A convict who was hired to run two foster homes by an agency that was contracted out by the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) to care for some of B.C.’s most vulnerable kids says caregivers aren’t vetted closely enough.
Thirty-eight-year-old Andrew Resham Bhatti has a hundred criminal convictions, including aggravated assault, robbery and possession of heroin.
He battled a drug addiction and spent eight-and-a-half years behind bars.
Nevertheless, he says he was hired as a caregiver to run two foster homes under the umbrella of MCFD.
Today, he is speaking out about the questionable vetting practices by agencies in charge of kids in government care.
WATCH: In the wake of a scathing report into the death of Alex Gervais, who was in government care, there are serious questions about how carefully people are checked before they’re put in charge of foster homes. Rumina Daya reports.
Bhatti claims he was hired to be a caregiver in 2011, just 2.5 years after he was released from prison.
He heard about the job through a friend who had a criminal record – and who was also working for a child caregiving agency.
Bhatti says he applied and was hired a week later.
With just Grade 5 education under his belt, Bhatti says he had no special training in how to care for children or handle their complex needs. He admits he had some child minding experience, but no real qualifications or training for the job.
Bhatti has now turned his life around: he’s a father himself and he’s giving back to the community. He received the Courage to Come Back Award in the addiction category in 2015.
He now believes he should never have been given a job as a caregiver.
“I should have never been hired if the ministry was doing proper checks,” said Bhatti.
Gervais killed himself in September 2015 by jumping out of a fourth-floor window at an Abbotsford motel.
He had been housed there for 49 days because the agency caring for him could not find a more suitable option.
B.C. new Children’s Watchdog released a scathing report into his life and death on Monday.
The report showed Alex’s caregiver, who had a history of gun violence, gang involvement and drug dealing, was paid more than $8,000 a month to take care of the teen, but was nowhere to be found in the last 10 days of Alex’s life.
Alex’s text messages to his friends before his death showed he felt neglected and desperate.
READ MORE: Who’s accountable for the tragic death of Alex Gervais?
Bhatti says what happened to Gervais was tragic.
“I felt that he was a victim, who was lost in the system, just like myself,” said Bhatti, who went through 40 foster homes as a child and suffered sexual abuse.
“They put people like myself in a position to watch over somebody and take care of them because the family can’t help them and they trust the ministry, and the ministry hires convicts like me to watch them, but we are not doing our job and now somebody died because of it.”
Bhatti says when he was hired in 2011, he was working for an agency called Community Vision.
The MCFD cancelled all of Community Vision’s contracts in 2015.
The ministry lost confidence in the agency’s ability to provide a safe and acceptable standard of care.
The MCFD told Global News that anyone who works with kids must go through two criminal record checks – a Criminal Record Review Act check and a criminal record check through a local police detachment.
Ministry policy states that an offence involving harm to a child would disqualify an applicant from becoming a caregiver.
The MCFD now says it will screen all caregivers, including contracted agency caregivers, centrally within the ministry.
Previously, agencies themselves were responsible for vetting their own sub-contracted caregivers.
But Bhatti says more oversight is necessary.
Asked whether convicts should be able to work with the kids in ministry’s care, Bhatti says they should have that option, but the ministry should do proper checks and not hire people who are fresh out of jail.
“The kids need to be able to see that people care for them,” Bhatti said.
“Most of my friends who work in foster care really care and a lot of convicts do, but a lot of people do this job just for the paycheque.”
-With files from Rumina Daya
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