The overdose death of a 16-year-old in New Brunswick last year reflects a systemic failure and a lack of humanity within the Social Development Department, the province’s youth advocate says.
Kelly Lamrock released his findings on Thursday in a 26-page report that provided a timeline of the teenager’s interactions with health and social service workers before he died.
In one instance, a social worker assessed the teenager, whom the report calls “Bobby,” after an overdose and told him he was ineligible to join a government support program for youth because he was homeless, the advocate said.
The teenager later died of a second overdose despite years of warnings.
The department received 16 alerts regarding the teenager’s school absences, drug abuse and other issues throughout his life. All of those notices were dismissed largely because of technical or bureaucratic issues, the report said.
Lamrock also noted how the department treated many of the child’s crises in isolation instead of connecting the dots and providing the support he needed, though the advocate said the failure was systemic as opposed to the fault of one person.
“It’s about a system that, as it stands, runs upon following rules but ignoring reality, that sometimes follows procedures without seeing the humanity of people,” the advocate, who was visibly emotional, told a news conference in Fredericton.
In his report, Lamrock provides a dozen recommendations for legislators that he says would start to address the problems that let Bobby fall through the cracks in the system.
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He recommends the province allow youth immediate entry into addiction services for teenagers when they ask for help and standardize the department’s regional offices so that files can be shared easily. The advocate also calls for the government to partner with local, more nimble non-profit organizations that he says serve vulnerable people faster and with more compassion than the government does.
Social Development Minister Cindy Miles, speaking in the legislature after the report’s release, said she would hold herself accountable to making changes.
In later comments to reporters, Miles wouldn’t commit to implementing all 12 of Lamrock’s recommendations, saying her department needs to take a closer look at them and she needs to consult with the advocate. She also wouldn’t commit to putting together a bipartisan legislative committee on the matter.
Lamrock said all of New Brunswick’s political parties were interested in change when he recently met with them about the report.
“I would say I came away with the impression that all three are looking at this as a problem that transcends party and is systemic and they … are genuinely angry when they hear this. And that gives me hope,” he said.
Bobby, wrote Lamrock in the report, was born addicted to narcotics and spent the first 45 days of his life being weaned off drugs. He was initially placed in foster care before he was returned to his mother when he was eight months old.
The government provided a parent aide and a home support worker, while carrying out random drug screenings for Bobby’s mother. Within two months of Bobby’s return home, the family’s doctor sent multiple child protection referrals warning that his mother was abusing drugs.
A pediatric team assigned to Bobby found by his second birthday that he was suffering from noticeable developmental delays. Despite the warnings, government officials designated Bobby’s case as low risk and closed the file, according to the advocate’s report.
At 16 years old and recovering from a near-fatal overdose from a combination of drugs that included fentanyl, cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, Bobby asked to be enrolled in the province’s Youth Engagement Services, or YES, program, in 2025.
In response, a social worker told Bobby he didn’t qualify because his didn’t have a fixed home address required for the department to assess his home life, the report said.
Another social worker tried to get Bobby a spot at the non-profit Portage rehabilitation centre but the government department refused to help until the teenager’s physical file was transferred between regional offices, a process that was stalled because of a clerical error.
After spending four nights at a men’s homeless shelter he entered after lying about his age, Bobby gave up on the detox process and withdrew his formal request for help, Lamrock said in the report.
The Social Development Department received a 16th and final alert about Bobby when a nurse warned he was receiving fentanyl from his mother. Three days later, Bobby was found unresponsive inside a house rented out to people taking drugs, Lamrock said, describing his death as a preventable overdose.
Yes the system is failing, when a child (teenager, not an adult yet) can be allowed to be homeless. That is why we have Children’s services.
The big question is where are the parents? Why do the parents not have the powers to handle their children? – the system has been trying to give control to the child, or the teacher, anyone but where it belongs.
When the parent/child relationship fails, that is when government must step in and provide parenting supports, whether the child wants it or not.