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| Build a Better Future - Reform MCFD |
While government care most certainly is a safer place for some children than leaving them in their homes that is most certainly not true of the majority of removals. I am not going to back these remarks with footnoted references. Avid students can look up details as well as I can. My reading however leaders me to these conclusions. When the government is the sole guardian of children, the children's health is substantially worse than the health of children not in care. Childhood health concerns are common among children whether in or out of care but the rates of health issues for those in care is 1.2 to 1.4 times greater than those of the general population children. More alarmingly, 65 percent of children in continuing care suffer from mental disorders and that is where this Ministry of Children want to keep three Bayne children. Who can't see the connection here? That percentage is four times greater than that of children and youth in the general population. There are higher rates of both intentional and unintentional injuries for children in care and higher death rates as well.
I harvested some of these observations from a UBC publication. While published in 2007, if you want a comprehensive resource, access the “People, Politics, and Child Welfare in British Columbia.” Scroll to the index to select data.
Ron; It was the Hughes report and not the Gove report that came between Hagen and Christensen. Gove came during the time of Glen Clarke's NDP government.Minister was JOy McPhail.
ReplyDeleteNext week I would like to write to try to throw some perspective on why foster children appear to under-achieve, as well as why social workers should take more interest in the law.
Don't think that you are not affected if you don't have kid or your children are over 19. You are still a victim of state-sponsored child removal by paying higher taxes to support the lifestyle of special interests and to deal with the aftermath they create. You and your family will also have to live in a more dangerous society with higher crime rate and a larger potential of social unrest.
ReplyDeleteThere are enough evidence to conclude that the world will be better and safer without the "child protection" industry. The only way to eliminate this institutional risk to children is by revoking child removal authority allowed in CFCSA. There are other statutes that give authorities the power to separate children and real abusive parents based on due process of law and good evidence. This will not compromise real child protection effort.
Ray, thanks for the correction - done!
ReplyDeleteThe PDF looks like a fragment of a whole book. It goes up to 33 pages, but the table of contents shows the last page, the index appearing on page 279.
ReplyDeleteThe document would appear to have a very good historical background of child welfare, including extensive commentary on the residential schools problem. I had no idea these school were started so long ago, in the late 1800's and survived for so long.
I see also MCFD helped to fund the book. I would gather the focus on the ails of the 'old' MCFD would allow readers to see the 'new' MCFD as a big improvement.
When my children were taken, the problems that concerned the ministry were easily corrected (lack of proper housing in one of the most expensive cities in the world). But they did not want a solution, they wanted maximum stress and trouble and hardship for the kids, and maximum money for themselves. IT is an industry, no doubt about it. It is not a regular bunch of services as they are only needed by couples fighting or by MCFD, it is a bunch of people trying to insert themselves into a family and get a paycheque.
ReplyDeleteI watched a movie called "Babies" which showed babies under age 1 from various areas of the world.
ReplyDeleteIn Africa, obviously healthy happy babies with loving parents were shown covered in flies, diaperless, crawling on dirt, one baby even having a goat drink out of bathwater while the baby was still in the pot. Any child in this country found in such an environment would be immediately removed.
I met a mom this weekend, who, over the course of past 20 years had each of her three children removed from her care and adopted out.
She let me read her report to court, which seemed very benign to me, certainly there was no physical danger to her child indicated. The social worker clearly thought the child was better off with smarter and more capable parents. The foster parents in possession of the child wanted to adopt, even as the birth mom continued visitations before a CCO was pronounced, and the adoption eventually succeeded.
This mom was deemed below average intelligence, someone easily taken advantage of if someone had a mind to. The foster parents apparently had this mind to take advantage of this mom. She had completed about a dozen parenting courses, she showed me the certificates. She appealed her last CCO ruling representing herself, but lost.
She claimed her common law husband became despondent after losing the last child and committed suicide because of depression due in part to MCFD involvement. Clearly, there was no mental health assistance provided for the fellow.
She still has the energy to tell others of her experience, to warn of what MCFD does to some people. I read a fragment of her psychologist assessment, who commented it was rare to see a parent as warmly attached to her child, and stated she just needed help with some of the mechanics and responsibilities of parenting. She was not a danger to her child, she was just not as smart or rich as other families, and welcomed help and was aware of her shortcomings.
Reading through the too-small 8-page ruling of her CCO, it made legal "sense" if you could call it that. By the criteria the judge worked under, the child was given to a loving family that were obviously more capable than the mom. This mom was initially given visitation rights after the last CCO loss, but after a couple of years, the adoptive parents got tired of her and had MCFD terminate those visits.
This mom is now older and wiser, but essentially her past is being held against her. She is no longer allowed to have children without expecting them to be taken away. She cannot be a grandparent. She lives single, her life summed up in the legal documents she let me read. However, she does have a voice, internet access, and knows how to make herself heard, and I am listening and relaying her story with her blessing.
No crime was committed. The mom wanted her child. MCFD certainly possessed the facility to help this mom be the best parent possible, however MCFD in their wisdom chose not to help.
This starts with a social worker deciding to be judge, jury and executioner by removing a child and parental rights in one swoop.
Perhaps Ray should re-suppose how he would accomplish his job he lost his unilateral ability to remove children and simultaneously terminate parental rights. If there was no other choice but to offer services to non-incarcerated parents who did not want to lose their parenting rights and there was absolutely no choice for MCFD to but to provide assistance, whether is be financial, education, free nanny's, how would he start?
There is not much question in my mind MCFD must be stopped. Not reformed, but stopped in their tracks. I mean stopped in the same sense that the residential schools ceased operating.
Parents and children are prey to MCFD, that's it. Children are disposable commodities to be shuffled about like cards. Like the previous commenter stated, MCFD simply wants a paycheque. The social workers I saw enjoy removing children and inflicting as much emotional and financial heartache as possible.
I agree; MCFD and all other child protection agencies should be abolished. They do far more harm than good.
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