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Ayn with some stuffed toys |
The MCFD employees that have taken her believe they have done something in the child’s best interest, but the action has simply created the most unnecessary and vicious wounds to a fragile mind and psyche.
Derek conscientiously had an eye on the door all of the time. His house is equipped with window and door locks beyond what is customary in our homes. Guarding against the wandering tendency may be the hardest part of raising an autistic child and Derek has two of them. The yard around the home is protected by a high fence but a ten year old autistic child can and will find a way to scale the barrier and Ayn did that. Autism groups refer to this tendency as ‘wandering’ or ‘elopement’ behaviour. It is the habit of fleeing a place at any moment. And of course the danger is real since wandering is the leading cause of death among children with autism. And drowning is most common among those related fatalities. And sure, Ayn was found in a neighbour’s yard with a pool, albeit a kiddy’s pool.
Yet notwithstanding the grave concern over such wandering behaviour, autism groups and parents of autistic children find it deplorable that authorities consider it a viable and beneficial response to a reported missing child, to take that child away from the parents when the parent is known in his community and peer group as a dedicated and conscientious father. That is the case for Derek. Coming on the pretense of inquiring the father's explanation for the 'wandering' incident but having a prepared custody release form in pocket having intended to remove the child regardless of the interaction may be official but it is more accurately appalling.
There must be a promotion of understanding about the wandering tendency of autism and do you know who should be spear-heading that – the Ministry of Children and Family Development. If MCFD wants to serve families and our communities and this province put your money and energy in services like that. Without that promotion, police, teachers and neighbours will continue to blame parents when the child is missing again. Doctors too have to upgrade their understanding rather than feed parents false hopes that the autism symptoms will markedly improve. It would be more helpful for doctors to know of support to which they can refer grieving parents who struggle to deal with the reality that their child is severely autistic.Yet in order for MCFD to comprehend the value of promoting this understanding about the 'wandering' bent of autistic children, the entire ministry must become educated. That is not difficult to do. The Internet itself provides social workers with a homeschooling opportunity and soon the entire ministry could be persuaded and a great deal more gracious to parents who lives are already sorely tested by their daily demands. What you have presently done, pretending to help by taking away Derek's responsibilities for Ayn, is to treat her like a machine or even an animal. And to have begun drugging this child three days after you took her is beyond descriptive words.
See this Facebook page, Help Bring little Autistic girl back to her daddy
Ayn's tendency to go off on her own (I don't know that I would term it "running away") is probably not the real reason MCFD took her away from all she knows and loves. I suspect this was only an excuse. The real reason is probably that they were just itching to get her away from her dad, whom they seem to have it in for, probably because he stands up for his rights, and probably because he doesn't want to pump Ayn full of toxic drugs that will dull her mind and destroy her health.
ReplyDeleteIf MCFD really cared about protecting children all the deaths while in care wouldn't have happened. MCFD just cares about expanding and exercising their power. That should be obvious by now. Sure, there may be a few who think they want to really protect children, but this sort of systemic corruption doesn't happen unless it's systemic.
Hello Ron. I do believe that the Baynes will get back their children eventually because, I do not really see any viable alternative and a CCO is definitely not sustainable.
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me that you are not going to be able to close your blog, as long as you have people like the Hoares needing advocates for their cases. I will bet that you never thought that your late career would be in helping child protection cases and doing battle with the aggressive bureaucracy that passes for child protection services in this province. I never dreamt that I would still be doing this in my eighties, when a former foster parent looked me up and asked for help over twenty years ago. Hey, it keeps me out of the pubs.
A word about autism. The term has been with us for many years and it has always had many theories. It has been very loosely interpreted. We have always been restricted to describing symptoms, because the cause is not really known, but there are strong suggestions of a genetic component. The label is applied to children with such a diverse range of symptoms that it is of limited use.
I know that it is not politically correct to use the term 'mental retardation' nowadays, but we have to bear in mind that a great many autistic children essentially fuinction in the same way as severely retarded children. What one can do depends very much on individual assessment, just as it does with different levels of retardation. Many retarded children can be trained. Here we differentiate between behaviour change and behaviour management. When we train people we seek to change their behaviours and make them able to be more responsible for themselves. When they cannot respond to training, all we can do is to manage, or to contain their behaviour. This is basically what we do to people who are dangerously mentally ill, or to chronic criminals.
As soon as we realise that an individual cannot be trained, but must always be managed we change our expectations and our planning becomes more realistic. It seems to me that Mr.Hoare was quite realistic and had taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that his home was secure. Parents of normal children cannot forsee every contingency and accidents can always happen. The reaction of the child welfare authorities is aggressive and excessive and is the norm in the Fraser region.
Of one thing I am certain. The ninistry of children and families seldom proves to be a good parent and often does a much worse job than the parents from whom they wrenched the children. I would not bet on Ayn having much of a future with the social workers and two things can almost be guaranteed. First the child will not get the love and care that she got at home. Second, it will cost a great deal more than resourcing the father.
Ron; this is another topic. I notice that many of your readers are devout and they pray for the people you try to help. I want to say a word about the power of prayer.
ReplyDeleteWill and Kate recently visited the people of Slave Lske Alberta and saw how the wildfires had devastated the area. In the middle of this ordeal, many of the residents prayed and prayed for rain. Well their prayers were answered and the rain came in deluges. It never stopped and flooded most of the people out.
God said to St. Peter "that's the last time I send Michael out on an assignment." Cheerio.
I would hope Derek fully explores the legal avenues at the same time as he is involved in raising public awareness.
ReplyDeleteI do not yet believe BC has the equivalent of "Samantha's Law" in dealing with services for special needs children who do NOT require "protection". Certainly this case falls into that category.
The legal route that Derek has yet to navigate is long, but cannot be avoided when MCFD refuses to withdraw. Which, of course, they can do at any time.
If MCFD is doing so much better at *any* aspect of this child's care, then they should simply return the child and provide any supplementary care. If foster homes get nanny's and the Ministry is saying the child is "too much" for Derek, then for god's sake, provide a qualified in-house caregiver!
What is WRONG with these individuals who are unilaterally making these decisions without prior investigation and professional recommendation? Get those recommendations, allow Derek to examine and get a second opinion and put forward any counter proposals.
These people simply must be stopped at removing children first and only after, perhaps, finding out this was not the correct thing to do.
MCFD represents stupidity, greed, reactionism, intimidation, incompetance, fraud, ineffectiveness. Lets investigate all the 2600 social workers to see if they are caring for the children to the same standard demanded of the parents, their clients.
There is dynamic that can be readily identified by other victims of MCFD that is utilized in order to successfully prey on children.
ReplyDeleteIf an MCFD operative just plain does not like you, they will indeed wait for, or initiate a sequence of events that allows them to gather enough information from several sources (police, schools, neighbors) justify a removal. A bug in in the ear of a teacher to report an incidents. A communication to a police office to 'express concern.' That's all it takes in a lot of cases. I see the ingredients in Derek's case as plain as day.
We cannot also discard the notion that children with special needs are a high-value cash cows for MCFD. After all, why remove three children when one child provides the equivalent financial drain on the taxpayer?
The Setup by MCFD can involves a combination of parental independance (which they term non-compliance and non-conformist), schools with individuals employed who dislike parents who possess greater skills than they in taking care of children, or who make unwelcome suggestions as to how handle the child.
Then there are the police who readily forward cases to MCFD. If is not the police or teachers feeding new child victims to MCFD, then the Health Ministry will do this. Each of these hands wash the other. MCFD plays each of them like making a mudpie and combines bits of information from multiple authorities to present a negative profile that courts will passively accept.
Then before you know it, MCFD swoops in and takes the children away from parents for an indeterminate time.
Sure, some individuals in any of these Ministries may get a huge kick out of exercising their power. They often assign other workers to share in the pleasure of witnessing the tormenting of parents and making them squirm further.
Social workers will further use the communications of outraged parents to further underscore the reasons the children should remain in care.
This is not just a theory or suspicion, this is feedback from parents that suspect that MCFD operates a well-oiled, firmly entrenched operation that keeps their children from them as long as absolutely possible.
That three-inch internal policy manual lays it all out in black and white from the few pages that I have seen. (Can some nice social worker please borrow this document overnight and copy it and publish an electronic version?)
Fight back with everything you have Derek, stay public so all of us can follow your case. Eventually, you will prevail as the Baynes have done. I just hope this ordeal will be short by comparison.
If you Google "Ministry of Children and Family" today, you'll get this very interesting article, which shows just what these child destroyers are up to, and the latest news (or the latest I've read) with respect to Ayn and Derek Hoare.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.care2.com/causes/what-happened-to-ayn-could-happen-to-any-autistic-child.html
MCFD, like every child protection agency anywhere in the world, fears one thing above all other: Publicity of their child and family destroying tactics.
The reason MCFD and all other child protection agencies hate publicity of their bad deeds is because they depend, crucially, on lies and deception in order to commit their horrific deeds. So, everyone, keep spreading the truth. Hopefully, one day, it will set free all the children who are held captive by these people who seem to have no heart.
Please be sure to read this article showing what a horrible nightmare little Ayn is going through. Keep sending letters to politicians and insist on a response and action (i.e., the return of Ayn to her father).