{"id":842770,"date":"2026-08-02T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/842770\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:00:09","slug":"saskatchewan-autism-advocate-urges-stronger-safeguards-after-death-of-calgary-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/842770\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan autism advocate urges stronger safeguards after death of Calgary boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The death of an 11-year-old autistic boy<\/a> in Calgary has prompted renewed discussion in Saskatchewan about how to better protect vulnerable children.<\/p>\n

On July 16, an 11-year-old non-verbal boy with autism wandered away from his day home and disappeared. After a massive search spanning several days, he was found dead July 28<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

According to police, his body was found in an underground network of pipes near one of the city\u2019s major expressways after a bystander found the boy\u2019s shoes near the mouth of a culvert.<\/p>\n

Following the tragedy, many are now asking whether provinces are doing enough to protect their vulnerable children.<\/p>\n

Alex Scott, family programs director with Autism Services of Saskatoon, said there are many lessons to be learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with a vulnerable population, and every child that we work with is completely different from the other child,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really just awareness and learning about how each of these children operate day to day, what their triggers might be, how they navigate their environment, and it\u2019s up to us as professionals to put those preventative measures in place so we can ensure the integrity and safety of our program is upheld.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott said extra care must be taken when going out into the community with vulnerable children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to have all eyes on our children and make sure that we\u2019re scanning our environment and really being aware of each personal profile so we can prevent tragedies from happening,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Saskatchewan, Scott said there are areas where the province could improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I get the notifications on my phone, it\u2019s pretty standardized. I think when a vulnerable person goes missing, it would be a major benefit to clarify that they are a vulnerable person, or maybe they are on the autism spectrum,\u201d Scott said<\/p>\n

\u201cThat way, the community has a bit more knowledge about the situation and can be more effective in its search as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott said autistic children who go missing can present additional challenges for search-and-rescue teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might not know where to go if they\u2019re missing. So, in the case in Calgary, he went down to Deerfoot Trail, and there was some exploration involved,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s always anticipating the most unpredictable places to look because these kids have a mind of their own in some instances, and they might not know how to navigate their environment. So they look for what might appear to be comfortable, and sometimes that doesn\u2019t work out from a safety perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of an 11-year-old autistic boy in Calgary has prompted renewed discussion in Saskatchewan about how to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-842770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}