AN APPEAL TO SOCIAL WORKERS / Part 391 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

AN APPEAL TO SOCIAL WORKERS

Here is my entreaty to social workers engaged in child protection. When you reflect upon the cases in which you are now or have been involved, and if within that list you readily identify families which would benefit from being together rather than apart and you have the means to affect that reconciliation, do all that you can to insure that this happens. So much rests with you. You control destinies. That seems a frightening responsibility.

Logo of National SW month for NASW

Anyone occupying a role which owns the weight and the power of the child protection worker within our society, has to have the right stuff if he or she is confidently and effectively to protect the rights of children, safeguard the rights of families and parents and live with a deep contentment at the end of the day. If you see many cases where harm has been inflicted upon innocents, it is understandable that a callousness develops toward the responsible caregivers. How discriminating you must be to preserve your own authentic objectivity. How discerning you must be so that can separate fact and evidence from story and assumption. 

You are a member of the public and the public depends upon you front line people to be so careful with your invested power for our sakes, the children among us, children who may require food, opportunity, protection. And by referring to “our sakes” I also intend our families, parents of children, parents who require understanding, a listening ear, parents who require advice & counsel and encouragement, grandparents whose grandchildren are their joy and for whom they hope. Make all of your action choices wisely and be gentle with us please.

DO YOU THINK CHANGE CAN BE AFFECTED TO MCFD? / Part 266 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

MCFD asserts that it is in the midst of a transformation program. Change is being enacted so the announcements claim. Yet here we are still telling these stories of families embattled by local MCFD caseworkers and their supervisors. I suppose it is right to say that if true transformation is to occur, the orchestrators must first know what needs changing. Someone is not getting it. Or, the change makers are pleased with the theory of transformation and how it appears in digital and printed documents but the continued flesh and blood interaction by MCFD workers with clients is not being affected by the lofty goals from Victoria.

I do believe that great change is coming to this MCFD organization in the future. It has more to do with you and me and the thousands who will yet become vocal and visible as we advocate for what we know to be right and good. So much of this expected organizational and social transformation will occur because of the technological innovations that have made easier and faster the accessing of information, sharing stories and ideas and connecting with people than at any time before.

We are able to share opinions, organize campaigns, sign petitions, and start discussions with people all over this province, across the country and around the world. Children, youth and family welfare change activists are able to mobilize more people and coordinate action with a simple internet connection and an e-mail list. This is a connected world and in it there is an ever evolving role for social change organizations and perhaps this dialogue forum is one of those.

There is little to be gained in remaining in a silo, thinking that this one avenue is the only or the best. That is why you read me embracing other writer's initiatives and blogs and website and petitions. Linking arms is essential. As we position ourselves within broader networks of people all in pursuit of a common goal, we will be able to leverage our combined strength of voice in new and effective ways. This is how we build and become a movement.

Perhaps as we become engaged in what we are reading and writing with regard to the issues that swirl around the improvement of the Ministry of Children and Family Development we can inspire one another to take action. Of what that action consists I cannot yet say but perhaps passionate people will step forward to become real change agents. Most of all we need people of influence with leverage and expertise and credential and respect to give impetus to these efforts to change a social agency and the legalities surrounding its work and decisions.

THIS BLOG'S PURPOSE IS CLEAR / Part 224 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

To be unclear about the 9-month old purpose of this blog is to be confusing the messages in the comment section with the message of the blog postings.

Paul and Zabeth Bayne's three children are in care of the Province of British Columbia government's Ministry of Children and Family Development. This has gone on since October 22, 2007, because the Director of the MCFD Fraser Valley Region, based upon the filed reports of his staff, has concluded that Paul and or Zabeth were responsible for medical issues and injuries sustained by their youngest child and that because they have adamantly refused to confess to this, are a continuing risk to all three children.

This blog exists presently to draw attention to what I believe has been an injustice to the Bayne family based on an inaccurate medical diagnosis, which it turns out is a much disputed diagnosis in the medical community. I further write on behalf of the Baynes because I believe that they have told me the truth, and because I take issue with some of the methodology and treatment exhibited by the MCFD relative to them. I am displeased with what appears to me a lack of objectivity in reporting and assessing and in some instances intentional distortion of facts. I am repulsed by what occasionally appears to me a self protective response by an agency commissioned to care for us.

In the course of writing on their behalf, I have become aware of countless other parents and families with similar accounts of accusation and child seizures and unsympathetic and unkind treatment by social workers. I am alarmed at the level of unfettered power an agency has, against which ordinary people have little recourse because they lack the resources to contest for their children and their families. I am appalled to learn that reports and concerns about malevolent child protection agencies is almost universal. As sympathetic as I am toward the Baynes, I am hearing true stories of child removals that even trump their horror. Some comments on this blog allude to lives irreparably harmed, children who have never been returned to parents.

I do not deny the need for a society endorsed ministry to safeguard vulnerable children. I do not vilify social workers en masse. I do not berate all foster parenting. I admit the inability of some parents to care for their children. I prefer for removed children to be with family, kin and close family friends. I am opposed to sealed Ministry files on people which can contain opinion, hearsay and unverified statements which fuel the Ministry agenda without any real possibility for the subjects to refute it. I do see a pressing need to regenerate and perhaps to replace the Ministry modus operandi.

Churchman that I have been for decades I am drawn this morning to a phrase that was intended to safeguard our conduct within society. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That's a maxim, a behavioural code, an ethic that while applying to us all, is particularly necessary among those who are charged with the sensitive tasks of relating to fragile people.

So while the blog's purpose is focused, it cannot help but to embrace a broader function as readers feel compelled to interact with the subjects and leave comments that expose the widespread inequities for which the Baynes themselves recognize they are only examples.