Social workers and management personnel within the child protection division of the Ministry of Children must certainly practice a measure of objectivity, even neutrality. I understand that. With large case loads, an emotional investment could be personally harmful.
I too have led a professional life and been intimately involved in the lives of thousands of people through the years. The burden of the concerns that spill from such engagements can be stressful. I recall attending a seminar on pastoral care where we were advised to treat our cases like books on my bookshelf. At the end of each work day we were to place the book in its place and be done with it. That would have been tidy but it didn't work for me. I was not working with closed volumes but with people who had opened their lives to me.
I confess that I find it difficult to process unemotionally, the information concerning Paul's and Zabeth's loss of their children. But I can get away with this because I am not a case worker but a friend and a sympathizer and an advocate and a believer in their innocence of any harm ever to any one of their children. I can excuse myself for this emotional investment because I do not believe for a moment that Dr. Colbourne's diagnosis was accurate. I accept unequivocally that the Fraser Region of the MCFD has made a mistake at the outset which it has strengthened weekly for thirty months, and a reinforced error leads to a miscarriage of justice.
It is time, in fact time is running out, but it is time for social workers and case managers and directors to rush back to the fundamentals of human interaction which instinctively demand that you treat Paul and Zabeth and their three adorable children with the emotion that they deserve and that will breath life into their family and into your careers.
The simple answer...bring the family together, before the judge. I wish this was possible. We call this Family Court..but families are not welcome. Perhaps that is why it is so easy to destroy us. I am a Court Watcher, I want to see the truth, I want to see the Love, because that would bring about Natural Justice. Can the Ministry name each child fully? Does the Ministry recall the births, trauma's and results? Paul and Zabeth can do that from memory. Can the Ministry, and its representatives..so highly advised and in the know, can they do that? in this court under oath? Paul and Zabeth had those experiences but once, the ministry has had those records for two, almost three years now. Can the Worker, in "charge of this file" recite any of that? Paul and Zabeth do not have too many cases to deal with. For the rest of their lives, they want to touch, hold and protect these 3 files. In the Bayne home, hearts, and active community the Baynes' are willing to lift this heavy burden unto themselves joyfully. Can the Ministry say the same? Burdens accepted as full rate/ I mean weight, are dying at an amazing rate in the the B/C Alberta area. Children are the future, teach them well, and let them lead the way. Well the Ministry has had three years of these babies lives. Set the children between the Ministry and the parents in an open court, and let them lead the way...or live with the dark stain that will mark the souls that dare come between a mother and child, father and son. Reality check, these children are at a higher level of risk in the Ministries care than in the parents. The parents can and will raise these children in full view of Schools, doctors, dentists, church, neighbors, family and friends.... is wrap around care meant to strangle or enrich a family? Time will tell. And the funding will disappear with the evidence.
ReplyDeleteRon, well said! It's time for the MCFD to find their hearts, and do the right thing, give this family their lives back!
ReplyDeleteMaryEllen