 |
| Dr. Clyde Hertzman, photo by Arlen Redekop, The Province |
Hertzman says that “the biological 'code' of success in life is built by all the sounds, sights, touches, thoughts and emotional interactions that children experience in their first few years.” Then consider the Bayne children as a mere sample of the impact that removal and fostering has had upon malleable fresh lives. Paul and Zabeth have tried as well as they can to deliver large doses of acceptance and affection in the time allotted to them over three years when these children had to process on their own the wrenching away from their home, the adjustment to new people, caregivers, the stress of sorting through loyalties and following instructions from a host of people and hearing their parents remonstrated by visitation supervisors if incomprehensible lines were crossed. Now they have been with foster families longer than they were with their biological family and how confusing might that be? Even social workers have prompted the parents to be sensitive in how they speak to their boys who may have possible lingering attachment to foster parents.
Cooper understood the HELP team to be saying that “If children don't get what they need during the crucial developmental "windows" before the age of five, they likely will never bounce back.” In an interview in his office at UBC, Hertzman is asked: Can it really be true that a life story is basically written before the age of five? Hertzman answered that “when things work out to begin with, it's way easier for kids to grow and develop. It's like leaky condos -- if it isn't built right from the beginning, it will be way harder and expensive to fix later on."
The baby girl that the Baynes or one of the Baynes have been accused of hurting to the point of endangering the life, is three years of age. What has she learned about life, about adults, about relationships, about trusting, about communication, about love? Hertzman in this article establishes that “From birth to the age of three in particular -- the 'densest time of development' -- the primitive areas of the brain that allow us to interact well with others are growing and coming together, much like the architectural foundation of a building..... children are reading the facial expressions of adults and forming visual connections with the deep emotional centres of the brain...parents basically have an 18-month window to gaze at, hold and cuddle children to help them build the right structures.”
This sampling does not do credit to the article and to Dr. Hertzman's views so I encourage you to read the article here. He was asked what parents can do and he cited these for the newspaper.
“FIVE THINGS PARENTS CAN DO
1. Early on in life, spend as much time as possible holding, touching, talking to your child.
2. Get in the habit of reading fun bedtime stories to your child. Make it a loving, emotional experience, and ask questions, too.
3. Provide as much time as possible for your child to play with other children and on their own.
4. If you need to use childcare, insist on high-quality care and environments.
5. Develop a support network with neighbours and friends to help solve your family's problems with work-life time challenges."
The Province should be embarrassed by this piece of pure drivel. Every point made is immediately followed by a qualifying statement. I sincerely hope that the actual research is better than this and the fault lies with substandard journalism. Point 4 says volumes. Is the editor at The Province on vacation?
ReplyDeleteWell CPE 1:26 AM,
ReplyDeleteWhat a curious categorical comment you have made. Does your drivel assessment apply to the entirety of pages 6,7,8 and 9 in the Province of Oct 18?
Or, is it specifically Cheryl Chan's journalism, or Sam Cooper's work about which the Province should be embarrassed?
Or is it simply the way I presented the few quotations and citings with application to the Baynes?
I let your comment stand but unless you clarify it, I am afraid that your 1:26 AM rant appears little more than drivel.
When you relay small details such as social workers having conversations with the parents advising them to be considerate of the children with respect to their relationship ties to the foster parents, you KNOW these social workers have specific knowledge of what helps and what does not help children.
ReplyDeleteWhat you won't hear is the sorts of conversations foster parents have with children to convince them they are a "forever family" and set about to deliberately confuse children as to where their loyalties should lie. This is deliberate and active disruption of these children's normal development with their parents.
Teachers and daycare workers don't manipulate children this way, while social workers partnered with foster parents and counsellors actively engage in this type of manipulation.
Social workers are specifically trained to know and understand this type of child development information. This Province story is an evening's reading for them. Social workers have to study reams of books on such subjects so they can earn their University degree.
This is why social workers are such effective weapons when used against parents and their children in child protection settings.
With respect to the Baynes case, by inference, the INTENT of the various social workers involved is to execute and maximize long term emotional damage to the children in the most critical phases of their lives, and intentionally disrupt the normal bonding process during this critical time of life.
If it does not end up with adoption, social workers are satisfied they have "left their mark" and smirk even as children are returned to their parents.
The idea is to REPLACE parents with those the government prefers and who they can better control.
If you look at removal statistics, the huge and vast bulk of removals focus on the 5 and under age range. pa-pa.ca had these stats somewhere listing the breakdown of removals by age, but I can't find it now.
The ministry does not respect children's rights that it ardently advocates [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Children_and_Family_Development_(British_Columbia)]. How do people reasonably expect this ministry to protect them and develop families?
ReplyDeleteWhile parents have few or no rights when scrutinized by MCFD, foster parents have managed to obtain 18 rights, most of which are not available to oppressed natural parents. I just learned from a blogger's comment in a newly established blog
http://papabc.blogspot.com/2010/10/myths-and-reality-1.html#comments
that provides a link to the web site of B.C. FEDERATION OF FOSTER PARENT ASSOCIATIONS at:
http://www.bcfosterparents.ca/
One of their 18 rights given by Mary Polak (this is a signed document) is the right to be provided with access to support service when placements are terminated to minimize the foster parent's feelings of disruption and grief. Most natural parents with children removed suffer disruption and grief 10 times greater than that of foster parents. Do they get any "service" to mitigate the harm?
10:29 AM Oct 21
ReplyDeleteGood links provided, and a perceptive demonstration of the disparity of service provision for foster and biological parents not to mention the disparate philosophical thinking about each kind of caregiver.
Child Development 2/2
ReplyDeleteThe definitions of these various high energy watch words are subjective. MCFD loves subjective. If a parent speaks harshly or in a loud tone of voice, this meets the MCFD's low threshold of psychological violence and chaos criteria. Enough anonymous reports establishes a "pattern" that can be actioned on.
Now, the general population knows that the Ministry of Child and Family DEVELOPMENT exists (emphasis on the word development, although most here would agree the better "D" word is Destruction).
The assumed knowledge is that MCFD helps families. This article interleaves with the services this agency provides because no other government ministry provides such remedial services.
Consider: MCFD has a program called "Counseling for children who witness abuse", and specifically mentioned in the CFCSA in part 2 Family Support Services and Agreements 5(2)(f) "services to support children who witness family violence".
These services that directly address substandard child development are ONLY available AFTER intervention, i.e. program delivery by force, whether it be the most common form of intervention, removal, or a supervision order which contains provisions that require participation in such services.
So, if you as a citizen see a child being spanked or spoken to harshly, the observer having recently read this story might have the impression that phoning MCFD would result in much needed help for the family, and they would thank you for your thoughtful consideration.
Again, I would be asking who funded the research ("Hertzman's team of 200 interdisciplinary researchers"), who is the primary recipient of this research, how parents are advised of this if they do not read the Province.
When you read the yellow-laden picture and see phrases such as "outcomes / goals ... for ALL children" somehow the objective of research is that the recommendations are that it is to be used on children. When defining children's rights, such long-winded supporting research is needed to justify such high-level definitions.
I get the distinct feeling that if it takes years and hundreds of researchers to obtain a bottom line conclusion of what children need, by comparison, parents would be generally painted as clueless and ignorant of the learning requirements and their potential. Parents would eventually be deemed unqualified by themselves to raise their own children.
Removals of children from 2002 to 2008 by age range.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pa-pa.ca/incentive.html
The median age for removal is 5 years and under.
With Apologies to Anon, writer of parts 1 and 2.
ReplyDeleteHere is Part One, which was inadvertently lost somewhere.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "BEFORE FIVE / Part 343 / For Love and For Justice ...":
Child Development 1/2
Every newspaper is divided into sections that contain items of interest, so that collectively, the widest audience possible is reached.
If you understand how newspapers work, they have to pick subjects and articles to fill up an assigned space, such as this "Life" section. What is useless to some is helpful pablum to others. A multi-part series on just one subject where all the raw material is readily available from a smiling researcher, is an easy low-effort way for a junior journalist to complete this task.
My kids are all past the appropriate age, and the article is not really news to me, as it validates what I know from experience.
However, the information read from a different perspective, that of a parent who has had children removed, I've taken a second look at the information with a more critical eye.
The byline reads:
"The biological 'code' of success is built by the experiences of a child's early years, and damage done during this time is very hard to reverse"
Pay particular attention to the last part of the sentence. What "damage" exactly, could the byline be referring to? Why did the article writer phrase this in exactly this manner? The vast majority of parents reading this article with a newborn would be appalled that anyone would dare hint they would be party to "damaging" their child. Is shouting at one's spouse or child a source of this long term damage?
Read further: "
HELP is one of the most diverse interdisciplinary research teams in the world
...encoding a worldwide charter of rights for young children"
First off, I would presume the target audience of this article series is parents who subscribe to the Province with children in the age range of 0 to 5 years. After all, what value would parents without children see in the article?
We, the target audience of this blog are largely made up of parents who have had encounters with child protection, have had children needlessly removed, and are familiar with the reasons for removal stated in a report to court or a risk assessment.
The targets of the Ministry is children under age 5 (there is a breakdown of removals by age range on pa-pa.ca) and this is where the bulk of removals an CCO's are. (I can't find the specific table at this moment.)
Perhaps it would be useful to look at this article from the lens of us who have experienced child protection.
Read this phrase and what does it make you think:
"But kids who see chaos plus violence, will be much more vigilant, looking around to see where the next blow will come from. They adapt to their environment, but they don't adapt for success in school."
Now, where does this come from?
Why are we suddenly talking about violence?
Who funded these studies?
What "next blow" exactly is referred to?
I'll tell you what it makes me think.
This particular slant embedded in the story sets a seed in the mind of the general population that if a child experiences ANY "chaos", "violence," "blows" even for a moment, these children are at long term risk.
In short, children generally, at some point in their lives, are at risk in the company of their parents. This group of people would be the new "black" of society the majority of citizens without children would need to keep a close eye on.
My son was quite frightened to even mention my name as I was considered a harm to him. I do agree that they intimidate the children when they are in care.
ReplyDeleteThere is a new movement to appear to give teenagers in care more rights, but it makes the SWs nervous, mine anyway!!!
I read the CFCSA this morning as I am preparing for court. Of course all the problems meant to be fixed were made worse. Gove wanted shorter times for court to take place so kids were not left in limbo and a less adversarial system. Well, we have SWs stretching court to the limit and using every stalling tactic known. And it is so adversarial that my SW is always throwing in odd comments to see if I will react and it might be a lead in her case against me. She never loses sight of me as her enemy!!! We can not have a normal discussion about how to meet my children's needs the best way without her focusing on legalities. MCFD is obsessed with the 'fight' against the parents and they are starting with the premise that the parents are not in the best interests of the child.
And as we know, it was changed to require suspicion of serious abuse to be reported to requiring teachers to report any child they think may be 'in need of protection'.
It is also a shift of 'burden of proof' In a court setting, whoever has to hold the weight of 'burden of proof' is in a weaker position. The parent must prove they are adequate rather than MCFD proving they are inadequate. It is already legally accepted they are inadequate once they have their child taken.
I saw it like fighting my way out of an underwater cave. I had to stay calm and not panic and make gradual progress to get to where I am so far which is a much better position than a year ago!!!
Today I want to tell you another foster home story. About 1960 I was district supervisor of Smithers and Burns Lake offices. Near Burns Lake We had a foster home.They were a nice couple turning sixty and they had a small holding at the lakeside. I forget now whether there were three of four children in the home, all from the same family. They came from a dreadful home in another district and had a very rough beginning in life. We only took kids from drastic situations in those days.They had been in the foster home for three years. They were very hard to handle at first, but under the kindly guidance of the foster home they had progressed well and we expected the home to grow them up.
ReplyDeleteThen a bombshell hit us. Some bright senior officials in Victoria got on the adoption at all costs band wagon. We would save a lot of money if we could get all those foster children out of foster homes and into adoption homes instead. They could only see dollar signs, without considering the many situations where it would make no sense at all. They were elated at having found an adoption home which would take all the children together. The prospective home were an older couple who had no children of their own. I knew full well that such adoptions had a high failure rate. I suggested that there were other children who needed the home far more than the kids in our home. We had a good plan for the children. They were bonded into the home and did not want to move. Although the foster parents were turning sixty they were hale and hearty and could raise the kids to adulthood. The oldest child-a girl-was by this time ten or twelve. Lots of grandparents of that age raise grandchildren.
I was a bit blindsided by all this, because normally Victoria left us strictly alone. They left us to run our own show and left us to sink or swim. I was not used to being overruled. I naturally thought that Victoria would respect my opinion and change their minds. Not a chance. I thought it was a terrible plan and I appealed to my boss for support. The director completely agreed with me and put in a strong protest, but he too was ignored. He said that there was little he could do without putting his job on the line. As he had four young children, he could not afford to do it. I had two young children and I too had little choice.
Eventually we hit on a proposal. I said that because adoption completion took a year, we would not use the lakeside foster home for another year and we would keep the home available in case the adoption did not succeed. We had to transfer the children's files to the other office, so we would not be able to monitor progress. I wrote to the receiving office and made them promise to let us know right away if the adoption failed and stressed this in the transfer summary. I did phone a few months later, but nobody would tell me anything, so I assumed all was well.
Fast forward 15 years or so. A young married woman came to see me with a request to become a foster mother. I was interested in her request and I asked her why she wanted to do this. I think she had her first baby with her. She told me that she and her siblings had been in care and they had been in such a wonderful foster home that she wanted to follow in their footsteps. When the conversation continued I began to realise that she was the oldest girl in the lakeside home. To my horror I learned that the adoption had failed after a few months and she and her sibs had been all placed in separate homes and moved more than once. We had been completely betrayed. How could I face her? I assured her that the director and I had fought as hard as we could to prevent the move and even if we had quit our jobs it would not have helped. She had no idea that she could have gone back to her wonderful foster home.
She told me that she tried hard to keep in touch with her younger siblings and had to fight to see them. When she grew up she kept in touch and provided them with a home.
Continued
Yesterday someone wanted to know why more social workers did not speak out. Well you can see I too chickened out back in 1960. What would you have done? I have spoken to some retired district supervisors over the last few years. They were decent, competent people. I suggested that they could write letters and try to do something, but I found them to be profoundly cynical. They simply believed that the top managers were impervious to change and it would be a waste of effort. Others said that they looked back on their careers in child welfare as so stressful that they could not bear to think about it any more. I can believe that. Most were thrown to the wolves with scant training and less support. I am retired, so the only thing that I put at risk now is my reputation. I try to be careful not to mar it.
ReplyDeleteI wrote above about the changes that have not been useful. I meant to say that it changed from only expecting teachers to report serious abuse to requiring them to report anything about a child who needs 'protection'. A vague term since that is subjective.
ReplyDeleteAnother change is that a parent can not phone in on a teacher. The only group of people who can be phoned on for suspected abuse are parents.
Ron,
ReplyDeleteI had originally tried to put up a much longer post but for some reason it would not publish. In my second post I went with brevity. My comments were directed at this article only and not about any other article, but since you commented I took the time to examine some other articles. http://www.theprovince.com/health/What+needs+done+Mary+Polak+Minister+Children+Family+Development/3526318/story.html
While this is not from today it is representative of the quality of the journalism in The Province. What masquerades as a news article is in fact lifted verbatim from a MCFD website. Just as you have called upon me to back up my comments, it is in fact all I require from others as well. All to often, like in the article you have quoted from, supposed facts are presented without any corroboration at all. Statements such as (Hertzman says that “the biological 'code' of success in life is built by all the sounds, sights, touches, thoughts and emotional interactions that children experience in their first few years.”) require references of some kind to be believed. Biological code? One cannot drop such a bombshell and then not back it up. I am not inflexible in my opinions. I don't even expect most people to live up to the same standard of proof that I hold myself to. By the same token, I am skeptical by nature. Thank you MCFD for teaching me to be like this. To find a competing opinion to Dr. Hertzman I didn't even have to leave The Province website.
http://www.theprovince.com/business/What+parents+government+help+kids/3703741/story.html
The key part to note here is KIMBERLY A. SCHONERT-REICHL
UBC associate professor and area co-ordinator for the Human Development, Learning and Culture program (HDLC)
Middle childhood -- the time between six and 12 years of age -- marks a distinct and critical period in human development.
She makes many points, but interestingly, she points out that social achievement can be more important than school achievement.
I see you revised point four from the original story, so that it makes more sense. This was supposed to be the job of the editor at The Province.
Was I ranting? I don't think so. But if I stated that "Monkeys fly out of my derrière.", I would expect to be challenged to provide proof.
CPExposed 11:27 PM
ReplyDeleteGood digging, good explanation, good job.
Yes, it did have the tone that MCFD is strictly an agent for the good. When it was mentioned how many children are in care,it was stated as if that means that the families are in crisis and need more 'help' from MCFD. As those of us who know have a critical eye on MCFD, it does not ring true.
ReplyDeleteI worked in the inner city with children for years. Strange that I would have such a big MCFD file at the same time. Obviously, it is not taken too seriously. I did after school care and they do not look into MCFD files on employees. (Also, what is my file for? There is no real issue, I do not have any criminal record, just many mean things written about my personality.)
I learned that there are many families with poverty, ESL, broken homes, poor housing, etc. But, it is not as if they all need 'protection'. These are actually very happy children, involved in the neighbourhood, with friends, interests and they will remember a good childhood.
I think that since MCFD must fill out papers and get continued funding, they continually write about how terrible everything is.
I don't agree with that. Most parents are doing a really good job.
If is is thought otherwise, agencies like the United Way that build community from the inside are the most helpful, not having the police yelling at the family and grabbing the kids and making the ESL parents go to court and go to 'classes' that are hard to understand.
*(No sarcasm intended here)*
ReplyDeleteCPE, I think you might find if you spoke with Dr. Hertzman he could give you all sorts of links, references, citations etc to support his statements.
Also, don't forget the newspaper is in the business to make money. They won't make any if people don't read. They won't read if articles are full of citations.
What you might also find is The Province simply doesn't have the space to document all of Dr. Hertzman's references in the article itself. Don't forget newspapers are in the business of making money. People won't read articles full of citations to support scientific statements - which means newspaper won't make money.
So the question then becomes, (1) Does Dr. Hertzman have supporting evidence for his claims and (2) did the Province ask him if he can provide references if/when called-upon?
http://blogs.ubc.ca/hertzman/ - pretty respectable and reputable company he is connected with. (No, I don't work with him, nor heard of him before yesterday).
Thanks CW,
ReplyDeleteActually CPE, that's what I was seeking to convey initially, that footnotes and corroborating material cannot and do not belong in a news rather than resource paper. As far as a paper is concerned Hertzman's statement is evidence enough.
Please forgive me. I neglected to delete the double comments of "in business to make money." Sincere apologies. I can see how that might be misconstrued as rudeness! (by stating it twice!) Truly, please ignore the second "money" comment. Only intended to state it once.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the Province article CPE posted (http://www.theprovince.com/health/What+needs+done+Mary+Polak+Minister+Children+Family+Development/3526318/story.html), it is merely a placeholder to advertise the website www.strongsafesupported.com
ReplyDeleteIf the Province occassionally need stories (search Hertzman on the Province to see the hits), you can certainly bet they will return the favour by posting the odd article for free, disguising it as a story rather than charging MCFD for placing an ad.
If you look at the section for getting more child care subsidy (presumably more than is already allowed), you will see the prerequisite is "must be in need of protection."
One comment in the Province story mentioned that poor parents simply have more kids to get more money so they don't have to work. Parents with kids over a certain age, just have more kids so at least one is young, so they will get to stay home and continue receiving welfare.
Another commenter mentioned "Mardi Gras Wednesdays" in reference parent spending their welfare cheque on anything else except their children. This would obviously be justification for removal of a poor family's children.
Many of you certainly cause me to rethink what I was reading in the Province.
ReplyDelete11:53 AM Anon
ReplyDeleteYour provided links have got my thoughts generating again.