Alberta's child protection system has come under heavy criticism after it was revealed Thursday that the 16-year-old charged with second-degree murder in the weekend stabbing of Curtis Osterlund in Edmonton was a ward of the province.

The youth was under permanent guardianship of the province and living in kinship care with extended family in northern Alberta.

This is the second time in a month that a youth in provincial care was charged with murder. A 14-year-old boy who had been living in a group home was charged in early June with two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of a man and a woman in Strathcona County, east of Edmonton.

The latest incident renewed calls from Edmonton New Democrat MLA Rachel Notley for the province to hold an inquiry into the child welfare system.

"It's time that they take this seriously. It is time that they understand that the system's not working and that we need an independent, comprehensive inquiry into how this could be done better," she said.

Notley's views are also shared by Mark Cherrington, a youth court worker in Edmonton, who also believes the system needs to be reviewed.

Cherrington has worked with hundreds of children in care and believes the system is getting worse due to a lack of resources. For example, youth are also facing a lack of support from overburdened social workers.

"The social workers ... their caseloads are so high and there's so much paperwork, meaningless paperwork, that the interaction between the social worker and the child that they're supposed to help is superficial," he said.

The province plans to review this case to see what can be done differently in the future, Trevor Coulombe, a spokesperson for Alberta Children and Youth Services said Thursday.

But Notley said more needs to be done to change the child protection system.

"It's broken all along the way. It's broken in terms of assessment. It's broken in terms of placement. It's broken in terms of staffing. It's broken in terms of monitoring."