Tales of success temper heartbreaking hearings into Quebec's youth protection services

At the end of a week documenting the problems inQuebec's youth protection system, Nicolas Zorn took to the microphone with a more positive message: the system can make a difference.

"We don't know how much this system, in many cases, works," Zorn said after testifying before thecommission aimed at improving the province's Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ).

"Stories like mine, and like the ones of so many others, aren't known."

Zorn,33, spent much of his childhood underthe province's care.

After the death of his fatherwhen he was eight, his fits of anger grew difficult to manage. He lashed out at his mother.

He was in and out of group homes from the age of 11 until he turned 18. He struggled with drug abuse and crime.

He credits the youth protection system and the devoted staff who cared for himwith helping him find his way.

Now adoctoral student in economics at Universit de Montral, Zorn founded the Observatoire qubcois des ingalits, a non-profit group aimed at improving the province's social services.

He's written a book about his story calledJ'ai profit du systme Des centres jeunesse l'universit: parcours d'un enfant du modle qubcois(I benefited from the system From youth centres to university: A child's journey through the Quebec system).

Zorn's testimonywas welcomed by commissioners on Thursday, after hearing suchheartbreaking testimony earlier in the week.

The inquiry was called in response to public outcry over the death of a seven-year-old girl in Granby last year.

She was found in critical condition in her father's home and died in hospital a day later.

The girl had been monitored by the DPJ but nevertheless fell through the cracks.

In the aftermath, experts and union representativessounded the alarm about a system in crisisacross the province, including at the English-language Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, with insufficient resources and staff suffering from burnout.

After ordering the inquiry this past summer,theQuebec government announced it would invest $47 million to hire 400 new social workers and reduce wait lists for evaluation.

Barrette's reforms seen as a mistake

Dressed in a trim suit and a white button-down shirt, Zorn made a persuasive case for how youth protection can help improve a child's life.

He cautioned, though, that there is much room for improvement in the way it is run. He said there needs to be more research, following people who have long since left the system, to properly measure if it's working.

"There are successes. We need to know why there are successes.And there are failures. And we need to know why those weren't successes," he said.

Like others at the inquiry, Zorn said former health minister Gatan Barrette'smerger of health and social servicesinto administrative super-clusters known by their French acronym, CIUSSS, has made it more difficult to track children in needand provide them and their families with adequate support.

"There's one thing I think that could, should and will probably change, is to adapt what we already have to the people who need it," he said.

Jennifer Dupuis, the president of the non-profit C.A.R.E Jeunesse, hada similar message for the commission a day earlier.

She,too, said that Barrette's reforms were a mistake and additional funding and resources are still needed.

"We have seen the quality of services decline at the time of this merger," she said.

Also on Wednesday, Marjorie Villefranche, head of a centre for Montreal's Haitian community, La Maison d'Hati, raised another issue: black children are "over-represented in the system," she said, and they're more likely than their white counterparts to be removed from their families.

"I do not think that Haitian parents are meaner than other parents," said Villefranche.

Care beyond 18

Gabriel Darquenne, 27, recounted how he had been shuttled from group home to group home through his teen years.

His anger grew after his parents divorced when he was eight.

But he didn't see a psychologist, he said, until he was an adult and out of the system.

"I hope kids will get the resources they needbecause, in my time, it was not done," he said.

Darquenne said he would have benefited from assistance after turning 18 a complaint that came up repeatedly throughout the first week of testimony.

He said when he aged out of the system, he wasn't ready for the world. Fortunately, he said, "I had people in the right place at the right time."

Darquenne is nearly finished law school at the University of Ottawa. He plans to work with at-risk youth and children in youth services.

The inquiry, which has wrapped up in Montreal, will hold hearings elsewhere in the provinceuntil Dec. 5. A final report is due in November 2020.