June 01, 2016 - 4:22 PM
VICTORIA - A report card from B.C.'s Children's Ministry says 24 kids in its care were placed in hotels between January and the end of April.
The ministry says the report shows policy and practice directives implemented in January are being followed, and that more detailed information on the hotel placements is available than ever before.
The practice of placing children in hotels came under fire last year following an 18-year-old boy's suicide after being placed in an Abbotsford Super 8 motel.
The ministry says children are only placed in hotels in exceptional circumstances and always with a foster parent, ministry social worker or a contracted caregiver.
It says some of the reasons children were placed in hotels this year include a threat to the safety of four children in a foster home, a fire that displaced one child, and no available foster home to take five siblings.
A report in January showed the ministry placed 117 foster children in hotels between November 2014 and October 2015.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2016