home just because the foster parents stood up to that person. Now those kids get bounced around from home to home.

Out of control.

oldman1 wrote: “So where are our local MLA’s on these issues in this area?”

Well, we know that the newest one calls them low-lifes.

I do not think calling them names gets at all the complications surrounding those involved with crime, especially illegal drugs. It is not a single issue matter.

Rather than the Mayor writing a letter to the Premier, or him calling the Premiere’s office to arrange a meeting with those in government concerned with this issue, perhaps one or both of the local MLAs could pick up the phone and call Mayor Hall that they will arrange a meeting for him instead of writing a letter.

The Chinese like face to face meetings rather than writing letters. I think local politicians should get a bit more used to that as well.

Maybe this is a start of the Province offloading some more of its responsibilities to the municipalities. In which case we should be putting the money for a larger police force into creating a municipal social services capacity to take care of the parentless kids that cannot find foster homes.

socredible wrote: “You want to deal with these issues, get the money system corrected first.”

That just assumes that throwing more money at it will solve the problem. I agree with Palopu, we need to find out what the problem is. Why is this allowed to persist and exactly what are the details of what is allowed to persist?

There are cases where the “problem” of drug use which impact the upbringing of the children are solved “internally” by other family members who have the capacity to help and the willingness to help. In other cases the children have to simply be removed to foster homes. I realize some are not the best, but most are likely better than the conditions with their parent(s).

More money may not solve the problem. More capable people might be what is needed, and more people who do not cop an attitude about the people they are trying to help by thinking of them as low-lifes.

That mindset is guaranteed to never help anyone solve anything.

Some real good kids come out of low income family. Some real useless pieces of skin come out of wealthy family.

What is the difference. Parenting. Kids just wants to acknowledged and want to spend time with their parents. Support when they struggle. Allow them to fail, and correct themselves, or with a little guidance. That is what parenting is about. Nothing to do with buying them gifts to keep them happy. Children needs to learn good from bad, right from wrong. Its a lot of work, and focus, and determination on the parents part.

Some parents get misguided, they believe only in positive reinforcement. The kid does something bad, and never suffer any consequences. What use is him/her for society, future employers and especially for the kid when he grows up.

I might be old school, but a good swift kick in the buttocks never hurt me… in the long run.

Hey, what the heck happens to the crack house operators. Everyone looks with pity to the users, but how about stringing up the operators. Obviously, the punishment to the operators are not severe enough, thus there are so many crack houses.

200 armed forces people march 100 of them down from Inuvik to Whitehorse on the Dempster highway. Make them feel the pain of blisters, bug bites, and aching muscles. give them good food, and medical, but give them something they will never forget. If they want to escape the march, they still have to walk out. If they reach Whitehorse, they all get a ticket back to their home town, or any where in Canada.

They will remember this for a long time. I would say more than half of them will not go back to breaking the law.

Punish the criminal, pretty simple.

Oh look at all the Libs checking in, bashing our government and not batting an eyelash at these precious parents. What a society we live in.

Seems to me that this Mayor and Council are of the bizarre idea that the only solution to our social ills is to increase the size of the civil service.

The war on drugs isn’t working. It’s time we made all these drugs legal and monitor their usage. Bring back the opium dens and make them legal.

gopg2015:-“socredible wrote: “You want to deal with these issues, get the money system corrected first.”

That just assumes that throwing more money at it will solve the problem.
————————————————————————-

It assumes no such thing. You could throw endless amounts of money at this problem and it would still be a problem. As others have noted above some very fine youngsters sometimes come out of a terrible home life, while others who have the best of homes and loving parents turn out to be absolutely rotten. That aspect of the problem is never going to be solved, it’s simply an issue of individual ‘character’ inherent in each of us. The issue that we could solve, or at least greatly alleviate, is why so many kids are finding themselves a product of broken families, and ultimately in need of foster care. And that is very much a ‘money’ problem. Why do we now ‘need’ to have two income families to be able to live? Are we so inefficient in our productive processes and provision of services that we actually ‘need’ the labor of all these people? That our whole economy would be unable to provide for all our needs and desires ‘physically’ unless everyone is out in the workforce. And not only there, but working longer and harder, too? I hardly think so! They’re there to try to get enough money to live. And in all too many cases, failing.

he spoke just try kicking a kid in the butt these days, you will then get a working knowledge of the bureaucracy.

seamutt, oh how I long for the good ole’ days.

Ok, now lets think about this letter that is going to the premier.

with Pat and Shirley in the helm, we had this golden boy position with the premier. since than it is waning.

So what is going to be in the content, are they going to screw up the shadows of the golden boy status. So how effective is this letter really going to be. Is it just going to be a comical letter that gets kept in the memoirs of Christy Clarke, and in the mean time, we get a few nada’s on grants.

I think, it would be a bit more effective to see Christy, and have a chat with the minister of Children and Family.

It a sense of irony, I suggest we hold an inquiry – because this problem is so complex. And frankly, I fear there is no solution. Teenagers are adult wannabes that can pretty move go where they want, when they want, and do what they want, with impunity. You think there’s a long list of people wanting to run group homes – not. A long list of people wanting to foster troubled teens – not. Even if you inspected every group home, and shut down the bad ones, you’d have a bunch of kids with nowhere to go. Maybe we build containment centers – oops, illegal, can’t detain someone who hasn’t committed a crime. Besides, in 20 years we’ll be writing cheques to the kids who were abused in them. If your teenager wants to go to a crack house and drink and party with their friends – there is nothing you can do. You can’t restrain them – unlawful containment – you can call the cops, who will shrug, you can call a social worker – who will shrug. The problem maybe isn’t what to do about today’s teens, the problem is what to do to stop today’s children from becoming them.

Socredible: “As others have noted above some very fine youngsters sometimes come out of a terrible home life, while others who have the best of homes and loving parents turn out to be absolutely rotten”

A big part of the issue is that it is also a cultural thing, not a money thing. We have grown lazy. We have grown to prefer indulging ourselves.

Both my parents were immigrants as was I. They both worked all day long doing manual labour. In fact, many of the kids on the street had parents who both worked. That was in the mid 50s. When we moved to suburbia a 3 years later I went to first year HS, both my parents still worked as did many of the parents of the kids I went to school with.

When we bought a TV it lasted a decade and it was in the living room where everyone who wanted to watch at a certain time watched the same program. That in itself is a cultural difference from today. It speaks of individual independence rather than the interdependence of a family that works and plays together. You found out who thought what was funny and what was interesting. When the news was on, there were comments shared by all about particular events. When we started skiing, we all three learned how to ski at the same time.

A car lasted at least 5 if not up to 10 years. The biggest vehicle in our neighbourhood was a stationwagon which typically belonged to families with more than 2 children.

There was one phone. You actually had to get up from the chair wherever you were and walk to the phone in the hall.

Fast food outlets were far and few between. Most of the food was slow food at home. Everyone pitched in to do the cooking, washing dishes and cleaning the house. Overweight people were a rare sight when walking around the neighbourhood, the grocery stores and downtown.

There were no snowmobiles and no ATVs. There were bicycles. Virtually no students at high school had a car.

I was the family handyman. I finished most of the basement by building a rec room, a bar area and a dark room for our family photography hobby, as well as outfitted a workshop and laundry area.

Not all western first world countries have transformed from the time of scarcity to the time of plenty or the time of limited expectations to the time of unlimited expectations in the same way that the US and Canada have.

parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/our-spoiled-rotten-children

From that link: “contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world,” Ms. Kolbert writes, early on. “It’s not just that they’ve been given unprecedented amounts of stuff,” adding, “They’ve also been granted unprecedented authority.” American parents are raising a generation of “adultescents,” she writes. We don’t say no. We tie their shoes. We do their chores.”

“Letting things slide is always the easiest thing to do, in parenting no less than in banking, public education and environmental protection. A lack of discipline is apparent these days in just about every aspect of American society. Why this should be is a much larger question, one to ponder as we take out the garbage … “

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. There were bicycles. Every kid I knew had one. …. but there were no special bicycle lanes …. ;-)

Better send four letters. You know they like to triple delete stuff.

I second everything He Spoke said. Well said by He Spoke. Obviously their is an issue of parenting and raising kids without a home in not only PG but in many of the feeder communities of our region. How do we get kids getting more parenting time giving guidance to impressionable minds.

I think one of the best investments in recent years has been the strong start program by school district 57. It completely changes a child from the social aspect in readying them for school. Maybe we need solutions along these lines for children at risk in their teen years. Something they want to attend that helps with guidance in a group setting.

Leroykpjenkins, I suggest you go volunteer your time to assist these kids, you seem to know all. It would be one heck of a wake up call for you and hopefully you would learn some empathy.