It is Parent Coaching. Have you heard of anything like it in Canada?
This is an Australian service. It provides psychologist services to people who are involved with community Services or the Children's Court, the equivalent to our Ministry of Children and the accompanying provincial court. Typical clients are parents whose children have been removed from their care. This particular coaching office provides individual counselling to parents who are involved with the child protection services of their region. It is counselling that seeks to help parents create positive changes in their lives so they can continue parenting their children. Further, while the cost is at least $100 per 60 min. session, these can be covered by the Medicare program as part of the Mental Health Care Plan, when there has been a referral to Parent Coaching by a medical doctor. Medicare covers these costs.
What do you think about this? You have picked up that in order to engage in these services, a parent must divulge to a personal physician a convincing case of mental or emotional incapacity, must accept that this will be part of the medical record, must concede significant need for change, must want to develop parenting and coping skills.
Among the benefits that proponents of Parent Coaching espouse, is the provision to such parents of the ability to deal with feelings of stress, depression and anxiety; to focus on what's important – namely, the children; to understand the child protection and court systems and how to work with them; to learn what mistakes other parents make when working with child protection workers; to develop skills to better work with one's caseworker to achieve goals; to learn new parenting skills to better manage children's behaviour.
There is even a Parent-coaching Institute offering a one-year, graduate-level, distance-learning Parent Coach Certification training program in collaboration with Seattle Pacific University's Department of Education.
1. Terry Carson works out of Toronto with her The Parenting Coach.
She can be reached at terrytheparentingcoach@theparentingcoach.ca
2. Parent Coaching is also offered by Linda Aber out of her Tactics Resource Services in Montreal
3. Proactive Parent Coaching comes from Nova Scotia offered by Greg Bland as a means to assist parents in capturing the heart of their children. Reach him at greg@proactiveparenting.ca4. Dulcie Gretton, is a certified Parent Coach with a website called Renewed Parent. Her services are $100 per session and she recommends 8-12 sessions but there is no location information. A phone number is on the website.
5. Christine Kutzner Counselling offers family and parent-coaching in Vancouver
You can reach her at... Email: Christine@ckcounsellingservices.com
Phone: 604-339-5774
Office: #210-1940 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver
Like all English speaking nations, Australia and New Zealand have the same problem created by the "child protection" industry. It derives from the same model and the same wrong principle and philosophy. Browse
ReplyDeletehttp://www.panic.org.nz/index2.htm
and see what similar problems they have.
One major breed of special interest, the psychotherapy industry, has not come into play in the Bayne's case because they are deemed hopeless by the Ministry from the day they went public on Global TV. Note that psychologists (usually Psychology Ph.D. holders) are not psychiatrists (medical practitioners specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness). By and large, the former is a practice of junk science based on fallacy of assumptions, selective and unverified information.
The following video give a good description of what role this special interest plays in the "child protection" scam and what damage they can inflict on families and children.
http://www.youtube.com/v/Vh7mvDV-1MY
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaIMq_ZcO70
(the speaker considered them the most dangerous)
This is not a fascinating service but another sugar-coated poison.
I hope that someone else will respond to this early morning Anon Vancouver writer, (1:30 AM). You see I invite opinion. I like to engage differing interpretations so I can view all sides before making up m mind. I am sure there is money in this professional discipline too, but here is my problem with the comment above. I have not got the patience or the time to deal with the categorical nature of comments such as psychology is “junk science based on fallacy of assumptions.” There is no where for me to go in substantive interaction when immoderate statements can be thrown out as the next response. I will look at the video links and may or may not have something to say after they enlighten me. I THINK WHAT I WAS SEEKING TO SAY IS THAT THERE ARE PARENTS WHO CAN LEARN AND SHOULD LEARN AND IN THE LEARNING MIGHT ACQUIRE SKILLS THAT CONVINCE THE AUTHORITIES WITH THE POWER OVER THE CHILDREN PRESENTLY, TO RETURN THEM. IN ADDITION, SOME OF THE COACHING INFORMS THE PARENT HOW TO DEAL WITH MINISTRY PERSONNEL AND SOME OF THAT ADVICE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE EFFECTIVE WHEREAS DIATRIBE AND ANIMOSITY ARE NOT WORKING.
ReplyDeleteRon above said:
ReplyDelete"I THINK WHAT I WAS SEEKING TO SAY IS THAT THERE ARE PARENTS WHO CAN LEARN AND SHOULD LEARN AND IN THE LEARNING MIGHT ACQUIRE SKILLS THAT CONVINCE THE AUTHORITIES WITH THE POWER OVER THE CHILDREN PRESENTLY, TO RETURN THEM."
From what I've seen, the authorities don't want to be convinced, they just want to keep their jobs and keep taking children from parents, and putting those children into the system.
Once we let government into our homes, to decide what is a good parent or not a good parent, I think we are in trouble. Forty years or so ago, Trudeau said government doesn't belong in the bedrooms of the nation. I don't think they belong in the homes either. Government has proven itself, time and again, to be corrupt, incompetent, and worse. And it is getting worse all the time. Look at all the money they just wasted - over a BILLION dollars - on the G8. How much of that could have been used to help families who really, really need help.
The real problem isn't bad parenting, it's bad government.
11:25 AM
ReplyDeleteA lot of people will agree with you about bad, maybe even "corrupt, incompetent" government as you say, and I am coming close to the same cynical view. The G8 $ONE billion is a demonstration of how easy it is to spend money when it is not your own. Translink in BC's lower mainland is another exmaple - now there is talk on a levy on each vehicle plying the roads for which we are taxed several different ways already. The MCFD spends money as readily - a court case such as the one aimed at taking away the Bayne children permanently and three years of foster care for three children is a further illustration.
Thank you so much for sharing information about the Parent Coach Certification® one-year, graduate-level training program through the Parent Coaching Institute and Seattle Pacific University. Our innovative, unique, and highly successful parent coaching model is an outstanding tool for family support professionals. This parent coach training is available to professionals with an under-graduate degree through a distance learning model. You can contact Dulcie Gretton who is a PCI Certified Parent Coach® to learn what she thought about the program or contact me and I can get you in touch with others in Canada who are obtaining Parent Coach Certification®, a registered trademark of the Parent Coaching Institute www.thepci.org Thanks again for letting folks now about parent coaching! Parent coaching is such a compassionate and effective way to help parents on their sacred journey!
ReplyDeleteGloria DeGaetano, Founder and CEO, Parent Coaching Institute
Your welcome Gloria. Thank you for writing.
ReplyDeleteWell anon Sept 24 at 3.25, I think you have just proved my point. You are obviously a typical armchair critic who has never had to face the same responsiblities that I have often experienced. "Don't bother me with the facts once my mind is made up." In order to simplify it, I will give you two possible scenarios that could present the same picture.
ReplyDeleteThe first scenario is about a very macho and strong willed young boy who is constantly out on his bike.He loves to go to the skateboard and BMX park and watch the older boys doing their stunts.He tries to copy them and he has seriously hurt himself a few times. Sometimes he goes there without putting on his pads and helmet, which drives his parents to distraction. He hates restraints and throws tantrums when he does not get his own way. They call him in for bedtime and he runs away and hides. If he is found he says he parents beat him. One day he breaks his arm in a fall and claims his father hit him with a rake handle. At the hospital, X-rays show muliple old fractures and the doctor calls in child protection. The boy repeats his story and is taken into care.
Scenario 2. Little Ronnie's mum has a foul temper and she also is a compulsive cleaner. Ever since he can remember she throws him in the bath tub two or three times a day and scrubs him. She wallops him if he struggles. If he gets dirty while playing, she goes ballistic.Now and then she flies into a temper and will hit him with anything that comes to hand. Brooms mops, wooden spoons. Her husband is meek and looks the other way. One day she is gardening and Ronnie gets dirt on himself so she whacks him with a rake handle. His arm is broken and he runs away. He goes down the road to the home of a chum and tells them that he is afraid to go home because his mum hurt him with a rake. They take him to the hospital and the doctors find numerous old injuries on X-ray. The social services are called in and take Ronnie into care.
You are the child protection worker in each case, so what would you do? I could leave you on the hook trying to figure out the different approach for each case, but I will spare you. If you would approach each case differently, you are dead wrong. First of all you make no assumptions and you go only on the known facts.The known facts are more or less the same in each case. You have a six year old boy with a broken arm and a hospital staff reporting several old injuries of a fairly serious nature. You have a boy who states that a parent injured him. You have quite good evidence of probable risk of future harm to the child. You put him into a safe place until a more thorough assessment can be made. You do a family profile, you interview relatives and references.In the first instance you will soon learn that he is a reckless boy who is often seen in the skate park. You will have good alternative explanations for the injuries and the foster parent will tell you that the boy is hard to handle etc etc. In the second case you will find a totally different profile. The important thing is that in the beginning you have no way of really knowing the truth, so you err on the side of caution. You cannot afford comforting platitudes such as kids tell lies, or kids never tell lies. Or kids only tell lies if they are brainwashed. Well anon, even if you do not get the picture I am sure others will find some interest here.
Maybe, considering how dangerous foster care has proven to be, it would be "erring on the side of caution" to NOT place a child in foster care.
ReplyDeleteAnd it definately is dangerous to take a child from their family and all they know and love. I don't buy for a minute the notion that apprehensions or removals (or whatever Orwellian term is being used now to describe the ripping of a child by force from his blood relatives and all he or she knows) are not harmful.
You seem to suggest I am an "armchair critic" since I am not a child protection worker, and therefore - as you seem to indicate - not protecting children. I probably could not be classified as a child protector per se, but I do seek to protect the rights - parental rights, legal rights and democratic rights - that protect children.
Parent Coaching is a wonderful idea, Just wishing we had such a thing here in Canada and then the Baynes could be enrolled right away!
ReplyDeleteThe Baynes don't need "parent coaching." They need their children returned, asap.
ReplyDeleteFoster care is not "a safe place."
ReplyDeleteRay Ferris @ September 25, 2010 5:42 PM:
ReplyDeleteWhat is this "safe place" you refer to in your hypothetical(?) scenarios (re: the boy with the injuries) outlined above?
If I am not mistaken, parent coaching is already actively practiced in B.C., it is just labelled differently. One such example is Project Parent.
ReplyDeleteSee:
http://www.fsgv.ca/programpages/intensivefamilyparentingsupport/projectparent/projectparentburnaby.html
or
http://www.pacificcentrefamilyservices.org/programs/project-parent
There are contracted agencies MCFD uses. Parents cannot approach the agency directly and proactively ask for the course to speed the return of your children, I tried. Counsellors for this course in BC this have to have a Masters degree or be grandfathered in.
There is a 6-month minimum session, renewable to a year. There are 1-hour weekly sessions with the parent to begin with, then the person comes to the home with the parents and children are (by this time supervision is dropped).
As a side note, MCFD CAN NOT return and avoid a protection trial unless such a course that addresses "concerns" is completed. Parents can reverse a CCO if they take such courses.
The catch is, if MCFD intends on a CCO but have not yet served the parents with their intent, they will simply not offer the course.
Supposedly this is MCFD's CFCSA mandate to offer such remedial services, but they don't do it, because it undermines their primary objective to keep children in care for as long as possible, if not permanently.
10:49 PM ANON
ReplyDeleteThanks for the two links provided.
The second one Pacific Centre Family Services revealed that Project Parent, with regret is announcing that this program is no longer accepting referrals and is closing effective September 30th 2010.
The first link to Project Parent in Burnaby reveals that there are no fees for this program and that Funding for these programs is provided by the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
ReplyDeleteIt is immoral to make one's living off the destruction of families. This is true whether the occupation is one of lawyer, therapist, counselor, judge, social worker, or whatever. It is just wrong. It would be far better to be a bag lady, scraping bottles out of the gutter. Every year, the world seems to be getting more people who will do anything for money. I pity their souls, and they will no doubt regret their actions, if only on their dying day.
ReplyDelete