Manitoba will ‘do better’ after charges laid against foster parents, Kinew says

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew vowed Thursday the province will “do better” for child welfare, after two foster parents were accused of abusing kids in their care at a north Winnipeg home.

Police said two school-aged children were assaulted, with one being admitted to hospital in critical condition last Friday after the foster parents allegedly did not seek immediate medical care.

“What’s alleged to have been done by foster parents here is terrible. Anyone with a beating heart knows that that’s not right, and we have to improve things here,” Kinew told reporters at an unrelated event.

The premier stopped short of saying what, specifically, can be improved, or how. He would not say if the case will prompt an internal Child and Family Services review.

“We’ll definitely have to do a lot differently in the future. You don’t beat up kids. Everyone knows this,” Kinew said. “How is it that this even happened in the first place? It’s an important question to answer.”

Police said Tuesday a 26-year-old foster mother and 26-year-old foster father are charged with failing to provide necessaries of life. The woman is charged with aggravated assault and assault.

One child suffered life-altering injuries, and a second was in stable condition, police said. Two other children were assessed in hospital.

The office of Sherry Gott, Manitoba’s advocate for children and youth, is conducting a review of the children’s circumstances.

She has said she wants to know if the home was licensed and if legislated standards, including regular home visits, were met.

An internal CFS review was conducted after a Carman mother, her three children and her teenage cousin were slain — allegedly by the woman’s partner — in 2024.

Kinew, while commenting on last week’s case, noted that he was in Carman Wednesday for the unveiling of a playground memorial honouring the family.

“This thing that we’ve been learning about this week (is) also very, very disturbing for people, parents — anybody with empathy and compassion in our society — so we’re going to do better,” he said.

The child-welfare system, which has undergone devolution this century, is influenced by intergenerational trauma and poverty, he said.

After the 2023 election, he instructed Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine to work with Indigenous governments and communities to transfer responsibility of child welfare “back to the nations and families where it belongs.”

The Families Department reported 8,919 children in care as of March 31, 2024. An annual report showed 91 per cent were Indigenous and 70 per cent were in foster care.

A provincial unit conducted reviews of 214 foster home abuse investigations between April 2020 and March 2024, according to annual reports.

While the full circumstances are not yet known, last week’s case generated a discussion about matters such as caregiver screening, training and supports.

No authority has publicly disclosed the extent of the pre-placement screening of the foster parents now facing charges, nor if the pair sought or received pre- or in-service training or supports.

Manitoba Foster Parent Association president Jamie Pfau has advocated for a mandatory pre-service training program, similar to what already exists in provinces such as Ontario.

“This would be the exact situation that would not only weed out foster parents who are like, ‘Wow, this seems overwhelming for me, I don’t think I’m up to the task,’ but it would also equip foster parents with support,” Pfau said.

Ontario adopted PRIDE (parent resources for information, development and education) as its standardized training curriculum for foster, kinship in care and adoptive applicants. It is a mandatory 27-hour training program.

Kinship care is the term for placing a child with extended family, such as a grandparent or someone they have a significant relationship with.

Linda Ens, executive director of the Kinship and Foster Family Network of Manitoba, said she believes mandatory training would be helpful.

Voluntary pre-service training is available free of charge to prospective kinship or foster parents through KFFNM, a non-profit charity funded by the province.

“A lot of people just think, ‘We love kids, we want to help’ — which is fantastic, you need that — but they don’t understand necessarily what it looks like,” Ens said. “We do try to explain that to people so they can make an informed decision moving forward.”

Current kinship or foster parents can access in-service training via KFFNM. Some authorities and agencies provide some training, Ens said.

Manitoba had Canada’s highest rate of children in out-of-home care (29.6 per 1,000 children) in 2022 despite a decline since 2013, according to a 2024 study funded by the federal government.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca