Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A LITTLE BALANCE PLEASE / Part 392 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne


I know that many readers want me to castigate the Ministry of Children, all of its bureaucrats and all of its social workers and do this all of the time. That's the understandable mood when you feel wronged by an agency funded by your own tax dollars and worse, when you are actually experiencing the disruption of your family, your security, your happiness, your mental and emotional well-being and when your children are being subjected to turbulent changes far beyond your control. I understand that you want me to dedicate this forum to blasting what you perceive as 'the enemy.' So, I have to call for a little balance please.

I know that people embarking upon a career as a social worker do so for reasons other than monetary gain or power acquisition. The motivation is far more honourable than that. People get into social work because they desire to improve other people's lives. They may choose to work with children, youth, geriatric clients, psychiatric patients, families, parents or another one of the many concentrations. We are on this blog site because the subject matter has focused upon child protection social work, child removal, court issues and all of the associated heartaches and stresses. This particular blog has begun with one family's plight as its primary subject. While the Bayne family continues to be the recurring theme, their three year struggle has invited shared stories from countless other parents whose children have been removed from them for brief or extended periods of time. There have been wrenching tales of children removed forever from the biological parents. When many of the writers of comments are anonymous it is impossible to verify the stories. Nevertheless, there is a thread of identifiable veracity and a commonality of experiences that lead a reader to conclude that within the child protection arena, the early genuine, altruistic intention of social workers becomes bent or compromised by something. That's the reality with which we struggle. Why would social workers' reports contain skewed, exaggerated, unsubstantiated, untrue statements about parents or home situations? How could social workers allow themselves to act this way?

What unseen forces exist within the system that compel the worker to compromise the ideals with which the career began?

9 comments:

  1. Hi Ron:

    I am the Anon (December 7, 2010 4:39 PM) who you asked me to talk to you on December 7, 2010 5:09 PM.

    Let me clarify my position. Yes, I firmly believe in what you called naive that CFCSA should be killed with no replacement of any law than permits removals without good evidence, due process of law and subjective judgment of what amounts to child abuse. Are there any children that must be removed from their parents for their own safety? Yes, there are some but relatively very few, grossly insufficient to justify this huge bureaucracy. Other laws in place can take care of these rare birds much more effectively and cost efficiently.

    Furthermore, I also believe that child custody of one's birth children should be a charter right enshrined by the Constitution. Such right must be protected unless children are sexually abused or their life is endangered by their parents.

    Can this proposition materialize in the near future? No. But it will. Is my view realistic then? Absolutely. You must set your goals right at the onset and pursue them with determination. Without revoking undue child removal authority, you may advocate reform till kingdom come. They will smile at you and keep doing business as usual, creating more tragedies like the Bayne's case every week. Nothing meaningful could be accomplished.

    Like most people and some special interests who wrote in your blog before, you like balanced views and believe that this carries more truth or more persuasive. Balanced views will inevitably mitigate the seriousness of the crimes committed against families. They love it. Look, when they touch your children, they are at a de facto war against you. They are ruthlessly seeking to destroy you and your families under the pretext of "child protection". When at war, you go all the way. What they have committed are legalized crimes against humanity.

    Sound radical and totally nuts huh? If you speak against residential school 50 years ago, people will probably think that you are nuts and anti government too. Native kids are in the good hands of the church protected from their barbaric and abusive parents. How could this go wrong? Now we all know what residential schools are all about. It takes the government almost 50 years after the abolishment of this cultural assimilation institution to admit that it is a wrong policy and apologized on June 11, 2008. There are compelling reasons to believe that modern "child protection" is a disguised derivative of residential school hideously abusing child removal authority under the pretext of safety and protection.

    In this electronic era, I am hopeful that it won't take 50 years to correct this problem. The sooner people see the truth, the sooner this racket will collapse. People are working hard, taking enormous risks so that your grandchildren can see sunshine.

    You ask what unseen forces exist within the system that compel the worker to compromise the ideals with which the career began? It is simple, their pay cheque. By his own admission, your good friend Ferris said that he had chickened out when risking his livelihood to uphold justice. He got several mouths to feed at that time. I don't blame him. This explains why the presence of good service providers will not rectify the problem. Those who speak the truth will get fired. Revoking child removal is the only viable solution. Make no mistake about this.

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  2. Anon 2:08 PM Dec 8
    Thanks for the pensive piece you have sent. I will take my time to process what you are saying here.

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  3. Anon at December 8, 2010 2:08 PM:

    I agree with you wholeheartedly. I would just like to add that, as we have seen with the recent Wikileaks story, all it takes is one person, and an entire country, or countries, can be exposed, corruption and all. If someone ever got the inside scoop, in terms of internal documents, from child protection agencies, and if they did it en masse, as was done in the Wikileaks case, things could change overnight, in a monumental manner.

    The child protection industry depends, crucially, on secrecy. If they public really knew what they were up to - there would be hell to pay. The child protection industry knows this, and that is why they work overtime to keep the public conned and in the dark. But as the old saying goes, the truth will out. And when it does, watch out!

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  4. It's worth noting as well that Julian Assange, the creator of Wikileaks, has himself had some kind of beef with child protection (just google Assange and child protection) as a result of his separation / custody battle with his ex.

    Given the fact that this Julian Assange is a man who is brave enough to take on Scientologists (who have been termed the "mafia of religions" by a judge, and who are known for their extremely vicious means of retribution), and given the fact that Assange has control of Wikileaks, and a huge and powerful following, such as the group Anonymous, I would be very, very nervous if I was child protective services.

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  5. question are these poor people STILLwaiting to be reunited with their children?

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  6. I would hope you would be refering to RESTORING balance.

    You'll likely lose your readership if you demonstrate too much balance in any attempt to encourage MCFD and associates participation.

    If there are dozens of child protection social workers who do demonstrate ethics and balance, great. They can be left alone to do their jobs, these are not the people we are concerned about. We don't hear complaints about social workers from other sectors, such as Health or Education.

    It is these tin god freaks that need to be steamrolled flat chopped up and used for fertilizer for their high BS content. The few social workers and foster parents that do choose to put in words what they practice will be quickly shredded anyways.http://www.vcn.bc.ca/august10/politics

    With respect to the first comment, 2:08, take a look at Canadian incarceration statistics at:
    /facts_stats.html

    True child abuse where there is measurable damage and a matching criminal conviction of caregivers is but a tiny fraction of the many tens of thousands of children, most of whome are aboriginal.

    This shows there are more children that are in care than adults in prison. Crime rates across the board are decreasing, yet child removals are remaining steady.

    The other commenter making the wikileaks observation, I share his sentiment. What is needed is transcripts of team meetings of social workers.

    I say, give all social workers GPS-enabled cell phones and give me a proximity warning when they approach my children.

    People that deal with children on such an extensive level should be thouroughtly psychoanalized and given a lie detector to make sure their motives are indeed pure.

    That is the kind of balance I'm looking for.

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  7. Good Morning Anon 10:20 PM Dec 8, and Steveanddeedownhome 11:35 PM and Anon 12:03 AM December9 – I will respond to all three of you ….

    We can call ours KidiLeaks. This blog and others have occasionally aired a copy or a link to private communication between MCFD principals in the Bayne case. If an e-file of this information were obtained and dispatched to news agencies with some appropriate advance publicity it could cause a stir?

    Steveanddeedownhome, in asking about 'the poor people waiting' you are referring to Paul and Zabeth Bayne, the answer is yes. We now have five to seven weeks to wait for the Judge's ruling unless he surprises us with something earlier.

    Anon 12:03 AM Dec 9, you are an impassioned commenter who deserves a respectful response. I am sure that 'restoring balance' would be appropriate in the context of a post describing the disproportionate number of child removals and invasive intrusion by protection workers into free citizens' lives. I understand that believe me. My title needed to be understood in the following way. I am satisfied that this blog affords people a chance to vent with a string of adjectives and acid. That's like meeting in a support group where you can say what you want. It's a valid and good use of an internet site. Then, when we want to unite to actually do something about the situation and make a statement or a proposal to the press or to change-makers, my opinion still is that the venting dialogue must be wordsmithed to be received rather than to be immediately rejected. That's where the balance is required and balance does not mean thinning out what is true. The truth is so staggeringly awful that if it is stated boldly it doesn't require exaggerated tactics. For instance, you stated a truth that there are few complaints about social workers in other sectors but complaints are like a tsunami among protection workers. The 'exaggerated tactic' you use of referring to 'tin god freaks needing to be steam rolled flat, chopped up and used for fertilizer for their BS content' probably won't work. Get my point? And if it is supportable, you make a good point that “there are more children that are in care than adults in prison.” Further, you allude to the high rate of aboriginal children removed which should be cause for concern and explanation. The other stuff you say about balance being defined for you by GPS enabled phones that alert you to SWs in your vicinity or all Protection SWs needing to be psychoanalyzed and subjected to lie detector tests, doesn't make it in the public forum. It's fine here so get it off your chest, but if we truly mean to accomplish anything, the presentation has to be convincingly informed, factual, evidence-based, accurate and controlled. No parent sitting across the table from a Director and calling him or her a 'tin god freak to be chopped up' is going to get a child returned. And no group of concerned citizens seeking to bring change through abolition or rewrite of the CFCSA will be granted a meeting with the Press, or the Representative of YC, or a Ministry Committee or a Legislative Review Group if the proposal and the presentation team are not convincingly informed, factual, evidence-based, accurate and controlled.

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  8. Prison stats link from anon 12:03 should be:

    http://www.vcn.bc.ca/august10/politics/facts_stats.html

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  9. Hello Anon 2:08 PM December 8th

    As I interact with your statements, we know we have some common ground and now I have to determine whether I can agree with your proposed 'only way' solution.
    We agree …
    1. that in the general population it is necessary to remove very few children for reason of protection;
    2. fewer apprehensions would reduce caseloads and perhaps in time downsize the oversized bureaucracy;
    3. that existing laws can deal with abusers of children as they deal with abusers of women or anyone;
    4. child custody of birth children should be enshrined in our our charter of rights and forfeited only when abuse or endangerment is proven;
    5. we must aim higher to hit a distance target bulls-eye; (reform is distant; revocation is further);
    6. that there appears a similarity between child protection and the residential school horror when policy overrules common sense and compassion and human rights;

    I cannot accept ...
    1. that in cases of abuse, or serious suspicion of abuse, children should remain in custody of a parent who is allegedly responsible.
    2. that the bulls-eye must be complete revocation of child removal. (where do we place children who are in danger?)
    3. the view that as soon as MCFD becomes involved with children it is at war with parents and are across the board ruthlessly seeking to destroy families;
    4. that seeking a reasonable and balanced view of what MCFD tries to do and where it goes wrong results unquestionably with a trivializing of the gravity of negative action against parents;
    5. that advocating reform necessarily must come up empty;

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