SOMEONE ANONYMOUS WROTE CRITICALLY

An Anonymous writer left a provocative comment some weeks ago on one of my posts entitled "QUESTIONS CHILD PROTECTION WORKERS SHOULD ASK THEM...". Within that paragraph were some thoughts and questions with which you may want to engage.

The writer asked a question concerning the work of child protection social workers with respect to removing children from their parental homes. “The one question I can ask is why are there more removals per year (minimum 1-year incarceration) than there are supervision orders (3-6 month expiry)?” That is an insightful question that might be met with the standard answer that time is of the essence in protecting a child and delay with legalities would jeopardize the child. Anticipating this platitude, the writer states, “The basic tenant of the CFCSA is '...no less disruptive action before removal...' Then why do workers jump immediately to removal before even considering services and supervision orders first?”

Such an interesting analogy is then drawn and points made. “Social workers are as generic and interchangeable as fast food employees, but far more dangerous. Imagine a burger-flipper deciding for the customer (a child) by viewing their physical appearance (too fat?) they change the order and deliver a healthy salad instead. This event would become a national news story and become viral on Youtube if it happened.”

The writer sounds like someone who is either interested enough in this subject to take some initiative or is involved with the Ministry for personal reasons. “I asked workers some of these questions. The generic answer is 'we do what we do to keep your children safe according to the CFCSA.' Under that umbrella, no matter WHAT they do, they consider is 'good' for the child. (Parent's, well, that is another story. They are essentially convicted perpetrators, no longer parents if social workers have been assigned to their case.)”

Then the writer draws a comparison between social work and school teaching with regard to ratio comparatives to children as well as the time that each professional spends with a child. “There is practically a 1:1 relationship to a removed child (and associated family members) and a social worker employee in B.C. (2,600 workers in B.C., and 3,000 children removed yearly). There are 3,300 foster homes. Social worker time is spent preparing for removal, or dealing with the aftermath of removal and preparing for court and arranging visitations. Once children are permanently in custody, or long periods of time elapse between court date, social worker interaction is very much reduced.  The teacher-child ratio is very much different case. There are 550,000 students in B.C. and 30,000 teachers. Yet, teachers spend at least 5 hours each weekday with students. Social workers interact no more than a few minutes a week with parent or child.

The question to these workers that I would be asking is, exactly what are they doing with their time if it is not spending that with the people they purport to serve? ”

Then the writer draws personal conclusions, one being explanatory and the last being understandably sardonic.

‘My thought is these workers DO ask themselves these questions continuously. They know the correct answer to provide, so the exercise of their employment is to somehow make it appear the duty they are charged with is so vitally important to our society, the annoying details of how they go about that task becomes a distant secondary consideration.

So, the silent answer to all these questions is, you had better shut up and let them do their jobs. That primary job is removing and "caring" for children at exorbitant cost to the public.’