Near the end of February, Emily, a social worker with extensive experience working in child protective services, received news that made her heart sink. 

A six-year-old child had been stabbed in broad daylight in downtown Halifax, allegedly by a 19-year-old woman.

Her first thought? 

It might be one of her clients. 

"I honestly went through every teenager that I had on my caseload and thought it could have been any one of them that was in that position," she said in an interview with CBC News last …