Child intervention services did not go far enough to make sure the extended family of a 10 month old Fox Lake girl was protecting her. The infant drowned in a bucket of homebrew in 2013, and the resulting report from Alberta’s child and youth advocate says that while her community had tried to create a safety network for her, they didn’t have the resources they needed and didn’t know what to do when the risk increased.
Concerns about her parents’ addictions and ability to take care of their children were first raised a year before the girl was born. Their grandparents agreed to monitor the situation but there was no formal plan made with a First Nations agency. Del Graff’s report recommends the province make sure front-line works have enough support to help create support networks and to ensure the people involve know what to do when risks increase.
A 33 year old Fox Lake woman plead guilty to a charge of criminal negligence causing the death of her infant daughter and was sentenced to 90 days in prison in 2014. She was reportedly asleep after drinking when the little girl fell head first into a crate of homemade booze.