COVID-19 keeps parents away from children in care, Edmonton advocate says

Every day, an Edmonton mother cries over the infant son she can't hold in her arms.

Less than a year old, the boy is in government care and COVID-19 restrictions are keeping the mother from visiting her son.

Last December, the 31-year-old allowed her infant, then six months old,to become a temporary ward of the province. She was battling addiction and was depressed because her mother had just died.

The woman and her son can't be identified under the Child Youth and Family Enhancement Act. CBC will call them Jenna and Michael.

Jenna said that, at first, she was able to visit with her son three times a week at a Children's Services office. The pandemic changed all that.

"Because of the COVID, I haven't been able to see my son. I haven't been able to touch him," she said. "I miss my son so much. I just wish I could hear him through that baby monitor again."

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In mid-April, Jenna was allowed to take Michael to be immunized. As he received his shots, she held him and wiped away his tears.

Now, she has to settle for seeing him on Skype three times a week.

Michael now lives in a group home. Jenna is concerned that he may become infected from other children in the home.

The temporary custody agreement with the province is supposed to end next week. Jenna is worried Children's Services won't return Michael to her care, and that he'll have to spend his first birthday in June away from his mother.

'Child welfare could be doing more'

Social justice advocate Mark Cherrington said Jenna is one of a dozen desperate moms who have contacted him about being denied in-person access to their children in care during the COVID-19 crisis.

"It's caused a lot of disruption and social harm, in my opinion, with the families and particularly with the children," Cherrington said.

"They can't run to their mom's arms and be comforted. It's very cold. I'm of the opinion that child welfare could be doing more."

Cherrington, the founder of Edmonton-based Coalition for Justice and Human Rights, thinks the pandemic caught Children's Services off-guard.

"They've never really lived with this scenario before and they haven't planned for it and now they're just sort of scrambling," he said.

A Children's Services spokesperson confirmed that new policies involve caseworkers asking families to conduct visits "whenever possible" by telephone or video conference.

"Court orders remain in place, though families are asked to work collaboratively with caseworkers and supervisors in Children's Services during this crisis," Lauren Armstrong wrote in an email to CBC News.

Cherrington thinks allowing court-ordered visits will inevitably lead to cross-contamination.

"In a group home, Child A is allowed to go visit because it's court-ordered, but Child B doesn't have a court order, so child B stays at home," Cherrington said.

"But when Child A comes back, he or she is infecting the whole group home anyway, so it just doesn't make any sense."

He thinks a better, more compassionate approach would be to allow in-person visits to continue, whether they're court-ordered or not.

"My argument is that you need to minimize the risks with sani-wipes, clean clothing, extra care," he said. "But you still need to be able to allow those visits to take place.

"It's going to have an echoing effect long after this pandemic is over."

Children's Services working on new policies

As Alberta enters a relaunch phase, Children's Services is trying to develop new policies that will allow in-person meetings, as long as they conform with physical distancing requirements.

"We are preparing to shift practice to adapt to longer-term physical distancing requirements, including procuring sufficient quantities of PPE," Armstrong wrote.

That may not be enough for Jenna. All she wants to do is hold her baby in her arms again.

"My son doesn't understand," Jenna said. "He can see me, but he can't touch me.

"That's not all right with me."