Yes, as a student teacher, many years ago.

High School English - we were studying a book called In Search of April Raintree - it’s tough. Really tough. The writing is easy - the material is brutal. It’s the story of a Metis teen, her sisters and their life, and it’s got two suicides, a fairly graphic rape scene, some serious drug abuse and a pile of child abuse. Wouldn’t have been my first curriculum pick, but hey, student teacher.

Anyway, I got the first set of response papers, and I was working through them, and one student had written a really passionate paper about why April does what she does to protect her younger brothers. April doesn’t have brothers. Called over my host teacher, re-read the paper and he said “Ever made a Children’s Aid call? I’ll walk you through it, but you found it, so legally, you need to be the reporter”. He walked me through the call, the report, the follow-up.

Unfortunately, the student was 17, almost 18, and there wasn’t a lot Children’s Aid could do - for her anyway. Her brothers? They were 12 and 9, and to the best of my knowledge, they never saw their father again - he got something in the area of 40 years. The trial made April Raintree look like a Bobbsey Twins book.