“Yesterday I wrote about the ministry risk assessment form and showed that is just an elaborate checklist, which contains the opinions of social workers. No evidentiary rigor is required in order to support an opinion. It is left to the adversary-the enemy-to make the rating, which leaves it open to blatant bias.Today I show how all this affected the risk assessment on the Baynes. To start with the assessment started over 18 months after the removal of the children. By this time the director was already seeking a continuing care order and was clearly adversarial. Not only that he had subjected the boys to great cruelty when he ripped them from the tender care of their grandparents. He did this in a fit of pique and then tried to find excuses for his behaviour. He eventually offered three different feeble excuses. There was the additional cruelty of subjecting the Baynes to humiliating micro-management of visitations and treating them like dangerous criminals. So clearly he had placed the ministry in a hostile position to the Baynes and the worker who did the risk assessment knew that he would have to please his boss, by making them look as bad as possible.
He did a good job and he did not forget to excuse his boss for ending the relative placement. Throughout the assessment he made the worst possible interpretation of everything that he could. When there is no evidence to the contrary one should rate the function as normal. Time and time again he could only bring himself to check box 9. "Insufficient evidence available" After 18 months he had not had enough contact with the case to find evidence. Imagine that. That did not prevent him from finding every opportunity to smear the Baynes though.
The other thing that betrayed the blatant bias was that he could not find one positive thing to say about the family. He could not bother to read the many supportive letters sent to him, but he would pay serious attention to anonymous callers. The Baynes have many supporters who think that they have many good points and strengths, but all the worker could do was to leave the page for strengths as a complete blank.
Using only established facts, I could easily fill in the risk assessment form and make them look like model parents. With a little poetic license I could probably make them look like martyred saints!
Now what is the net effect of the Bayne risk assessment? It showed very poor judgement to try to bring such terrible piece of work into court as evidence. By the time Doug Christie had finished his cross-examination, not only was the risk assessment discredited, but its author and all those who supported him. We must remember that this assessment, which was little better than smear, innuendo, mudslinging and character assassination, was signed off by his supervisor and approved by the director. They are both equally responsible and there is a good chance that Leslie Dutoit had a finger in the pie too.
If the risk assessment device can be used so destructively in only one case, it is a complete indictment of the format and the way it is used. We know from this blog that many other cases have had similar experiences and this has far-reaching implications. If this is a common occurrence, what does it say about all those highly paid bureaucrats who condone such shabby work. What does it say about ministry counsels and judges who accept such nonsense as evidence. Perhaps worst of all, what does it say about all those defense counsels who do not do everything to discredit such evidence and blandly go along with the ministry.
Doug Christie gave a fine example about how a defense counsel should treat this trash and I will be very surprised if the judge omits to make some incisive comments when he gives his judgement.
If there are any social work professors reading this blog, you should take a good look at this issue and speak up. So should the BC Association of social workers and members of the legislative assembly. Otherwise this sort of abuse will continue.”
I don't know how on earth any social worker could not know what is going on with MCFD - do they not read the paper, or watch TV or listen to the radio? Are they living under a rock? And once you know what is going on, you would be - if you had an ounce of humanity - absolutely appalled. So, where are their voices of outrage? Exactly why is the only social worker to be criticizing the MCFD whatsoever, a RETIRED social worker?
ReplyDeleteI also find it noteworthy that the CBC has posted this below their article regarding the sexual testing / abuse of young boys who supposedly are "sex offenders" (and since a "sex offender" could be someone who kissed a girl, don't assume these young boys are in fact the brutal monsters MCFD would like us to believe):
--------------------
Corrections and Clarifications
•Contractors, rather than researchers, were responsible for monitoring a youth's level of arousal during the tests. July 31, 2010 | 10:15 p.m. ET
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/07/28/bc-penile-sex-tests-young-offenders.html#ixzz0viHQrcs3
To Ron:
ReplyDeleteAug 4 and Aug 5 blogs are both numbered Part 269. Perhaps you should rectify this for precise reference in the future.
To: CW re your comment sent on August 4, 2010 6:14 PM in Part 269
ReplyDeleteYour comment should be directed to the Anonymous writer, not to Ron. Instead of writing your defence, if you have any, on the issue of MCFD launched surveillance, you accused Ron of allowing this comment to be posted. Your childish behavior is like a kid when an adult points out a mistake and the kid perceives it as a condemnation and threat. Such attitude is fairly typical of CP SW when parents disagree with their position or caught them with their pants down. Here you threaten that you won’t “contribute” to this blog anymore. In the real world, CP SW scoop up their children when parents disagree, ex-communicate the family and seek custody order from court. The Bayne’s case is a good example to prove the foregoing. When people of this caliber and mentality have the power to remove children at will, I shudder at the thought.
Your “contributions” in this blog are nothing more than casting doubt on parents who share their experience of ministry-created atrocities. Perhaps the only meaningful contribution of your participation is to allow those who have no first hand experience with CP SW to see what kind of people they are, if they are observant.
Trust has to be earned. Given what many CP SW did to children and families, why should these parents still respect and trust MCFD? If you were on the receiving end, will you?
You claim that you have been condemned based on completely unfounded accusations by an anonymous accuser. Please enlighten me what the unfound accusations in the blog titled Revisiting MCFD Launched Surveillance of Parents are. Furthermore, if you remain anonymous, do not undermine other anonymous writers because they choose to be anonymous.
You may not be “contributing” on this blog. I am sure that you will still read for damage control purposes.
To the Baynes:
ReplyDelete"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deuteronomy 31:5-6)
Your victory rests on God. May God rebuke those who unrepentantly harm your family under the pretext of "child protection".
Anon 1:08 AM, thanks for the heads up on post numbers - correction made.
ReplyDeleteIf parents are not involved with the assessment and they do not get to read it before the social worker submits it to superiors and it later is used against parents as "evidence" parents should use this against the worker in a later lawsuit for malice and incompetence.
ReplyDeleteIf a parental capacity assessment is done, you should go over this assessment with the psychologist and provide the correct information. At a presentation hearing, this is the time to use the faulty information presented as a deliberate attempt to mislead the court and argue to have the removal reduced to a supervision order while you wait for a protection hearing to clear your name.
If a protection hearing does occur, this is the point you do as Doug Christie does, point out the innaccuracy's and compare it to a psychologists report and ask the social worker why they deliberately recorded only negative information and "unknown". Rewrite and correct the assessment and present that to the court and to social workers and force them to keep it on your record.
I am very surprised there are not more "CW" type commenters to help defend and correct the reviled image of social workers.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why education attempts and discussion of services is not done first and supervision orders are not applied for first.
Then if a judge finds the information valid and sees supervised visitation reports that clearly show the parents are clearly a danger to their children and a finding the children are in need of protection, only then would there be cause for removal.
Ron; you sprang a surprise on me today. I had intended to write more on the topic of the CF&CSA and how it paralysed the court system, but instead I will clarify some other matters.I had a daughter visiting who read today's blog and she had some hot criticism for me. One don't get no respect in one's own family! This was useful to me because my words about the risk assessment etc, strike someone very differently if they have not been reading this blog regularly and they do not have the background on what has been covered.
ReplyDeleteIt struck her as very harsh, when I said that the children had been cruelly ripped from relative care. Your regular readers will know that the boys were taken out by armed police in the middle of a birthday party and taken to live with strangers. They were then moved three times in the next year. The director's first reason given in a letter via lawyer was that this was done in order to protect the privacy of the children. The boys were not worried about their privacy being invaded, but they were very worried about being dragged out of their home. Also just a little matter of relative care having strong priority under section 72 of the act. Surely there would have to be strong evidence of risk to warrant such drastic action? Why would their lawyer recommend return of the boys over two years ago if there were any risk?
My purpose on the blog was to demonstrate that the risk assessment is a very flawed device, which is easy to abuse. I used the Bayne case as a graphic illustration, wich had been proven under due process in a court room. If the risk assessment can easily be used to abuse statutory power in one case, it can be used in other cases and should be replaced by the sort of assessment that requires evidentiary rigour. Indeed if there is serious risk, the factual evidence that is to be presented to court would render a so-called risk assessment superfluous.
Yes I did use rather blunt language, but with lots of documented material to justify it. I doubt whether the bureaucrats and politicians would pay any attention, whether I wrote strongly, or sweetly.
Another thing I would like to repeat. One cannot lay the responsibility on the shoulders of the social workers. They receive no decent core training and they have little autonomy. Yes many of them are decent and disturbed at what they are directed to do. That is probably why this ministry has such a huge staff turnover.
I have a note for the woman who reminded me that not all mothers are like Verna Vaudreuil. Thank you for that. No indeed. Vaudreuil was a classic case of under-investigation and willfully ignoring compelling evidence of abuse. The Bayne case is a prime example of over-investigation and willfully ignoring strong evidence which did not support the ministry's complaint.
More on Gove and the CF&CSA Tomorrow.
Hi Ray, I know we spoke about printing your comment previously published among the bulk of comments but I just didn't say when I would post it, and you are correct that when someone does not have the backdrop of information, the critique will sound abrupt and harsh so your explanation will assist readers and thanks. I look forward to your next comment.
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow victim of a faulty risk assessment, three of these 30-page documents, not just one, taking some aspects of metters to the BC Court of Appeal, and having my children returned unconditionally, I can give my perspective on this subject.
ReplyDeletePolice, when they take statements, they prepare a document and ask the person who volunteered the information to review the writeup done by the police to ensure there are no inaccuracies.
At this point, no charges are laid, the person making the statement does not need a lawyer and neither do they need to be advised. Information in the report does not need to be redacted. This is standard operating procedure used by the police to gather information. Social workers do not use this process.
All information gathered by social workers in interviews and risk assessments are used in a court of law against parents.
Neither parents or children's rights are read to them before or after removal. Lawyers are not offerred or provided to assist in the interpretation of the law or to speak for them in a non-self-incriminating manner, yet parents lose their children due to hearsay, a consequence far more serious for the children especially if any such information is later found blatently wrong or deliberately misrepresented.
Risk assessment cannot be so labelled if this documentation is so laced with inaccuracies, innuendo, and is sight unseen by the parents. It becomes personal opinion of the social worker, who is supposed to be an impartial, and unquestionably trusted officer of the court.
Used internally for assessment purposes, and it does not see the light of day in court, this might be a different matter.
The judge MUST mention this evidence in his judgement, it CANNOT be ignored. The truth of the material is in question, therefore the integrity of the entire process is put at risk.
Social workers are tasked with moving information from point A to point B, they are not to reshape it, ignore information presented to them, highlight just some parts, omit others, neither can they redact facts as well as names. But they do this anyways, and face no consequences when such errors are pointed out in court.
The effect of this, the written judgment is supposed to serve as a corrective process for social workers. If no fault is found, the this is used to validate their process and they have the right to give each other the high five at the conclusion of the trial.
Supervisors and internal policy writers need to update their guidelines on how to correctly write supervision reports with an eye on preventing millions of dollars of wasted taxpayer funds. The very POINT of a civilian created assessment is to AVOID such expensive and lengthy litigation, not to ENSURE that it occurs, which is exactly what has been done in the Baynes case.
In my view, there is no in between.
A typical CW response might be to point out that one portion of of risk assessment is correct, and other pages are the result of uncooperative parents, or any numerable other reasons. Only a scathing rebuke by a judge that is publicized may have a corrective response from MCFD upper echelons.
I would love to read through the court transcripts of the Direct examination of Loren Humeny and Mr. Doug Christie's cross examation.
I would also post these materials online after they have been redacted by the parents to protect their identities and their children, but leave in the identities of all tax-payer-funded individuals.
BC MCFD social workers are not officers of the court nor are they bound by any professional code of ethics because they are LEGALLY EXEMPTED from registration with both the BC Association of Social Workers or, created a few years later in the late 2000s, the BC College of Social Workers. This situation is just a plain invitation openly extended to all psychopathic holders of social work degrees. This situation is tolerated even in jurisdictions like Ontario, where registration of CAS social workers is mandatory and where a significant percentage of them remain unregistered but still personally snatch children from their families.
DeleteI make a pledge to appear in court on at least one of the next 3 court days in order to support the Bayne Family.
ReplyDeletePlease, everyone, show your support for the Baynes, and all victims of MCFD, by appearing in court on August 9, 10, and 11.
Ray Ferris writes above, at 11:27 am
ReplyDelete"Another thing I would like to repeat. One cannot lay the responsibility on the shoulders of the social workers. They receive no decent core training and they have little autonomy. Yes many of them are decent and disturbed at what they are directed to do. That is probably why this ministry has such a huge staff turnover."
A person doesn't need to be "trained" to know that what the MCFD is doing is horribly wrong. Instead of just quitting their jobs and letting the brutalities continue, WHY aren't they speaking out? HOW can they stay silent? This is not a "training" issue (which, once again, would suggest that funds and staffing would solve the problem).
Comments like this are exactly what MCFD loves to hear, because they suggest that if only there were "changes" and more money, and more staff, everything could be fixed, or begin to be fixed.
My husband and I are in the middle of helping a woman who has had her child apprehended at birth. Throughout the last eight months working on her case we have become all to aware of what can go on within the ministry. She did not get her day in court it went from she will never get her child back to instead of it going to trial they have agreed to give her child back after 3 months of following their terms this is nothing short of a miracle considering where we started and we can only thank God for such progress. I'll tell you though you need to be persistent and courageous and bold when you know that what you are fighting for is truth. Truth needs to be exposed when it has caused such damage to a family. After gathering a significant amount of evidence for her we have found many faults throughout... the whole process in her child's removal sadly it should not have occurred... these types of cases can show how there definitely needs to be some changes in our legislation that will prevent such situations to occur... We must be able to put trust in our government that what they set in place for the protection of ones human rights will be considered with the utmost fairness. We must be able to trust that our government will provide us this service as taxpayers in this country. Our heart goes out to all who have had to face such grief at the hands of whom we are to trust have our children's best interests in mind. We need to be able to trust that our government will show that they hold themselves accountable in order for us to trust in them.
ReplyDelete