Saturday, October 9, 2010

DO ANOMALIES EXIST / Part 333 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Concurrent with the debated specifics that have involved the Ministry of Children's Child Protection arm in the lives of the Bayne family, the Bayne children and their parents are at the heart of a Ministry in B.C. where the philosophical and ideological positions that affect policy and practice in child welfare are in recurring conflict. For instance, there is dissonance between policy-makers who prefer furnishing assistance to families versus those who assert that protecting children is the priority of child welfare. Advocates for the family support position view our society as one in which social and support services and programs should be a universal provision available to all families and not only families tagged for neglect and abuse of children. Proponents of the protection priority claim that most families generally fare well and are not in need of government funded support services such as daycare, financial aid or parenting skill development so government resources should be directed to those parents, children and families where difficulties are apparent and acknowledged. It is certainly less expensive than the former option, although it can further marginalize the recipients by making them feel helpless, stigmatized, vulnerable.

Presently, our B.C. child welfare program is dominated by the commitment to saving a child from abusive and negligent parents. Besides interventions and removals of children, little big picture attention is being paid it seems to the reality that parents without adequate resources to care for their children are those in which neglect and abuse occur. So a valid question is why will our government not invest millions of dollars to holding families together rather than abandoning that altruistic measure in favour of funding the millions of dollars required to operate a care industry.

Of course the Bayne case does not relate directly to this discussion even though Ministry lawyer Finn Jensen inferred that it did. He made a point of identifying the timing of the baby's injuries with the father's unemployment, and further in the pursuit of this Continuing Care Order, reasoned before the court that the modest income from the Baynes' custodial work would place them at risk if the children were returned.

What is overlooked is the anomaly inherent in the Bayne scenario. A child was injured. The parents say neither of them would or did willfully harm the child. The only explanation they can offer is that it was accidental. Another of their children fell on the infant. Some medical professionals insist the severity of the girl's injuries is consistent only with abuse rather than accident. In their view there are no anomalies, no alternative explanations, no need for second opinions. Other medical professionals defend the viability of the accident account. They resist this paradigm of easy automatic blame attachment based on certain medical findings. They provide an array of medical and scientific expertise that take into account numerous medical and historical factors which in concert with an impact incident are consistent with the medical findings. How difficult is the task of parents like the Baynes to prove their innocence and authenticate that this tragic occurrence was unusual, unique, strange, an incongruity, an inconsistency if you will! My point with the preceding introductory statements is to say that there is little sympathy for the Baynes within the regional division of the MCFD in which the Baynes find themselves because this is an enterprise committed to the child protection paradigm first and foremost and anomalies are unknown.

5 comments:

  1. A government that can give you everything, can also take everything away. The more we expect from government, or demand from government, the more we have to expect that government will be able to take away from us. The only way to curb government power is to curb government.

    We cannot make government large and powerful and then expect that it will somehow be benevolent. This has never happened, and never will happen. We become closer to a nanny state with each passing year, and the end result of a nanny state is that the children belong to the state, and parents have no rights.

    In fact, if this tyranny isn't stopped - there will come a day when we are just breeders and the state takes the children - at birth - and we are expected to pay for their "care."

    We've allowed it to get this far, so don't scoof at my prediction:

    http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4c1ce9f8-dff6-4881-93d2-a645654317ca

    (Keep in mind when you read this awful story above that the "IQ" tests were probably done by MCFD, and given their corrupt ways, are probably meaningless. If you must judge the mother, do this: Read her words, notice the level of grammar and vocabulary; you will see that she certainly doesn't sound as mentally handicapped as MCFD would make her out to be.

    At any rate, why does the government get to decide who is smart enough to keep their children? This is worse than sterilizing those who are mentally handicapped).

    -----------------------------

    "The routine always has been the same -- shortly after delivery, once Barbara is cleaned up and had a moment of rest, a social worker arrives, flips her a card, declares the child is being apprehended and leaves with the baby.

    Her sense of impending dread in the final days of this latest pregnancy was palpable.

    "It is horrific," the auburn-haired woman said. "All the labour, carrying and delivering a baby, and then they rip it from your arms. It's cruel. They take the baby to the special care nursery and I'm discharged later the same day."

    ReplyDelete
  2. There will be a media firestorm if these children aren't given back. And the judge will be exposed to the kind of publicity no judge wants to be exposed to. No honest and fair judge could do anything but give these children back to their parents. Child protection critics all over the world are waiting to see what happens, so the publicity won't just be provincial or national, but worldwide.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Every parent who has a child that has had an accident or will have an accident or is undiagnosed or misdiagnosed needs to be very, very concerned about what happens here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The judge has no escape from what I see. Not returning will result in further public mistrust of MCFD, and there is a risk his appointment as a chief justice could be construed as a patronage gift designed to obtain such a ruling.

    The reverse, returning the children unconditionally, opens up MCFD to a lawsuit. Other parents will be able to use the Baynes example to follow to get their kids back. Doctor Colbourne will be less effective in the future for SBS diagnosis. The government paying Judge Crabtree might not react well to such a an ouright return.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a very bad situation and it is hard to believe how strange the MCFD is. And the people who work for it believe in it. I can see they are nice young people fresh out of school, then later older and have done more to families. I see them as I am involved and I wonder how? why? Are they human? Why do they so readily take people's children? I could see by my file that one SW was trying hard to minimize the damage of the system and to write less and more realistically about my family, another was doing her best to write all kinds of stuff that is not true at all, then the rest who follow have to back up the 'findings'. Then once they have done so much with taking the children away and all the court, they have to find a reason why they did all that. There is no point in the system where a SW can say, 'I think we made a mistake here. Let's walk away and let this family get back to being a family.' Instead they have to justify the damage they already did , even if it means going further and further away from what makes any sense. It is not for the best interests of the child, it is all for the best interests of CPS. I pray this whole agency will fall some day. I have suffered too from them. I am sorry for all the suffering they cause. My prayers with all the families affected and with the Bayne's.

    ReplyDelete

I encourage your comments using this filter.
1. Write politely with a sincere statement, valid question, justifiable comment.
2. Engage with the blog post or a previous comment whether you agree or disagree.
3. Avoid hate, profanity, name calling, character attack, slander and threats, particularly when using specific names.
4. Do not advertise