 |
| Project Parent logo/ Family Services |
These few months are most certainly the proverbial last chance opportunity for the Baynes to convince the Ministry and perhaps ultimately the judge that they are fit to parent their four children. There is really little left to prove. They will be good parents to these children. They will protect them. They will feed and clothe and nurture them. They will not harm them. They are highly principled people. They deserve the chance. They should have a shot at freedom. Over a career, no let's suggest that over the course of one year, social workers deal with all types of people who have all kinds of life baggage that interferes with good parenting. When measured against many troubled folk, the Bayne capabilities are stellar. Don't bother talking to me about the probability of risk in association with them as parents any longer. Risk is attached to every care scenario any of you mention and commenters to this blog hurl statistical barbs at one another to prove this. Foster parents are offended. Ministry workers are offended. Supervisors are offended. Well readers, so are the Baynes offended. But they must be careful about how that is expressed lest it get written into the file. It's all weighted.
So this last chance is critical. The Baynes are sincerely participating in endless hours of classes, programs and testing to gain that opportunity at normalcy. Yet after all that has transpired is normalcy attainable? Nonetheless, Project Parent is an equipping vehicle for the possible decision to return children to parents.
There are no fees attached to this service because funding for this program is provided by Ministry of Children and Family Development. Access to the program at Project Parent Fraser South is by referral from the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The languages in which the service is provided depend upon the location of the specific program venue. In the case of the Project Parent Fraser South, these services are offered in English, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, and German.
The objectives of Project Parent are manifold. Among them is the provision of instruction, information, reinforcement, & support. Typically parents and possibly their children as well, will attend the program two times each week, for five hours per day. The principle is the establishment of a foundation of positive parent/child interaction in order to build a healthy family. There is much merit in a program like this for a substantial segment of our community. Everything will be applicable to the Baynes but perhaps not all of it relevant to their needs. Nevertheless, the program staff ostensibly does individualized assessments and treatment plans in conjunction with the parents. These treatment plans customarily are consistent with the goals of the risk assessment also required by the Ministry and in the Baynes' case, being done by Dr. Bowden.
If interested in following up information, you can make contact this way.
Project Parent Fraser South, 12 - 15355 102A Avenue, Surrey BC V3R 7K1
Phone: 604.586.2685; Fax: 604.583.0345
Email contact is here.
Project Parent Burnaby/New Westminster
Services are provided in home. Contact 604.525.9144 for more information
Pacific Family Services
B.C. Trustee warns kids at risk of abuse
ReplyDeleteNearly half children in care don't have a public guardian
By Kim Pemberton and Tracy Sherlock, Vancouver SunApril 25, 2011
Nearly half of all B.C. children in care do not have a public guardian looking out for their legal interests, says B.C.'s Public Guardian and Trustee Jay Chalke.
Given the disturbing number of reports of abuse among the children whose interests are represented, it is time for that to change, Chalke said.
As it stands, only children in continuing long-term care fall under Chalke's responsibility as Public Guardian, which includes going to court on behalf of kids in care and reviewing all critical incident reports submitted by the Ministry of Children and Family Development's protection service.
As of March 31, there were 5,455 children in permanent care in British Columbia, making up 58 per cent of the total children with care agreements in the province, Chalke said. The remaining 42 per cent of children in care have alternative long-term care agreements and do not fall under Chalke's jurisdiction.
Extended family members caring for a child whose biological parents are not able to do so is one example of an alternative long-term care agreement.
"Alternative care arrangements are becoming more common," Chalke said. "What's needed is law reform. We see the value of the work we do in terms of children in permanent long-term care. We want to make sure someone is looking out for the others."
All children in care deserve to have someone looking out for their legal interests, Chalke said.
Chalke said he made this same recommendation to government last year when he submitted his annual report into Child and Youth Guardianship Services but although some work has been done in this area, "it's fair to say the work needs to be accelerated."....
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Trustee+warns+kids+risk+abuse/4668900/story.html
All children in care do have the right to legal representation. Staying with extended family is not a legal agreement, and is a situation which requires the approval/agreement of the parents, and any child 12 or older (but in reality, are you going to put any kid with a family member they don't want to be with?). Chalke is just playing political games with these kids for his own best interests. It's election time, and he wants to keep his job.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that Chalke is just another pretend child protector, but the info is useful.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the BC Public Guardian article is actually worth posting, and may be of assistance to some who seek stats on children harmed while in government custody, as well as info re: lawsuits:
ReplyDelete"...In the past three years, the Public Guardian went to court on behalf of 90 children in continuing long-term care, winning settlements for them valued at $3,541,931. Last year, six children were each awarded court settlements worth over $100,000. Three were involved in motor vehicle accidents, two received settlements under Family Compensation after the death of a parent and one received a settlement from an estate.
Last year, Chalke's office received 585 critical incident reports, 331 alleging a child was harmed. In all cases in which children are found to have been hurt it is Chalke's role to look into whether it's possible to sue the person responsible to get a financial settlement for the affected children, he said.
Assaults accounted for 46 per cent of all the 2010 critical care incidents, with motor vehicle accidents accounting for 18 per cent of the incidents last year. There were 93 critical incident reports of children in care being physically abused in 2010, 113 in 2009 and 93 in 2008. Last year these included 51 reports of children in care being sexually abused, while 55 reports of sexual abuse were received in 2009 and there were 62 reports in 2008.
Last year, foster parents and unrelated caregivers made up 42 per cent of the people alleged to have harmed children in care.
"Every single one of the [critical care] reports we are reviewing to determine a potential civil action. The foster parents' cases get attention because we know who they are and where they are," Chalke said, noting that it was not always possible to identify the person alleged to have harmed a child.
In 2010, 86 children were the subject of two or more critical incident reports and, in one case, 15 critical incident reports were filed over a three-year period concerned a single child. The child was allegedly physically and sexually assaulted while in care and many of the reports were also concerning the child running away, Chalke said. The Public Guardian and Trustee office has opened a legal investigation into some of the reports."
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Trustee+warns+kids+risk+abuse/4668900/story.html#ixzz1KkvlEbfI