A damning report by the Yukon Child and Youth Advocate Office (CYAO) regarding how the government handled incidents that occurred at Hidden Valley Elementary School (HVES) was tabled in the legislature Wednesday by Education Minister Jeanie McLean.

Authored by Advocate Annette King, it revolves around incidents involving William Auclair-Bellemare, a former educational assistant at HVES (see story, p. 4).

Here are some key points in the report’s own words:

• Children have not been prioritized, and their rights have been violated, before, during, and after an educational assistant (EA) was charged in 2019 with sexual interference and sexual assault of a student in his care at Hidden Valley Elementary School (HVES).

The longstanding gaps in educational supports for students with special needs created opportunity for harm to occur.

The harm was compounded by inadequate Yukon Government (YG) response following the incident.

Investigations, communications and supports to families and the public were poorly managed and highly inadequate, and ultimately impacted access to therapeutic supports for students and their families.

This highlights the need for improvements to a co-ordinated response across departments.

• The responses from YG that we have observed do not provide confidence that students with special needs are being adequately protected at school, nor that responses from the systems meant to protect them are developmentally appropriate.

Subsequent commitments from YG, however, offer hope that in the future there can be a co-ordinated response that promotes a child-centred approach, transparency, and accountability.

• This review finds that children were not the priority in YG’s response to incidents of sexualized abuse towards students by an EA. Communications and decisions made in the aftermath of these incidents demonstrate an alarming lack of attention to upholding children’s rights on the part of the government, despite their statutory obligation to do so.

• “For many community members, adequate steps have not been taken to address the impacts of these acts against vulnerable young people.”

• During the 2015-2016 school year, EDU (the Department of Eduction) did not uphold their mandatory obligation to report abuse when a classroom teacher expressed concerns about an incident involving an EA. This concern was handled internally by EDU and not communicated to the appropriate authorities.

Consequently, the EA was able to continue to work with vulnerable students without an opportunity for the appropriate agencies to explore the incident and assess risk.

In 2019, although sexualized abuse was reported to the appropriate authorities, EDU, FCS (Family and Children’s Services) and RCMP did not consistently follow Interagency Protocols. The lack of co-ordination meant that the investigation was superficial and resulted in victims being missed.

• YCAO heard from families and educators that access to services was not always timely, sufficient or developmentally appropriate.

• What has become abundantly clear throughout YCAO’s individual and systemic advocacy is that urgent and ongoing attention is needed to address major gaps in the education system for students with special needs.

• Through conversations with parents, students and educators, not exclusive to HVES, YCAO has repeatedly heard about concerns regarding the physical and emotional safety of students with special needs.

• Due to the vulnerability of students with special needs, it is necessary to mitigate risk. When adults have regular opportunities to be alone with vulnerable children, risk is increased.

• If school systems had been in place to ensure developmentally appropriate programs with accountability and oversight in 1:1 work with students, risk to the most vulnerable students would have been mitigated.

• Throughout this painful situation and in the course of our individual advocacy work, parents and caregivers of students at HVES have repeatedly expressed outrage, confusion, and hurt at the lack of communication from EDU to the school community.

• Much of the report by (B.C. lawyer) Amanda Rogers focused on the issue of departmental communications, and the Yukon Ombudsman is currently conducting an investigation to determine if there was unfair treatment from EDU towards parents and students by not informing them about the investigation and charges laid in 2019.

• It is now widely understood that the initial investigative process and early communications failed a number of impacted children and families.

• It is the Advocate’s belief that in order for YG to fulfill its obligation to uphold children’s rights, relevant YG departments must work in collaboration to address instances of alleged harm in schools.

As previously stated in this review’s introduction, it is the legal responsibility of Canadian governments at all levels to abide by and adhere to the articles expressly stated in the UNCRC.

The report also made the following recomendations:

1) Co-ordinated Response: Confirm best practices for responding to any incident in education where a child is, or is likely to have been, physically, sexually or emotionally harmed.

Design and implement an interagency response process, which includes competent investigations, child and family-centred approaches to information sharing, protection of privacy, communication with families and coordination of services.

2) Duty to Report: Provide clear information to educators and families about their mandatory duty to report any incident where a child is, or is likely to have been, physically, sexually or emotionally harmed.

Provide clear steps on how and who to report incidents to and how to follow up.

3) Developmentally Appropriate Responses: Implement best practices to ensure developmentally and culturally appropriate interviews and victim support services for students who have been physically, sexually or emotionally harmed.

4) Sexual Health Information: Provide developmentally appr-opriate sexual health information throughout the school year to all Yukon students.

Sexual health programming should be mandatory and accessible to all students, including those with individualized plans (IEPs, Student Support Plans, etc.). Provide additional guidance to families about how to talk to children about sexual health.

5) Therapeutic Supports: Immediately determine therapeutic needs of students and families impacted by alleged abuse and ensure low-barrier access to appropriate supports identified by students, families and professionals.

Provide accessible therapeutic supports for impacted educators. Develop a plan to create and fill clinical counsellor positions in all Yukon schools.

6) Educational Supports: Provide specialized educational supports for all children with special needs.

Programs should include input and oversight by learning assistance teachers, student support services and, if needed, external specialists.

Guidance and oversight by specialists should be thorough and long-lasting with the goal of creating educational programs that have clear and measurable goals and help students reach their full potential.

7) Accountability and Oversight for Educators: Develop structures for training, monitoring and supervising educators, particularly 1:1 EAs working with vulnerable students.

Ensure learning environments are inclusive and promote safety and belonging.

8) YG Response: Provide a public report outlining YG’s response to the Advocate’s review by Nov. 22 and a subsequent progress report within 12 months.

McLean has said the government intends to provide the response to the CYAO review by Nov. 22.

Families can, request ongoing support by contacting any of the following:

• Department of Education’s School Community Consultant | Brenda Jenner 867-456-6587 or brenda.jenner@yukon.ca

• Child, Youth and Family Treatment Team | 867-456-3838

• Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services | 867- 456-3838

• Victim Services | 867-667-8500