PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS FOR CHILD PROTECTION.

Article by Ray Ferris. (Ray Ferris, my friend and fellow advocate is an expert on child protection and specifically the work of the Ministry of Children and Families in British Columbia (MCFD). He is the author of  'The Art of Child Protection."  Ray reissued this information now, sent to me September 27th, 2017-09-27. Ron Unruh).

PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS FOR CHILD PROTECTION.

This is based on material I wrote at the request of some NDP members of the legislative assembly for the election of 2009. 

Introduction.

The British Seebohm Commission of the 1960s noted that there were many problems of a non-administrative nature in the British social services and they could not be solved by administrative changes. This is important to remember because there have been many serious problems in the child protection services of British Columbia, but the repeated attempts at solving them have only been through administrative and legal devices, which have always failed. Indeed it could be argued that they have sometimes made the situation worse. 

ANONYMOUS MOTHER WRITES - HER GIRLS HAVE BEEN TAKEN FROM HER

This happens frequently, that a parent or caregiver writes a comment on one of my posts that is years old. They have responded to a topic that has popped up in their online search. The likelihood is usually remote that the writer will know where to return to see whether I or someone else has responded to them.

Yesterday, Anonymous wrote on a 2010 post. Here is the communication.
 AnonymousSeptember 12, 2017 at 4:08 AM

my 2 girls were apprehended based on the falsifying of drug test results by my social worker or someone else who is obviously paid by mcfd to do so. funny how I was not using and yet, every single result came back positive for fentanyl and norfentanyl...
I am hoping and praying for the truth to come out at trial in October...has anyone else had the same experience? I am literally dying more every day that my girls are not with me. and the truth is they were stolen from me for NO REASON. which makes this even harder. I am a good mother and everyone, even the sw says I am. so then I ask, why are you doing this to us when you KNOW I would NEVER abuse or neglect my girls? while you are wasting resources and foster care placement on my girls there are other kids out there in ACTUAL need who are suffering. go save them and leave us be. please! 

Reply

Replies

1. 
   RonSeptember 12, 2017 at 11:40 AM

   Well Anonymous Sept 12, 2017 --- I hope you have returned to read. Since you wrote your comment on a blog piece done in 2010, I think you may not find this again, so what I am going to do, is to put your comment on a post for today, Sept 13, 2017 to see if someone responds.

If you are reading this Anonymous letter and you would like to provide her/the writer with some counsel or share your own story, please do.

The original post to which she was responding was entitled,

IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE US / Part 372 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

and it began this way. "Child Protection workers and administrators would like us all to understand what an almost impossible task they have. Well, impossible in the sense of making all citizens happy with the results of their work. They will tell us that a perfect balance is unachievable between not protecting children from abusive parents and not making unfounded accusations against innocent parents. Stated differently and more positively, it is difficult both to protect children and to correctly assess risk by parents. To which I and others will quickly declare, “Then become more proficient at the latter in a hurry.”

I was writing then, in the middle of the horrific 4 year MCFD custody of the 4 children that belonged to Zabeth and Paul Bayne. They were finally returned in August 2011. Rejoice.

PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENT - An answer to Anonymous

Parental Capacity Assessment 

An Anonymous respondent asked for information about this, but placed the response on a post that is several years old. The original post was published on May 3, 2011. It is unlikely that the Anonymous person will be able to find that post again so here is a current post that hopefully catches the person's attention. I referred the query to my colleague, Ray Ferris, an expert on child protection and specifically the work of the Ministry of Children and Families in British Columbia (MCFD).

Here is Anonymous' post followed by Ray Ferris' answer.

Anonymous  August 21, 2017 at 5:48 PM

Wayne .. hey I am a dad of five girls one of them autistic and we had traveled in a truck to keep moving while home schooling the girls once in a house we were case filed by child protection and they have decided to go with the mom after a forced break up the problem that I am having is the fact that no dad has ever been so close with a bunch of kids as I and I had basically raised them on my own now separated for over half of a year they want me to do the assessment for the court and from what I read 95% of the time they recommend against the parent in question is there a recommendation for betterment of situation as to please the courts I mean what do they look for I can only be the dad that I am theirs. So if you are truthful and your self you fail but if you study to mimic what they want you pass ? tell you what I will check this site in a couple of days just to see if there is any good advice have a great night

                        
Ray Ferris  August 26, 2017 at 4:55 PM
There is no short or easy answer to your situation. I do not think a PC is the most important thing to go on, but I will tell you about them anyway. A parental capacity assessment should be a fact based report with as little room for subjective opinion as possible. 'The facts should speak for themselves. There are very few reliable guidelines foe PCA reports. In the part or Canada where I live the college of psychologists has no guidelines and neither does the college of social workers. The law society does have guidelines and they specifically state that psychologists are not qualified to do parental capacity reports without further training and mentoring. They also state that psychometric testing should not be a routine part of an assessment and should only be used in special cases. Regardless of guidelines and training, the only true protection for the public is in the skills and integrity of the assessor. Facts should be sought like level of schooling, job training, work history, marital history and any history of alcohol and drug abuse, or any criminal record. Also telling the truth about the negatives in your life. Right away I would want to talk about your statement that you were travelling in a truck to keep moving. This looks like serious instability to me. You would need to convince an assessor that you were capable of finding and maintaining a decent home for six people and capable of maintaining them. I do not know the age of your girls, but if I were you or your representative, I would want to have them interviewed to find out what they want. If the authorities decide to leave them with their mother, I would want to know that the girls have been interviewed by a third party to find out if they want to keep in touch with you on a regular basis.

Ray Ferris

BILL 89, ONTARIO’S NEW LEGISLATION IN THE INTERESTS OF CHILDREN

Have any of you residents in Ontario been concerned about Bill 89. I cannot recollect anyone from Ontario speaking to this on Facebook. It's done, over and out. I have written for ten years about cases of parents seeking to retrieve their families from child protection agencies that out of control with power that no one can abrogate. I have duly credited child protection when bad parenting warrants such intervention, yet I have protested numerous cases in which CP has erred. Ontario residents, you have a Liberal premier and provincial legislature that have recently passed Bill 89 which contains features that are worrisome, possibly threatening parental rights in ways that would trouble me even more than I already am for B.C. if our Liberal or Whichever government follows suit.

MCFD TENDS TO LEAP TO LITIGATION

Ray Ferris, my writing colleague for GPS (Advocacy Blog) has written another article to the Times Colonist. He himself had a helpful and rewarding career in the Ministry of Children and Family Development dealing justly for children and parents and caregivers. Later as he saw bureaucratic missteps and bungling he became an outspoken critic as well as an advisor.

Look at his latest piece.

MCFD's DEFAULT LEAP TO LITIGATION

            The Clarke government always seems to be willing to spend more on battling its citizens than on helping them. They leap to litigation with no apparent heed for the cost. We know about the big ones like the years taken to lose a dispute with the teachers, the millions covering up the fired health researchers and the six million spent bailing out Basi and Verk. We will never be allowed to know the true cost of all those millions spent battling against families and innocent children in family court.

   

            Suffice it to say that if a family has its children removed under the CF&CSA, they will need at least $200,000 in legal fees to get them back, regardless of the merits f the case. Several cases have cost far more. Parents need deep pockets, a valuable house or a very generous lawyer. The late Doug Christie worked free for the B. case for two years. Hittrich law advanced well over a million. The director was willing to fight for a year in a losing cause and the case still goes on. A Victoria lawyer gave $700,000 worth of service in a case, where the judge had already returned the children under supervision. The director wasted a full week of Hittrichcourt time just quibbling about details of a continued order. What did that cost the taxpayer?

   

            Then there was the little Metis child SS. She was snatched from her Metis foster home over the pleadings of Ms. Turpel-Lafond and sent to strangers. The loving foster parents and extended family spent nearly a million dollars trying to keep her. How much did the taxpayer spend? Now their Metis adoption of her has been legally validated, the director spends more millions battling them and the child in the courts of the North-West-Territories. Sad.

From Ray Ferris. # 105-3900 Shelbourne St., Victoria V8P 4H8,   250 477 5723