THEY DESPERATELY WANTED HER

Adoption of Aboriginal Children

There have been enough of these cases in the past, that long ago some legal parameters were established that would service aboriginal children's care responsibly while respecting their heritage. On the B.C. government's own website the fundamental understandings are unmistakably stated.

When Aboriginal children and teens are in need of care, the B.C. government's own standard states, Research and experience indicates that children who grow up connected to their culture do better. Aboriginal children and teens feel more at home when they live with a family that helps them stay in touch with their culture and community. (BC government's own page states this.)

The government urges competent compassionate caregivers to consider opening their homes to children in need and furthermore appeals to these people to consider adopting the children. One might ask whether there are any special provisos with respect to adoption of aboriginal children and youth? Yes there are and these too are unambiguously stated in the government's own guidelines.

With respect to this particular case of the little Métis girl named S.S. the government page makes provision for an Aboriginal Custom Adoption.  Here is the government's own statement. "Aboriginal children in care need homes with Aboriginal families whenever possible – to help them stay connected with their extended family and community." The agreed upon system or policy established between the B.C. government and the Métis or aboriginal communities is as follows. "The custom adoption process makes it possible for Aboriginal families, organizations and communities to use a culturally appropriate way of planning for Aboriginal children; respects the customs and traditions of the First Nations and/or Aboriginal community of the child; ensures Aboriginal children maintain their cultural, linguistic and spiritual identity. It’s recommend that adoptive parents get a lawyer to help them in their application to have a custom adoption recognized by the Supreme Court."

Foster mom (Métis) and foster dad enjoyed S.S. in their home and family life for three years, unnecessarily long if MCFD intended ever to move her, and during that time, foster parents had in fact conducted an Aboriginal Custom Adoption with approval of the birth parents. They had also applied for formal recognition of this adoption, but MCFD rejected this by filing orders to remove her and move her to Ontario.

Aboriginal Child and Family Development pages on the B.C. Government WebSite

BY ALL MEANS look up the little girl's Facebook page ‘Bring Home Baby S’, and the two websites that tell her story, bringsshome.ca or bringsshome.com. 

I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS/ Part 350 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

I know foster parents personally. Over a period of many years I have watched these foster parents that I know do a praiseworthy job of raising someone else's children. I know adoptive parents whose families have been comprised of children born to someone else yet who were integrated with such love that it was seamless. I applaud excellent foster parents and superior adoptive parents. They transform unfortunate life events into redemptive rescues and recoveries.

This blogsite is not designed to castigate or demean foster or adoptive parents and families.

I know competent social workers who dedicate themselves to effective responsible work. Knowing them has caused me to conclude that the dominant motivation for people who embark upon a career in social work is the unmistakable desire to help people with social needs. They desire and they receive training to provide a variety of resources to people with social difficulties within the target population in which they work. They have access to and they may collaborate with other social care organizations and government institutions as mediators and consultants.

We are all proud of our province

This blogsite is not designed to rebuke or humiliate social workers whether at the front line or in a supervisory role.

Listen, I could do this all day. I know as friends, doctors and lawyers and people in law enforcement and I am certain that almost everyone who enters these professions do so with laudable intentions. This blog is not designed to reprimand or offend any who spend their lives in these fields.

However, it may sometimes appear that this blog is merely a vehicle for disseminating vitriol to scar people employed in positions to which I have alluded above, because child protection activities at the heart of these daily written communications have bred such wrath and anguish, not in me personally, but in those for whom and about whom I write. Further, my thoughts provide opportunity for the wounded to respond and they do, often with words directed like a scatter gun at everyone in the fields related to their damaged lives. Everyone who is suspected of being responsible for disrupting and interfering and even ruining a family becomes a target for a verbal blast.

You see, I also know personally, people whose children should never have been held from their parents for as long a period as has been the case. I know parents who have not received from social workers a respect and compassion we would associate with their professions. I know parents who have been handled with disinterest, discourtesy and cruelty by healthcare and legal and law enforcement persons.

So you will have to excuse what appears to be an occasional outburst or an overstep of civility because YOU HAVE NOT BEEN LISTENING. Ms. Polak, Ms. Du Toit, Ms. Turpel-Lafond, Mr. Campbell, Mr. de Jong, Mr. McNeill, Mr. Fitzimmons, Mr. Jensen, Mr. Gulbot, Mr. Humeny, there are parents and children who are not being heard. Attention must be paid to a countless number of parents who are powerless to recover their families because an entire ministry and legal system is charged with a mandate that can be deemed counter productive to the objectives of these disenfranchised parents. In so many of these cases, the best interests of the children is being misunderstood and misinterpreted. I am begging you to begin to listen to their heart cries. This province needs to become proactive, a trail blazer in reform of child protection policy and practice. I know that you can do this.

Part 140 / EXPLANATION & RATIONALE / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Today I have removed yesterday’s post 139 which drew attention to a website, the content of which did not live up to the intended purposes. I was speaking to the confounding phenomenon of similar issues that characterize child protection programs throughout the English speaking world of former colonialized nations. In commenting on my post, one writer pointed out numerous inadequacies to the site that purportedly was a Family Law Resource Community dedicated toward helping and supporting families to establish and solidify their personal dealings and directions within the Family Court System World Wide. The writer cited enough reasons that I chose to disassociate the site from my blog. We will make the point in other ways.

I have been a lifelong writer and when I began this particular blog it was a commentary upon diverse areas of current interest. Concentrating upon the grieving community of families impacted by MCFD treatment was not my original design. In September of 2009 I learned about Paul’s and Zabeth’s heartache. Their loss of family is almost as old as their youngest child. My curiosity was fixated immediately because years earlier I was the officiating clergyman for their wedding ceremony. Life choices moved us out of one another’s lives until that news broke upon me. I was compelled to know more. How could they find themselves in a dilemma this appalling and more importantly, how could they extricate themselves?

Like perhaps 95% of the B.C. population I have had no knowledge of the Ministry of Children and Family Development or of child protection. I have never had personal involvement with such services or until this past autumn known anyone who did. In hindsight it seems peculiar to me that in forty years of pastoral work and dealing with people’s lives and concerns there was never a family in my sphere of work that had an MCFD or child welfare association. MCFD’s need of re-examination is unknown by the vast majority of people and they will not care until they are faced with it either personally or through public awareness.

The more that I learned about the Baynes, the more convinced I was that I should do what I could, that was to write about them. The more that I learned about the system of child protection that interrupted the Bayne family, the more informed I became that theirs was not an isolated case of misunderstanding or confusion or even medical misdiagnosis. Some systemic weaknesses in our government funded child protection efforts were removing and keeping children from parents for far too long and sometimes for unwarranted reasons. As I learned, I wrote and this little read blog began to pick up readers on both sides of the Bayne predicament.

My thematic focus in upcoming posts will continue to be the Baynes’ recovery attempt. They have been without custody of their children for 2.5 years. That may not be unprecedented but it is nonetheless inexcusable because Paul and Zabeth are the kind of parents who will provide a loving, nurturing and safe home for their birth children. Their determination and their personal efforts to right a wrong may become a precedent however, when it evokes concern among journalists, readers, advocates, politicians and legislators.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne – Part 64 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

Press the link in the title below and listen for 90 seconds to this greeting.
Holiday Message from Minister Mary Polak - Province of British Columbia



I heard this as a courteous and friendly seasonal greeting from an elected official who is seeking sincerely to accomplish her mandate within one of the most complex ministry portfolios. In her comments I picked up on one emphasis that marks for me the missing ingredient in the MCFD operational philosophy. Her Christmas greeting is specially directed in her conclusion, to Foster families and Adoptive families where children are treated as their own. Constantly I am grieved for the birth parents whose children have been removed from their homes whether for reasons with evidentiary support or for reasons of concern and suspicion. Where is a greeting to them? I have tried to listen and read best wishes extended to them by anyone in authority and I can't find anything.

Take a greeting from me. I extend to all parents whose children have been removed from their homes by child protection agencies, and who are grieving the absence of those children and finding it difficult to navigate through this Christmas season without a complete emotional breakdown, a serene, pleasant and positive Christmas. Please include a consideration of the birth of Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace. May God's peace settle over you and your home.