A LITTLE BALANCE PLEASE / Part 392 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

I know that many readers want me to castigate the Ministry of Children, all of its bureaucrats and all of its social workers and do this all of the time. That's the understandable mood when you feel wronged by an agency funded by your own tax dollars and worse, when you are actually experiencing the disruption of your family, your security, your happiness, your mental and emotional well-being and when your children are being subjected to turbulent changes far beyond your control. I understand that you want me to dedicate this forum to blasting what you perceive as 'the enemy.' So, I have to call for a little balance please.

I know that people embarking upon a career as a social worker do so for reasons other than monetary gain or power acquisition. The motivation is far more honourable than that. People get into social work because they desire to improve other people's lives. They may choose to work with children, youth, geriatric clients, psychiatric patients, families, parents or another one of the many concentrations. We are on this blog site because the subject matter has focused upon child protection social work, child removal, court issues and all of the associated heartaches and stresses. This particular blog has begun with one family's plight as its primary subject. While the Bayne family continues to be the recurring theme, their three year struggle has invited shared stories from countless other parents whose children have been removed from them for brief or extended periods of time. There have been wrenching tales of children removed forever from the biological parents. When many of the writers of comments are anonymous it is impossible to verify the stories. Nevertheless, there is a thread of identifiable veracity and a commonality of experiences that lead a reader to conclude that within the child protection arena, the early genuine, altruistic intention of social workers becomes bent or compromised by something. That's the reality with which we struggle. Why would social workers' reports contain skewed, exaggerated, unsubstantiated, untrue statements about parents or home situations? How could social workers allow themselves to act this way?

What unseen forces exist within the system that compel the worker to compromise the ideals with which the career began?

STRIKING THE BALANCE / Part 283 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

A difficult balance

Someone is going to argue that it is a very tricky administrative task to balance the best interests of the children and those of their birth parents. It's reasonable to entertain that statement yet even if we grant that, is it not appropriate to expect that the people trained to this work are going to be able to find the balance?

This blog and its accompanying comments archive have sounded a general note of caution about the family justice system, essentially expressing the that there is a "chronic weakness" in the system because of a shortage of resources in numerous areas.

We should be critical of a legal system that seems to make it impossible for the Baynes or anyone else to fully expunge their names from the MCFD files once they have been positioned there. Our judicial system should be capable of clearing the names of innocent people.

The Court would consider it improper to criticize Dr. Colbourne and other doctors in the case of the Baynes. The Court would deem that these acted properly in good faith in performing their duties. Therefore, a lesson learned from this case is that at the earliest opportunity there is an imperative need to obtain second opinions on injuries to children, specially in cases where the facts are unusual as they are with the Bayne case. A corollary lesson learned from this case is that even when provisos and revisions are placed into a system to reduce or eliminate mistakes, mistakes do occur in a system that is operated by human beings. The Baynes contended that Dr. Colbourne's diagnosis was mistaken and they still do. Following Dr. Colbourne's diagnosis, the Baynes asked MCFD for a second opinion but they were denied. MCFD was satisfied that Dr. Colbourne was accurate. Well, she was right about her medical findings, but the error occurred when she identified those findings with a label, namely Shaken Baby Syndrome, which by virtue of the name points to cause. But the cause has not been established. And further, if a baby had been shaken at some point what kind of a system is it that empowers a doctor and social workers to impute blame to a parent or parents by automatically taking children away from them? The Baynes themselves had to obtain the records and reports and send them to independent medical and scientific experts in order to get second opinions. Second opinions which in point of fact, disputed Dr. Colbourne's opinion making it clear that the MCFD erred to be satisfied so soon.

For almost three years these three children have been denied the right of growing up together. Only in recent months were all three placed in the same foster home. That is a wonderful provision. A Continuing Care Order for which MCFD has applied, if granted, would permit the adoption of the children and the possibility that one or all would be separated from the others and denied that unique privilege of siblings to grow and bond together. With attitudes that prescribe this course of action, MCFD doesn't come close to touching the best interests of children so not to mention striking a balance between the interests of children and birth parents.