B.C. Representative for Children and Youth,Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, speaks at a news conference in 2008.

A scathing report today from B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth says the province's social services network failed an infant who suffered critical injuries while in foster care.

In the report issued Tuesday, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond told the story of a couple of struggling young aboriginal parents and their infant who in 2006 needed help to find emergency housing.

Social workers overlooked that immediate need and instead raised concerns about the child's safety, took him from his parents and placed him in a series of foster homes, the report said.

In one of those homes, the child was critically injured.

He is now three years old and back with his parents but has cerebral palsy, is blind in one eye and cannot walk.

"The system of supports and services failed this infant and fell below prescribed standards," the children's representative wrote.

The child should never have been removed from his parents' care because their challenge was poverty, not abusive or neglectful parenting, Turpel-Lafond wrote.

"The system was not flexible and responsive in addressing the root problem faced by his young family, which was a practical issue of short-term money for housing," the report said.

The name of the child and his family's location in B.C. were not released.