Lessons From A Little Girl Remembering Katelynn Sampson 2000-2007

“Seven-year-old Katelynn Sampson was murdered by her two caregivers in their Parkdale apartment eight years ago. Paramedics found her lifeless body in a pool of blood, covered in 70 wounds, each more ghastly than the last. Eight of her ribs had been broken, her teeth had cut through both her lips, and there was a gaping hole in one finger, exposing the bone. 

Police found her blood in every room of the apartment.

They found a note on which she’d written, 62 times: “I am A awful girl that’s why know one wants me.”So wrote Catherine Porter in the Toronto Star November 19, 2015 near the end of the Inquest into Katelynn’s short life. 
Katelynn and her Mother were receiving services from two Children’s Aid Societies  Her Mom seeking time to work on her own demons had given temporary custody of Katelynn through a court process to two friends who were to provide care to Katelynn.  They didn’t care for Katelynn  They murdered her. Every point of possible protection failed Katelynn. “Katelynn Sampson taught the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto a lot about the weakness of its systems.” wrote Porter, “Some of them seem so basic, I shook my head in disbelief many times over the past couple of days, sitting in the cavernous courtroom where the inquest into the little girl’s painful death is taking place”

I’m not convinced child welfare learned the lessons Katelynn taught us well  

Today August 3 is said to be the anniversary of  her death. At least it is the anniversary when her caregivers 12 years ago called 911 and claimed she had choked on some food and wasn’t breathing. 

I carry Katelynn in my heart and in my mind since the moment that August 3 I learned of her death  As Ontario’s Child Advocate I felt a responsibility for her legacy and to those children,who but for the grace of God, could have been her  Even now more than a decade later Katelynn is still with me  

After Katelynn’s death young  people in and from care led a movement to include in Ontario’s Child, Youth and Family Services Act something they called “Katelynn’s Principle”.  This principle legally requires every service under the Act to be “child centred”. It requires that every child meaningfully participate in every decision concerning them made by a service provider under the Act. In 2015 the jury at Katelynn’s Inquest made this, the establishment of the Principle, their first recommendation. In 2018 it became law in Ontario. 

There are at least three accepted incontrovertible facts about our child protection system;

Too many children connected in some way to a Children’s Aid Society in Ontario die. Every three days on a average a child dies. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday a child dies. Thursday, Friday, Saturday a child dies… 

Black and Indigenous children are grossly overrepresented in care in Ontario. The child protection system created over 160 years ago to surveil immigrant families and take children away from their parents who it was deemed could not parent them in a manner that would lead them to “industrious” futures has structurally changed little. Today different people running the system for sure, the racist bones of the system intact. It should come as no surprise which children and which families are overrepresented. The system is working as planned  

Once in care life for a child is incredibly difficult leading to abysmal life outcomes for far too many children. 

Just this month the Ontario government announced a system “modernization”. Look at that plan and you will find no evidence of Katelynn. In fact the word “modernization” implies that nothing about the system will change. Just some updating. The plan was not built from a child centred perspective. It was built from an accountants perspective and with the system and dollars at the centre not Katelynn. Not children. The song remains the same. 

Nothing in the governments modernization plan would have offered Katelynn any hope to have survived our Provinces attempts to protect her. Nothing. 

Today as I reflect on Katelynn I reflect on the children in Ontario. I invite you to do so as well. Let Katelynn tell you we must promise to every child that they will be protected. Let Katelynn tell you that you must promise to every child that they will have what they need in order to reach their full potential. Let Katelynn tell you we must thank every family, however that family is constituted, and we must promise that they will have what they need to do right by their children. 

If our government is not interested in making that covenant with our children so be it. Governments come and go. The rest of us must resolve to do everything we can to make and then keep those promises to our children and to Katelynn. We can’t letter her down again.