Manitoba Advocate Releases 2024-25 Annual Report

OCTOBER 29, 2025

Manitoba Advocate urges government action to address the rise of children, youth, and young adults who are up against ill-equipped and uncoordinated systems unable to meet their complex and co-occurring needs.

Today, Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth Sherry Gott released an annual report summarizing the MACY’s work during the 2024-25 fiscal year, including trends in advocacy, systemic advocacy, research, quality assurance, public education, youth engagement, serious injury reviews and investigations, and child death reviews and investigations.

Advocacy cases for children, youth, and young adults are continually becoming more complex. The rise of young people facing co-occurring challenges and often needing services from multiple systems reveal the critical need to ensure the services provided to children, youth, and young adults are working together to effectively address their needs. In

2024-25, MACY opened 448 ongoing advocacy cases (often representing more than one youth) where the young person required long-term supports or more complex interventions.

Substance use and substance-related harms among children and youth have become a priority public health and children’s rights issue in Manitoba. “The province’s current youth addiction system is ill-equipped to meet the complex and co-occurring needs of many young people and is fraught with persistent and long-standing gaps and barriers to available and accessible services,” said Gott. “These are significant and interrelated problems that expose a rift between commitment and action, and ultimately signal an urgent need for larger systemic change if we are serious about fulfilling the promise of children’s rights.”

MACY’s special report, Innagakeyaa Bimadizewin (Towards the Good Life): Unifying Voices for Youth Addiction System Change, released in November 2024, amplifies the voices of young people who use substances and have first-hand experience with the youth addiction system, as well as the profound insights of those service providers working tirelessly to support them. Taken together, the views, expertise, and experiences contained within the report shed awareness of some of the current problems within the youth addiction system, as well as possibilities for transforming it to better serve the children and youth for which it is intended.

Sleep-related infant deaths cannot be understood in isolation from the conditions in which they occur. In October 2024, MACY released a special report titled Shifting the Lens: Understanding and Confronting Inequities in Sleep-Related Infant Deaths in Manitoba as a follow-up to the 2020 special report Safe and Sound: A Special Report on the Unexpected Sleep-Related Deaths of 145 Manitoba Infants. This report highlights the increased responsibility governments hold in preventing sleep-related tragedies and proposes a shift in the way we address this issue to include working to improve the conditions in which families live and raise their babies.

In June 2024, the Standing Committee of Legislative Affairs concluded a review of The Advocate for Children and Youth Act – making room for valuable improvements to the legislation, all with the intention of best serving young people in the province. “I’m hopeful these amendments will strengthen our mandate for upholding the rights and interests of all children, youth, and young adults across Manitoba,” said Gott.

The Manitoba Advocate’s annual report highlights important outcomes and outputs achieved in the 2024-25 fiscal year, including the number of children, youth, and young adults who accessed MACY’s programs, or joined the office’s initiatives and events. The executive summary, available in English, French, and Cree highlights these key statistics:

⦁ 3,018 requests for advocacy services

⦁ 955 children, youth, and young adults supported through ongoing advocacy

⦁ 86 child death reviews completed

⦁ 95 serious injury reviews completed

⦁ 1 special report on sleep-related infant deaths in Manitoba

⦁ 1 special report on the youth addiction system

⦁ 30 recommendations and implementation sheets updated to align with the new recommendation monitoring model
⦁ 1,100+ children reached through I Love to Read Month

⦁ 3,007 youth reached through engagement workshops

⦁ 604,079 social media accounts reached via a digital awareness campaign

“We will continue working to improve the lives of young people by supporting, advocating, and empowering them so their rights are upheld and their voices are heard,” said Gott.

To read the Advocate’s 2024-25 annual report in English or French, visit https://manitobaadvocate.ca/reports-publications/annual-reports/.

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Media Contact:

Lindsay Ridgley

Public Education Manager, MACY

(204) 451-6111 LRidgley@ManitobaAdvocate.ca

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