Newborn surrender site finally opens in Bowmanville, Ontario

It may seem like a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist but it does, and parents who cannot provide for their newborns will now be able to safely and anonymously leave their baby at a Bowmanville fire station, Ontario’s first Hope’s Cradle infant surrender site.

Clarington Council approved the infant surrender site in the fall of 2022 and the cradle was built a year ago but lay unopened and unused while council sorted through issues of liability with both Durham Children’s Aid and Durham Police, which both had concerns with the guarantee of anonymity.

Ontario’s first Hope’s Cradle, a place where parents may safely surrender an infant, finally opened at the Bowmanville Fire Station #1 on Highway 2 Thursday.

Hope’s Cradle is a collaborative initiative — founded and being scaled nationwide by Calgary-based registered charity Gems for Gems — to protect infants from unsafe abandonment. The cradle provides for the safe and anonymous surrender of a baby.

Clarington Emergency and Fire Services partnered with Gems for Gems on the project.

“This site has the potential to save a life. I truly hope it’s never needed, but better it’s there and never used than the alternative. I’m proud that Clarington Council voted to make use of this space to protect our most vulnerable residents,” said Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster.

Clarington Council joined Gems for Gems to officially open the site on May 16.

A parent or guardian can come to an unmonitored fire station entrance. Inside the door, they will find a bassinet for the surrendered baby and an information package containing a medical form for the baby’s history and an addressed prepaid envelope.

The parent will receive information about the local support available to them, how the process works, and their rights should they change their mind. Once they leave the child and close the door, it will not reopen.

Firefighters will get an alert that a baby has been placed in the cradle and go to pick the infant up. Paramedics will be called to do a health evaluation of the child and transport the baby to Bowmanville Hospital. Any guardian who surrenders an infant will be kept anonymous, provided the infant shows no signs of abuse. Then Durham Children’s Aid Society and Dnaagdawenmag Binnoojiiyag Child and Family Services will be contacted to collect the child and place it in care.

“Gems for Gems is proud of having our first Ontario Hope’s Cradle across the line. We are so grateful to the team in Ontario for working so hard to ensure this option is now here for those in the area,” said Jordan Guildford, the founder and CEO of Gems for Gems. “The sobering reality is it is a when, not an if, a baby is found in other areas. We are eager to expand Hope’s Cradle across the province and ask the community to step forward with more locations. We know better, we must collectively now do better.”

“A resident proposed this idea, and Council listened,” Foster said last year after the project was approved. “This is a great initiative that could save lives. Maybe it’s never used, but it’s a much bigger problem if it was ever needed and wasn’t there.”

“A parent may be unsafe or too ashamed to go through the usual process of putting their child up for adoption,” added Clarington Fire Chief David Speed last May. “This initiative offers a safe alternative for vulnerable parents across Durham Region and the Greater Toronto Area who feel they have no choice but to abandon their infant.”

The project was first launched in Alberta through a partnership between Gems for Gems, an organization committed to ending the cycle of domestic abuse by focusing on survivors’ economic recovery and empowerment, and the Strathmore Fire Department.

With babies being abandoned in alleyways and left in car trunks and even garbage bins, the basic purpose of Hope’s Cradle is to save the lives of infants who may otherwise have been unsafely abandoned.

Clarington will be the first Hope’s Cradle site in Ontario but other municipalities have also signed on to the initiative.