GOOD FOSTER PARENTS WANT THEIR FOSTER CHILDREN TO HAVE RIGHTS

"The bare facts of the case are quite enough to convince me that the director has shown very bad judgement in your case. It is the old story. The director is so scared that something unexpected might come up and bite him or her that there is an overreaction to every situation. "

JUNE 2011 - MY FIRST ARTICLE ABOUT AYN

This is archived piece that I wrote shortly after Ayn Van Dyk was removed from her father in June 2011. There were 1000 hits to this post back then. She is still in foster care. This should be over by now. She should be home. But read and learn how this began. All of the info in this post dates back to the date of publication. A court appearance is scheduled now for February 2014.

Derek Hoare has three children and all three lived with him until ……… Well, wait until you hear this.

Photo by John Van Putten shows Derek with Ayn 

Did your child ever go missing for a few minutes, for an hour or so? And were you desperate to find the child. Did you contact the police? And when you found the child weren’t you ecstatic and so grateful? So was Derek. But his joy didn’t last long.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN by Ray Ferris

A children’s minister once told me that 30% of cases are over-investigated and 30% under-investigated. Looks like he was unintentionally saying that his staff got it wrong 60% of the time. To anyone who has had dealings with that ministry, this will come as no surprise. This blog has been primarily concerned with the cases of over-investigation. Those cases where a family has been persistently pursued and harassed when there was no good reason to do so. I want to write about cases on the other side of the coin. Those cases where the social workers turned a blind eye to neglect and abuse and left children to live in misery for years.

ANOTHER UNWISE CHILD REMOVAL

The case to which I am making reference today is outside of Canada, outside of British Columbia and we might assume it is irrelevant to the focus upon Ayn Van Dyk, the subject of so many posts in this site for many months. It is not irrelevant.

There are numerous distinctions between the two cases but fundamentally, both cases contain an autistic child who wandered from home and hours later was discovered by police, and after reporting the incident to child protection authorities, case workers overreacted with the unnecessary outcome of distress and agony for parents and child due to separation for a prolonged time.