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Alberta’s child and youth advocate is “alarmed” by the number of young people dying by suicide, he says in a new report on eight children and youths who had been in government care.

“There are reoccurring themes to the deaths of young people when they’re involved with child intervention,” said child and youth advocate Del Graff on Tuesday, noting his alarm for how child deaths are continuing as a steady rate.

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“We’ve made recommendations about this before, and we continue to see those challenges like multiple services involved and young people not having the services coordinated effectively enough for their needs.”

Legislatively obligated to look into the deaths of any child or youth in government care within the past two years, Graff released a report Tuesday on eight young people who died in a six-month span between October 2018 and March 2019.

Three teens, ages 13 to 17, killed themselves. A fourth teen who was having suicidal thoughts was up on a roof and fell off when people tried to help him. A fifth died of an overdose.