Bring home every Nova Scotia child being treated out of province, mom says

'We don't know our son'

Five years ago, the province sent Sue Jarvis’s only child to a treatment centre in Ontario to deal with an aggressiveness that was spinning out of control. He was sent back to Halifax in February, and Jarvis barely knows him anymore. “We don’t know our son. We’re trying to get to know him, and he’s trying to get to know us,” said Jarvis. She and her husband, Todd, were only allowed to see their son twice while he was at the Ontario treatment centre. “It was probably the loneliest time in my life.”

The 17-year-old is one of about 28 Nova Scotia teens with severe mental and behavioural problems sent to centres in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Maine. The province has sent them away for years, because there was nowhere here for them to go. In February, Community Services announced a new facility in Halifax, which will offer treatment to 18 teens starting in September. But while Jarvis said that’s a good start, nothing less than bringing every child home to Nova Scotia will do.

Their son, whose name Jarvis doesn’t want published, started showing signs of trouble at a young age. “He would just lash out at you. Nothing would tell you he was about to blow,” Jarvis said. He kicked the walls, his parents and neighbourhood children. By 11, he was threatening his parents. Jarvis knew her son wasn’t a criminal, but he was slipping out of her grasp. “He said ‘I’m going to slit your throats open while you sleep.’ That led to a few sleepless nights for me.”

At 12, after he hurt a classmate, the courts declared him a ward of the province and sent him to the Ontario centre, where he spent the next five years. Visits were sometimes cancelled at the last minute when centre staff told his parents it wasn’t a good time, and phone calls were limited. He remained aggressive, and two months ago, the Ontario centre sent him back to Nova Scotia. Now 17, the teen is staying at a Halifax assessment facility, and is hoping to get into a group home.

Jarvis now sees her son several times a week, and says she’s worried for the other parents whose children are still outside the province. But Community Services Minister David Morse said the province is doing all it can by opening the south-end Halifax facility. He said the province is too small to open treatment centres to accommodate everyone who has been sent away.

“This is not going to solve it for every single child and youth, but it will help most of them,” Morse said yesterday.

By Rachel Boomer
23 April 2003

http://www.canada.com/halifax/story.asp?id=561A3726-6347-47F5-A81A-44C3960114FB

home