"Last week I wrote a piece about the problem that a protection complaint laid with an allegation of shaking, or any other non-accidental (i.e. deliberate injury ) is tantamount to an accusation of having committed a crime and a finding by the judge of deliberate injury is as good as convicting someone of a crime without the protection of criminal court. A shaking baby accusation is always an allegation of criminal behaviour. Criminal court provides these protections. 1. Presumption of innocence. 2. Right to remain silent without prejudice. 3. Rules of evidence and laws of evidence. 4. Proof required beyond a reasonable doubt.
Readers added some very thoughtful debate about my piece and, as I understand it, the main concerns were as follows. The strict rules in criminal court mean that some guilty parties will get acquitted, because the proof may be difficult. The philosophy is that it is better that some villains should escape in order to ensure that no innocent people are convicted. This analogy was then extended to family court, by saying that the lower standards of proof in family court may be tough on some families like the Baynes, but if we did not have it this way some abusive parents would get away with it. The dilemma seems to be that if we protect the Baynes we let off the child abusers scot free. If we make sure we protect all children, then we persecute some families without good cause.
Is this an insoluble dilemma? Far from it. It is more like a hypothetical proposition and is not related to actual practice. It would be a good topic to find employment for all those policy analysts who beaver away in children’s ministry cubicles far from the madding crowd. Why do I say this? Good decision making has two main components. First one needs good information and as much relevant information as possible. Secondly, one needs to have the ability to analyze and evaluate that information and take appropriate action. The bigger the picture one can get, the easier it is to find the right course. How does this work out?
I mentioned once before that a former minister told me that 30% of child protection cases are over-investigated. At the same time 30% are under-investigated. When I first explored child protection on the web, I found this was confirmed. There were two types of horror story. There were those where cases of the most pitiful abuse and neglect were steadfastly ignored by child welfare authorities. Then there were many cases where families were relentlessly persecuted, with scant evidence and for flimsy reasons. For instance any whisper or rumour of child sexual abuse unleashed the child welfare pit-bulls, while when there was the most blatant evidence of neglect or abuse, the authorities looked the other way, or, as in British Columbia they would call in the agency for teaching penguins to fly and give them a long contract.
So the real problem is that the children's ministry keeps in step with the rest of the-English speaking world and manages to get it wrong 60% of the time. The argument was that we have to be strict with the good guys, so that the bad guys don’t get away with anything. We actually have the proof that the two are not related. Our authorities manage to persecute the good guys and let off the bad guys anyway. So where does that leave us? I suggest that what we really need to be doing is to reduce that thirty percent over-investigation and also the thirty percent under-investigation and increase the proportion where we get it right. Let us aim to get it down to 10% either way, so that we can get it right 80% of the time and double our achievements. We will never get it perfect and when we have reduced it to getting it wrong only 20% of the time, we should still strive to do better.
How can we do all this? I have written about it many times. We need to guarantee excellent training to all our social workers in child protection. We need to give them a good core training programme so that they know how to do the work on a professionally competent basis. When they go out confident in their skills they will stay longer and get constantly improve their skills. They will use individual assessment skills on cases and will not follow the silly trends we have seen in the past. They will know that you cannot do protection work like a bureaucratic functionary, as is expected today."
rtferris@telus.net
Please contact Derek Hoare directly at
Derek Hoare iconoclast_ensues@yahoo.co
I would agree that better training is needed. From what I have seen, I don't know if its incompetence and the inability to get the facts straight and put them in the right context, or if its outright maliciousness and a deliberate twisting of the facts to get a desired result that supports a preconceived prejudice. Either way it, it can be devestating on a family. But training is only one aspect.
ReplyDeleteThere does have to be that fundamental principle, that people are innocent until proven guilty, as a final safeguard against an incompetent or malicious investigation.
In addition to the training, I think the workers have to be given the flexibility to authorize a variety of resources or tools that can be called upon to provide real help to a family. As in the case with Derek and Ayn, a far better solution would have been to provide the in-home support if it was thought the parent was being overwhelmed by the responsibility, instead of the knee-jerk reaction of removing both Ayn and the responsibility.
I am definately not advocating for more resources, but instead a re-allocation of resources.
Buraucracies often direct funds to certain programs, and once allocated, it is often very difficult, if not imposible to transfer funds from one program to another. There needs to be more flexibility in the system.
The money that is currently being spent on fostercare, court battles, and, in Ayn's case, in institutions, could and should be easily re-directed to parental support programs, wether it be supplementing rent or food or transportation for those parents suffering from poverty (get rid of that reason for neglect) or providing medical at-home therapy and in-house support (cleaning, etc..) for those parents providing for disabled children.
Right now, I get the impression that the first and only choice that child protection workers seem to implement is removal. This needs to change to one that actually helps families heal and stay together. I believe society as a whole, would be stronger if we did just that.
"The philosophy is that it is better that some villains should escape in order to ensure that no innocent people are convicted. This analogy was then extended to family court, by saying that the lower standards of proof in family court may be tough on some families like the Baynes, but if we did not have it this way some abusive parents would get away with it."
ReplyDeleteWow, what a perversion of underlying logic of the presumption of innocence! Innocent children and parents can be sacrificd for the "greater good," which is (supposedly!) that MCFD will save some children. By the way, assuming this is all true, how - exactly how - is MCFD saving these children by the way???!! Look at what happens to them - they end up in institutions, drugged, raped, beaten, dead. Real good parenting, eh?
While the answer might seem to be better training, the question is what are the moral values that social workers are being trained in nowadays. You will probably be shocked, for example: "They are mainstreaming pedophilia" (http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=336741)
ReplyDeleteI agree with August 23, 2011 9:06 PM. This is not a question of training. It's a question of morality.
ReplyDelete