Part Three
of Nine
Resolving
Systemic Problems in Child Protection Services
By Ray
Ferris
 |
| Red Wall art by Redfish Designs |
Ferris retired after a career that included significant years with the
MCFD. He has written a book entitled 'The Art of Child Protection.' This is the
first in a series of pieces Ray will write here. You can order Mr. Ferris' book
entitled 'the Art of Child Protection' by contacting the author directly at rtferris@telus.net.
How to
Define the Problems
Yesterday,
Ray said, "In cases where there is compelling evidence that a continuing
care order must be made, it is especially important to proceed through court
with dispatch so that planning can go ahead without harmful delays."
Serious
examples.
I am going to show some
example of fairly recent cases to show how very badly everything can go wrong.
I do this in order to analyse the process and to show both systemic and
non-systemic failures. All these cases have some things in common.
Case 1.
Let us take the B. case heard before chief
provincial courts judge Thomas Crabtree. Three small children were held in the
limbo of interim custody and temporary care for nearly four years before being
returned home. The following things transpired. They could only raise $60,000
for their defence and they had to sell their home to do it. When the money ran
out, so did their lawyer. They could not find an experienced family court
lawyer to take their case without a guarantee of $100,000. Their case would
have been lost if they had not found a lawyer who acted virtually pro bono and
had the Canadian Alliance for Justice not covered the many costs. During the time the children were in care
only infrequent contact with the parents was allowed. Any visiting was short
and subject to the most stringent supervision. The children were moved several
times from one foster home to another and they all suffered severe anxiety
disorders after care ceased. The following facts in the case are noted.
1. Evidence.
The crux of the case rested on one piece of
expert opinion evidence. A doctor claimed that an injury to a newborn child was
deliberate. Ten other medical experts disagreed and rendered the opinion
unreliable. There was only one piece of factual evidence in the case and that
was not disputed. This was the fact that the child sustained an injury. The
argument was as to whether it was accidental or deliberate. Several other crown
witnesses had no factual evidence, but could only offer opinion, conjecture and
hearsay.
2. Time lines.
The hearing lasted for 22days spread out over
three years. An additional five days were taken by crown counsel to sum up his
case. This was the same counsel who had advised the director to return the
children nearly two years earlier as the case was not viable.
3. Procedure.
The important time lines of the act were not
followed. No written notice was ever served, as required by the act.
4. The judge
deliberated for four months and then made an order, which was beyond his
powers, and he had to retract it and issue another order. He made a minimal
protection finding and made a temporary order. By this time the children had
been in interim custody for well over three years, so in effect the judge put
the children into a form of temporary care for three and one half years. This
exceeded the intention of the act three and one half times.
The judge left it up to a psychologist to be chosen by the
director to determine the outcome of the case. He then relinquished the case to
another judge.
