Mother Calls for Urgent Overhaul After Son’s Death in Government Care

By Chassie Falardeau

In a heartbreaking account that is now fueling renewed calls for systemic reform, I am speaking out about the preventable death of my 15-year-old son, Noah Gitsel, who died while in a group home provided by Family Services of Barrhead, Alberta. Noah died by suicide in Edmonton while on suicide watch.

My story—now detailed in a book that reads like a warning to the entire child welfare system—reveals what I believe to be a pattern of negligence, miscommunication, lack of oversight, and dangerous gaps in mental health support.

Noah was a gifted and sensitive teenager with complex mental health needs. He spent two years on a waitlist for a psychiatric bed at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, and while waiting, his mental health deteriorated dramatically, marked by suicidal ideation, self-harm, aggression, and an online predator who groomed him for over a year.

Despite emergency room visits, repeated warnings, and documented high-risk behaviour, Noah was placed in Spirit House, a group home in Edmonton. The safeguards a youth in crisis required were not provided.

Inside the home, Noah was:

  • given unrestricted internet access, despite a police report
warning that a child predator was pursuing him

  • never enrolled in school or any educational programming

  • left unsupervised for extended periods

  • allowed to purchase harmful items online, and none of his
Amazon packages were searched

  • denied proper therapeutic oversight of his mental health

  • living in a home where I was told there was a second fridge full
of food. That fridge did not exist, and there was often not enough
food in the group home

  • taken to the emergency room five times in twelve days for
suicidal ideation, without me ever being informed

  • able to abruptly stop taking his psychiatric medications
without anyone noticing

Most critically, Noah repeatedly told staff he intended to kill himself and described a detailed plan, yet he was still left alone.

On May 25, 2024, Noah was found dead in the group home. Official reports contain inconsistencies in timelines, dates of death, and the circumstances surrounding the discovery of his body, with records conflicting about whether he was found hanging or on his bed. A neighbour who allegedly notified staff has never been identified.

After Noah’s death, the group home was immediately closed to me. Staff were allegedly warned not to speak with me, and I have never received a clear explanation about what happened the night my son died—silence that, to me, amounts to a cover-up.

This was preventable. Every warning sign was there. My son begged for help. He should never have been left alone.

My Son Matters (available on Amazon) is my book about Noah’s death and how Family Services failed our family. It also outlines proposals for immediate systemic reform, including:

  • a 24-hour live-in therapist in every group home

  • mandatory mental-health expertise on site

  • school enrollment for every child

Sixty children in care have died this past year in Alberta alone.¹

Collapsible bars do not save lives; feeling heard and understood does.

Family Services must do better, because somewhere along the way compassion and empathy were lost. Noah was not just a file number but a human life—a son, a brother, and a friend.

Noah mattered.

Information is power, and I will not stop until changes are implemented—because my son matters.

1. ocya.alberta.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/InvRev_Calling-for-Change_2025Nov27.pdf