Two years ago, Don’t Look Away – How One Boy’s Story Has the Power to Shift a System of Care for Children and Youth asked the government and legislative assembly of British Columbia to do something difficult.

It asked us to sit with discomfort.

To acknowledge where systems failed children.

And to act – collectively, urgently, and differently.

At the centre of that report was Colby, an 11‑year‑old boy whose life and death revealed not only individual failures but the deep structure of a system that was never intentionally designed to nurture children to thrive. His story illuminated both the light, love, connection, and resilience, and the shadow, violence, fragmentation, and missed opportunities within his family’s life and within systems.

We said then that Colby was not an outlier.

Today, we must say that again.