Child and Family Support, Assessment, Planning and Practice (CAPP)
Initial Implementation Plan
You should know more about this new plan from the Ministry of Children and Family Development. In January 2010 the ministry introduced CAPP as a key part of Practice Change. The Ministry says that “CAPP includes a new comprehensive, strengths-based, developmental approach to assessment, planning and practice.”
The vision for this fresh initiative is a valid and uncomplicated one, “BC children and youth are strong, safe and supported to reach their full potential.”
Those of you who are critics of MCFD will immediately be saying, “Well, then leave the children with their parents when those parents have proven themselves responsible, or at least provide the help that they require to parent effectively."
But I suggest that you acquaint yourself with this plan and see what you think.
You can read about the plan yourself with this MCFD document.
The stated intention of this initiative from the home office of the MCFD in Victoria is to provide an improved approach to practice. MCFD asserts that this is a top ministry priority. This is an action plan with a motto, “Strong, Safe and Supported – A Commitment to BC’s Children and Youth.”
If the stated principles for CAPP are realized I wonder whether you might conclude that these are precisely the changes that could transform this Ministry. Here are the principles.
PRACTICE PRINCIPLES
• We will apply the following practice principles to all of our work with children, youth, families and communities:
• All aspects of practice seek to identify and build on the individual and collective strengths of children, youth, families and communities.
• The rights of children and youth, as identified in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and in the United Nations paper on the Rights of Indigenous Children are recognized.
• Children, youth and families will receive services that are holistic and directly address their assessed, individualized needs and will be active participants in design, implementation and review of services.
• All practice for the child or youth is provided within the context of the family and community.
• Practice at all levels of the child and family development service system will be transparent and accountable.
My sense after reading this document is that there is a great deal of hopeful promise for conceptual change and I want to examine this further with you in the next day or so to see how it might filter, affect and transform the regional level of practice.
Also see the MCFD website blurb about this initiative as part of its transformation.
IF this really did happen then it would be a very good start. But they need to correct the problems they have already started too, and they need to return the kids because while they come up with these proposals there are very real situations and families suffering as a result of their bad policies, and practices. I am a little un-trusting and dubious. It is one thing to state an intention, it is another to follow it through consistently.
ReplyDeleteBravo to MCFD. I read the 11-page CAPP document. This is nothing more than an internal training notice and propaganda attempting to create a false hope that ameliorative changes are being made. Bureaucrats and politicians are good at this. It will fool some people who do not really understand what the root problem is and have undue faith in "democratic" government.
ReplyDeleteLike establishing the Representative of Children and Youth Office in 2006 after Ted Hughes published his report in November 2005, such shrewd political move gives the government an excuse to fan off unhappy campers and their supporters that they have not turned a blind eye to their voice. Of course, this new bureaucracy also cost taxpayers dearly.
This problem cannot be solved without repealing CFCSA in its entirety, revoking government's power to remove children from their families and shrining child custody as a constitutional right. However radical, extreme and controversial this may sound, this is the only ultimate solution. Special interests will fight this tooth and nail, again under the pretext of "child protection" to protect their livelihood and their best interests.
No law could prevent child abuse. We already have other law and due process that give authorities power to separate abusive parents and vulnerable children based on good evidence. Why do we need child removal authority and create a special type of law enforcer with absolute power who call themselves "child protection" social workers? Why government wants so badly to retain such absolute power? To oppress people or to "protect" children? Why the infamous residential schools are possible? Let facts and history speak for themselves.
When the Englishman William Wilberforce took on the cause of abolition in 1787, he aimed at outlawing slavery by passing the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, not to improve treatment of slaves or to ensure that their rights are respected by slave traders. Likewise, problems created by state-sponsored child removal cannot be solved without changing law. All other measures short of this are bound to fail. Our CFCSA was written impeccably on the surface (although it contains many absurdities that I will not elaborate here). Are the guiding principles being followed and the rights of children being respected (note that there is nothing called parent rights in the entire CFCSA)? Despite what the legislative intent was, empirical evidence clearly shows that it fails to serve the best interests of children and many intended purposes. Do you still need to hesitate killing CFCSA?
While I haven't read these documents in their entirety, what I have read reminds me of an episode on the Beverly Hillbillies. It is a scene where Pearl has been trying to get the oil man interested in marriage. She prepares him a splendid meal, gets out her elderberry wine, sweet potatoe pie etc. and he compliments her on her fine meal but that's all. She soon gets the picture and she says, "....you have yet to say one thing a widder woman can sink her teeth into!!"
ReplyDeleteThis is a dangerous approach for at risk children. Perhaps some parents will not like my comments but most caring parents will agree - the CHILD not the "family" or parent. Child protection is there for the child. This program was there pre-Matthew Vaudreil and pre- the Gove Inquiry. Children died as a result. Lets find out more about the Down's Syndrome child in Chilliwack as well.
ReplyDelete