3 years after recommendations, child-welfare changes still incomplete: report
WINNIPEG — Most of the recommendations from a public inquiry three years ago into the death of a five-year-old Manitoba girl in government care have not been implemented, the province’s children’s advocate said Thursday.
“We were very surprised,” Darlene MacDonald said on the finding that less than one-third of the recommendations from the inquiry into Phoenix Sinclair’s death have been enacted.
“Basically, the only reason I was given was some of them would take time, and with the processes that they were going through, they felt that some would take longer than others.”
Phoenix was repeatedly neglected, abused and finally beaten to death in 2005 by her mother and her mother’s boyfriend after she fell through the cracks in government care. The inquiry found social workers frequently lost track of her and closed her file without checking on her.