To the 1:23 PM Anonymous of October 13 who wrote asking whether MCFD would agree to a family member adopting one's child, please contact me at ron.unruh@twu.ca
Thursday, October 14, 2010
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Can this person ask their SW? Maybe a Family Group Conference would be in order? If they have family help re: adoption, they should have a relationship strong-enough to complete an FGC as well. ? Just a guess.
ReplyDeleteApologies, I don't have a specific answer to the question.
http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=family+group+conference+british+columbia
CW thanks for the link and the question that the writer can weigh for himself/herself. My reason for sending the request was because someone indicated to me that they might be able to provide some guidance to the Anonymous correspondent.
ReplyDeleteThe adoption idea sounds a bit simplistic and and quite possibly an ill-advised shortcut. If custody was signed over to another BEFORE the removal, I suspect the matter would be simplified. It is important to find out ALL the non-MCFD alternatives that might be available. MCFD loves shortcuts when they are involved in the process, so beware.
ReplyDeleteIn short, beware of FGC (Family Group Conference) because the prerequisite for participation is that you admit guilt, relinquish your privacy to all participants, you agree to have unproven "concerns"; allegations are discussed and expanded upon.
FGC's are also yet another avenue for participating social workers to conduct fishing expeditions.
(I declined an FGC, sufferred no ill effects and no claims of non-cooperation, and MCFD eventually withdrew. The Baynes participated in a FGC, got their boys returned for just one month, then MCFD claimed the mediation agreement was violated by the grandparnets allowing the boys' "privacy" to be compromised by their parents, and MCFD was able to escalate the protection concern level, disbarred the relative care option, and had the boys join Bethany in a CCO.)
Another idea would be to have the relative apply for custody in a BC Supreme Court, then join the Family Relations Act matter to the MCFD action and have the two issues heard together. This can have the same desired effect as an adoption, and is easier to later reverse. One side benefit is being able to move the case up to BC Supreme Court (MCFD hates this). Especially in Vancouver, dates for hearings of 5-10 days can be had in about a third the waiting time of Provincial courts in smaller courtrooms. Consult a lawyer. In my case, this solution was stumbled upon and it worked wonders.
The interpretation I make from this adoption suggestion is that once a relative does the adoption, the assumption by the parent is MCFD will exit the picture, and the adopting relative or friend will let the birth parent take care of the child without MCFD interference.
I gather the assumption by the parent would be that MCFD would never find out about this arrangement.
The reality is that MCFD would expect such a tactic, and would use a foster parent (the Act does not support spying so this is unofficial, and a privacy violation) to watch the parent, the social worker would enter a intake sourced from an anonymous "neighbor." This is exactly what happened to one parent I talked to.
MCFD would then remove the child from the adopting relative for neglect in allowing the child to be in the exclusive care of the parent of concern.
The end game of MCFD is to increase their odds of success in a distant protection trial, by driving up the number of intake reports to build an appearance of repeated child protection concerns. Quantity, not quality (or accuracy or truthfulness) is MCFD's watchword.
Building up the list of supposed crimes wears down the parent and also has the effect of convincing them to confess and agree to MCFD terms of return, such as lengthy supervision times, easily violated restrictions, and ongoing parenting or other counselling courses.
It would be advisable to consult a lawyer (preferably one with "QC" in their title) in addition to consulting an experienced parent advocate. There are estate issues and child maintenance considerations to be aware of with adoptions and custody transferrance.
9:10 PM
ReplyDeleteLet me examine your weighty comment.
Are there others who discredit the Family Group Conference and its value to parents?
Interesting advice you give about gaining time with Supreme Court as opposed to provincial.
Likely good of you to question whether MCFD actually exits the picture when the relative adopts the child and I wonder whether anyone can truly answer this one.
You make a series of valid observations and then lay down one of these...”The end game of MCFD is to increase their odds of success in a distant protection trial, by driving up the number of intake reports to build an appearance of repeated child protection concerns. Quantity, not quality (or accuracy or truthfulness) is MCFD's watchword.” Why do you do that? It is an unprovable and excessive statement.
What I do consider good advice is this, “It would be advisable to consult a lawyer (preferably one with "QC" in their title) in addition to consulting an experienced parent advocate. There are estate issues and child maintenance considerations to be aware of with adoptions and custody transferrance.”
The adoption issue is very complicated. Not impossible though. I did manage after a lengthy battle with MCFD and with a lawyer fought through the Family Relations Act for custody of my niece and won. Not because my lawyer was great and helped alot but because MCFD finally realized I was the best home for this child.
ReplyDeleteShe came into my care when I found her and took her from a crack house where her mother left her at 2 weeks of age. I called MCFD thinking they would help me keep her in my home and safe. Not so, their mandate as we all know is to return children to natural families when and if it is at all possible. After much back and forth between her birth mom (who actually did well for about a year) and myself she did then abandon her at a Daycare Center. She left no contact number, no way to find her. The child was then placed in my care as a restricted home. I then was starting training to become a foster parent because I realized at that point in my life it was something I was interested in. But as I was continuing my battle through the Family Relations Act I ended up having this child removed because I was causing conflict by trying to keep her away from her mother. MCFD saw it this way because they were trying to find, rehab, and replace the child with her mother. My opinion was to keep the child with me and safe due to the fact this mother had a long track record of having and abandoning her children (3 others) and the fact that my niece suffered from being hungry etc, Anyway the whole point is that adoption through the Ministry is possible but a long process as any adoption seems to be and it works well when the Social Workers and the prospective adoptive parent are on the same page. We eventually did end up on the same page, our SW finally decided he had given enough chances and saw the child thriving in our home and now our little girl is a happy healthy 10 year old!
I find it interesting to hear you write about the commitment of MCFD in this instance to reinstate child with biological mom - so different from what we have been hearing.
ReplyDeleteRon; Private and relative adoptions have always been legal in BC. The adoption act used to require that no adoption could be complete without a report from a designated child welfare official. This was a precaution to rule out obviouslyy unsuitable adoptions, where for instance the adopting parents were too old to raise a child to maturity, or too sick.
ReplyDeleteFirst Nations people often regarded children as belonging primarily to the extended family and so relative adoptions were common and the basis of their child welfare system.
Anon 6.46 gives good advice and there are a number of advantages in going to supreme court. To start with, supreme court judges deal with a lot of custody disputes under the divorce act and under the family relations act. Secondly supreme court judges have special powers under what is known as "parens patriae". This gives them a general guardianship duty towards all children. They become like a Big Daddy and they are not afraid to use their powers. Protection social workers have no special influence in supreme court.
One way that a private adoption can immediately gain a legal toehold is to file legal notice of intention to adopt. I caution that my information may be out of date. Once this notice is filed, the decision is usually a supreme court matter. It is usually important to have actual physical posession of a child before taking action. If an unfit parent leaves a child with a competent person, it is very hard for child protection staff to make a case of risk. The exception is when the unfit parent takes steps to take the child back. Action would usually be on the request of the caregivers.
You are puzzled why the ministry would come down like a ton of bricks on decent parents like the Baynes on one day and spend a ton of money "teaching penguins to fly", as one judge put it, on the next day. Remember that 30% of cases are over-investigated and 30% under-investigated. Harrass decent families and give all kinds of support to total losers. I think that the answer is that protection workers and especially directors have a great deal of difficulty in seeing the obvious. Parents with long addiction histories are poor bets for the future of a child. Yes of course, people quite often make complete recoveries from various addictions. This is usually only after years of ups and downs. You cannot put young children into deep freeze waiting for this to happen. Social workers like to bandy about the term "the balance of probabilities". It may make them sound knowledgeable and clever, but the truth is that few of them really understand what it means. It turns out to be a term like the best interests of the child, it means whatever is convenient for the director to mean. Assessing the balance of probablities requires experience, good judgement and wisdom. lIke most things it should depend on facts and not on wishful thinking.
Another B.C. case an irreversable adoption, where the mom, Lisa Arlin lost her child to a CCO and spent 8 years trying to undo it. Links to all the various judgments are included in the story.
ReplyDeleteI think the point in this case is that MCFD chose not to help her and focused on obtaining a CCO.
http://www.pa-pa.ca/Arlin.html
One thing that should be clear is MCFD does not operate in clear, predictable consistent manner. Examination of one case and attempting to apply this to another, does not always work.
ReplyDeleteThere are adoptions of healthy white babies where one reads of the costs of adoptions fall in the range of $30,000 to arrange.
Then we hear of the 'special needs' children that are initially taken care of by foster parents then later adopted, and MCFD continues to support the child and new family. This is the opposite of having to pay for an adoption, the recipient is being paid.
I would be helpful if the Anon 7:05 would reveal the exact span of time and financial arrangements, whether the child is deemed special needs, and is MCFD assisting with care. Also, does the mom get visitation access, was the CCO agreed upon or imposed?
The question should be, what if a parent is at some point a clear risk, but later, is able to address problems, even if this is outside a 2-year period, WITH the help of MCFD, why shouldn't they get their children back and get the same financial help of the foster parent?
It is easy to become confused: the crack mom is viewed as redeemable but there are multiple relapses, and eventually MCFD sees the light. In contrast, the Baynes and the above-named Lisa Arlin story are not deemed redeemable, and not even worthy of even being offered services. Another story of a mom facing a CCO proceeded to take her own courses through the Health Ministry rather than MCFD addressing MCFD's concerns as well as endlessly writing letters, which resulted in a position reversal and she how has her child returned. In my case, MCFD tried to keep one of my children in care permanently, and failed, but the duration of time in care was something less than two years.
The commonality between in these five very different cases is MCFD is involved for a number of years. In all cases the children involved are not in danger in the end, and it is a matter of opinion whether the children would have been equally safe if MCFD left them in the care of their parents and immediately provided those parents with the same help and finances as foster parents.
Again, if the primary function of child protection is NOT about maximizing taxpayer cash flow, and there exists better solutions, what IS the point of child removal and attempting to keep children from their parents permanently?
Ron 10:12 PM said:
ReplyDelete"You make a series of valid observations and then lay down one of these...”The end game of MCFD is to increase their odds of success in a distant protection trial, by driving up the number of intake reports to build an appearance of repeated child protection concerns. Quantity, not quality (or accuracy or truthfulness) is MCFD's watchword.” Why do you do that? It is an unprovable and excessive statement."
After all your posts and user comments, surely you jest. "Unprovable and excessive?"
You should be able to answer your own doubt on this point. Look at the banker boxes full of evidence for the Baynes: quantity or quality? The 4 weeks of trial, and 3-day summation by the MCFD lawyer, quantity or quality?
The last minute report to court and disclosures, wasting court time with irrelevant examination, or how about the thousands of pages of supervision reports, risk assessment, doctor opinions, social worker affidavits, a deliberate attempt to increase MCFD's odds of success. Is this a slanted process, or a fair, impartial treatment of citizens that inspires confidence in the system from others witnessing this process?
Look also at the line up of the Baynes intake reports as cited by Berhe starting with Baden's report, followed by the Hoffman report, the Colbourne report, the report of the birthday party removal of the boys, the subsequent risk assessment produced long afterwards.
Just reviewing the Baynes case, do you really think my statement is unprovable and excessive?
To back up my statement, just in my case, for each page of paper MCFD delivered to me, I produced 10-15 pages of affidavit material in response. All my interim hearings I got transcripts, including an entire FRA hearing recording my questioning of several social workers, (just that one transcript was 600 pages). So, these thousands of pages on file, the additional hundreds of pages of MCFD-supplied emails, doctor reports, psychologist reports, supervision reports, black book notes, hidden audio recording transcripts, this is what I call evidence.
MCFD arrived at trial with no evidence, no witnesses, refused early disclosure requests to produce any requested medical reports, in short, they intended from day 1 to remove my children, keep one if they could get away with it, then return them before a trial occurred and then withdraw.
Presumably, the ground work I did beforehand is why MCFD, on the first day of this multi-week protection trial, is why they decided to withdraw unconditionally. A social worker writing saying one thing, then being confronted with an audio transcript that proves they lied on the stand previously, by itself is grounds for impeachment and perjury. I suspect they did not want to go through that.
There was no way for me to prevent MCFD from withdrawing. These high priced MCFD lawyers stated that "concerns" were addressed with my "cooperation" and success of "services" as justifying the withdrawal.
Why would MCFD armed with two lawyers in B.C. Supreme Court with over 50 years combined experience back down before a self-represented parent, when they should have easily been able to squash me? It is because they were not on public display and they were not authorized to spend 4-6 weeks in trial to "win" a ridiculous 3-month custody extension (not a CCO or supervision order) filed two years earlier?
I've talked to a number of parents, and advocates for parents (one of whom helped me), and lawyers against MCFD speaking about the system, reading and sending countless emails and looking at websites and blogs, so I would rather suspect I can better validate my statement than you can dispute it.
All my kids are home and safe, and I will hope, immunized from further MCFD involvement.
To anonymous who posted on
ReplyDeleteOctober 15, 2010 12:49 PM
And asked this:
It would be helpful if the Anon 7:05 would reveal the exact span of time and financial arrangements, whether the child is deemed special needs, and is MCFD assisting with care. Also, does the mom get visitation access, was the CCO agreed upon or imposed?
The span of time was over a total of 4 years. From this child at the age of 2 weeks old and the final adoption papers being signed on her 4th birthday. We had wonderful adoption workers who made that day possible so we could forever remember her 4th birthday as being extra special. The day she became our Forever daughter.
There were no financial arrangements. When I became a restricted foster home I was paid by MCFD for this child but as soon as the adoption was finalized the payments stop. I had this child as only my niece with no government help from the age of 2 weeks until she was 9 months old. Mom had completed a 90 day rehab program during that time and the child was replaced with mom. I was very supportive to my sister in law during her recovery, I helped her apply for jobs, babysat, took her to appointments, to AA and to NA meetings, made sure she had enough food, diapers etc for the baby and she relapsed anyway and left the baby with me for 11 days before anyone heard from her. This resulted in another removal, and the child was placed with me. By then I was a restricted home and got paid the rate for that. Also during this time this child was removed from me, placed in another foster home for 4 days because I was applying for custody through the family relations act which to MCFD was causing a conflict. 4 months later baby was reunited with mom who got a job, a car, took some parenting classes, maintained her NA meetings for almost a year then relapsed leaving her then 2 year old at Daycare. She was then removed again and placed with me. Mom did not call me or any family, we pleaded through her street friends to get them to talk some sense into her, I walked the streets looking for her, even put up signs with her picture to no avail. I wanted her to get better, I wanted her to be able to raise her child. So did her social worker. Many many programs were available and organized for her to take and she just refused. she has a loving and caring and very forgiving family and still 10 years later chooses to be where she is. We even tried to force her into rehab which she promptly ran away from as soon as she was able.
No, this child doesnt have any special needs. She was born addicted, screamed her way through withdrawal in my arms, was a very fussy baby, a frustrated and confused toddler until she had the consistent life adoption made possible for her. Since then she has blossomed. The CCO was imposed and not agreed on for obvious reasons, mom didnt show up for court. So obviously there are no visits, however she does maintain contact with her birth father through letters, pictures and phone calls. MCFD doesnt support this child, shes our child and we support her as one of 6 of our children.
We were lucky, we had a great team of SW's who were supportive, answered questions, called meetings, gave info etc when we needed it. It was an emotional time, filled with ups and downs but we made it! I wish everyone in a situation like mine could have had the dedicated team to work with like we had!!
Anon, 1:37 PM To Jest or Not to Jest
ReplyDeleteI wasn't jesting when I asked the question. Perhaps if that statement had not stood out to me as independent from its larger context, I might not have interpreted it as a stretch, and exaggeration. I have reread it several times. I will leave it alone unchallenged. You supported your statement.
My story is at http://lukesarmy.com
ReplyDeleteWe should all do whatever we can, network and support each other. You will not get support from anywhere else.
The perplexing issue of why child protective services returns children to apparent abusers, or leaves them in what are clearly abusive situations, while at the same time, quickly taking children from good parents, seems impossible to fathom.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it should be noted that when a child is left in an abusive situation (such as, for example, Baby P was), although it may appear to be a disaster for child protective services, it actually helps their cause.
To support that claim, I provide the following:
"Child protection services risk being overwhelmed by a big increase in the number of at-risk children referred to social workers or removed from their families, according to the Association of Directors of Children's Services. It says rising workloads since the Baby Peter case and funding cuts are putting unsustainable pressures on budgets.
Its survey of local authorities, published today, reveals that the number of children referred to social workers owing to suspected neglect or abuse has increased by 52% in three years. It calls on ministers to ringfence funding for early intervention projects."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/30/child-protection-services-overwhelmed
The last line is the key:
"It (the Association of Directors of Children's Services) calls on ministers to ringfence funding for early intervention projects."
So, while a few heads may roll if child protective services leaves a child in an abusive situation, and that child is severely abused or dies, child protective services knows - from experience - that the resulting publicity will lead to more child protection reports and more funding for child protection. So, really, when the end result of leaving a child in an abusive situation is a good result (from child protection's point of view), why should they care?
This may seem singularly cynical, but anyone who has had any dealings with, or any knowledge of, this abominable agency or Ministry, can see that it is impossible to exaggerate the depth of corruption contained therein.
The Baby P Effect:
"The number of applications for children to be taken into care has increased dramatically as a result of what experts are calling the "Baby P effect". Legal care proceedings involving vulnerable children being brought to court have risen by nearly a third since details of the tragic case emerged."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/baby-p-effect-causes-sharp-rise-in-care-applications-1031221.html
October 15, 4:48 PM Hello T
ReplyDeleteKnowing your connection to the subject of this blog, I was pleased to read your own fuller story and experience. Thanks for taking the time to write.