Not Fully Invested - A Follow-up Report on the Representative’s Past Recommendations to Help Vulnerable Children in B.C.

In the six-year period covered by this review, the Representative for Children and Youth has made a total of 148 recommendations – carefully considered prescriptions for how the lives of vulnerable children in British Columbia can be improved.

The vast majority of these recommendations have been made to the B.C. government and its designates. Recommendations have been made after completing detailed investigations into individual incidents of death and injury to B.C. children – the kinds of cases from which it is essential to learn. Recommendations have also come as a result of aggregate reviews of such incidents and through careful examination of issues and trends that affect the safety, health and well-being of vulnerable youth in this province. 

This report – the first to track progress made toward fulfilling the Representative’s cumulative recommendations – shows that 72 per cent of all recommendations have been substantially or fully implemented. At a superficial glance, that might seem like encouraging progress. But it is not. We are talking about the lives of children and youth – impressionable, needy and vulnerable youngsters who each deserve the full help, protection and commitment of their government. And in that context, a progress rate of less than 75 per cent is just not good enough.