B.C. LIBERAL CATALOGUE OF PROBLEMS

I don't like carping about my provincial government. I wish there were no reasons for faultfinding. The Liberals under Christy Clark's leadership are responsible for some concerning decisions and policies. Here they are.

Walker's SCATHING INDICTMENT - Part 2 of 6 - Closed Minds

Walker's SCATHING INDICTMENT - Part 2 of 6 - Closed Minds

This is my synopsized prose version of Justice Walker's 140-page judgement presented in several segments that reveal the substance of Walker's overview of evidence that demanded his verdict against the Ministry of Children's Child Protection. No stated opinion or fact appears here that does not also appear in the Justice Walker's ruling (legal document). It is public information.

Mr. Strickland believed J.P. was acting maliciously toward B.G. Mr. Strickland shared these biases with his staff because he believed there was no merit to J.P.'s report that B.G. had sexually abused P.G., and consequently Strickland did not conduct an assessment of J.P.'s report, disregarding the standard of care and applicable legislation. Mr. Strickland's conduct adversely affected the case social workers and furthermore, as a result, the Director (she) did not assess the report of possible sexual abuse as required by her governing statute and the standard of care, nor did she investigate.

In mid December 2009, early in the VPD investigation of sexual abuse of P.G., her mother J.P. disclosed to both the Director and Mr. Strickland that her three children were all divulging that their father had sexually abused them and she was asking the Director and Strickland for help. The children spoke of sexual touching, digital touching of genitalia and the anus, oral copulation and partial penile penetration by their father. B.G. denied all of the allegations and the Director did not investigate these reports in the manner that the standard of care commands.

 Without suitable investigation of the children's disclosures, Mr. Strickland and other social workers marginalized this supportive evidence of the sexual abuse allegations, believing them to be fabricated, and that the children had been coached, and that J.P.'s relentless efforts to prove these abuses were indications of her mental instability. Subsequently, the Director did not carry out an assessment and investigation of the children's claims, and further concluded that J.P. was unable to parent the children. 

RESOLVING SYSTEMIC AND NON-SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS IN CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES, Part 5

By Ray Ferris, This piece is one of a series Ray will write here.

Knowledge and skills.

The knowledge and skills needed by social workers in protection work can be defined, taught and trained. I will start with the skills that are most often lacking. The most obvious one is the lack of evidentiary skills. Social workers do not seem to know what evidence is reliable and what is not. They cannot distinguish between factual evidence, eyewitness evidence, expert opinion evidence, hearsay, conjecture, assumption and rumour. Crown counsel should be screening out the weak items in the spectrum of evidence and counselling moderation. This was done in the B. case, but the director ignored this counsel. If the social workers only proceeded on factual and eyewitness evidence, cases could be shortened and of course expert opinion evidence should not be accepted without rigorous process.

MORE FROM FERRIS ON JUSTICE WALKER'S STUNNING VERDICT

You will need to refer back several blog posts to catch the significance of the court case that has captured Ray Ferris's attention. The judge ruled against a father who he said had abused his children, and roundly faulted MCFD for believing him and getting it so wrong, and awarded the children to the mother. Now she is suing MCFD. Listen to Ferris below ... By the way, he is a colleague advocate for change to MCFD and for justice to the improperly treated.

THE TERRIBLE COST IS BORN BY PARENTS AND CHILDREN/ Part 414 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Frankly I don't know what it costs to fight the MCFD to regain custody of your children once they have been apprehended by the Ministry. I know that it has cost the Baynes very much. They had a home and property. Zabeth had a grand piano. That all became tinder in the inferno of conflict for which the Ministry has unlimited monetary ammo.

A number of you will be able to tell me how much it has cost you. And the horrible truth is that in most cases the apprehension is for temporary care. Yet in order to establish your ability and stability as a parent it will cost you money, which is so frequently that of which the parents have the least.

The entailed costs are customarily legal fees paid to a lawyer who knows the protocol and the legalese to converse in court and advise you about next steps. The truth is that the parents usually cannot afford the battle. (Look at the terms I am forced to use to describe this, “fight' and “battle”. )

Then there are other complications for these parents. The BC provincial shelter allowance policy is flawed because some parents require this to care for their family but when the children are removed even for temporary care, part of these monies is held back. The Ministry of Housing and Social Development (MHSD) cuts it off immediately, or at the end of three months, depending on the discretion of social workers assigned to the case. The dispiriting result is that parents are sometimes unable to retain their present housing and then the home to which they move is substandard and is not fit for children. Well guess what, the the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) is charged with helping parents safely receive their children back from temporary care, so when SWs advise the dropping of the shelter allowance, there is a significant contradiction happening here as in so many other areas of MCFD practice.

And then what? Well, the MCFD objective no longer is the return of the children to parents in that case.

Even in the cases where parents of children in care are granted a three month extension of the shelter allowance, that amount of time is inadequate for resolving the issues that MCFD has with the parents. Delays in process within child welfare and the courts are so common that before one knows it, six months, a year, eighteen months have gone by. Only the deprived parents and their children care. If it is a single parent, a mom on income assistance, just think how difficult it is for her to find housing. She cannot have her children back without good housing. It typically takes two to three years to locate adequate housing. It's around 35% of children taken into care that come from families receiving income assistance and get this, the majority are Aboriginal or single mother families.

With regard to MCFD, Family reunification should be this government’s number one priority. The Liberal Party over the past number of years has not prioritized this, has not funded it and therefore MCFD has diminished staff and resources and increased caseloads and a backed up court schedule has guaranteed that children will stay emotionally and psychologically disoriented within a foster care system for much longer than is either necessary or humane. I guarantee that unless some of you put this to Liberal and NDP party candidates they will not even be thinking about child welfare and protection and family unity.

This Blog has been advocating the return of three children to their biological parents, Paul and Zabeth Bayne, for which a ruling is expected from Judge Crabtree no later than January 19th. Stay posted.