SO MUCH TIME HAS PASSED

On June 30, 2011 I wrote a piece about Child Welfare in Canada, Abbotsford and then I included reference to a relatively new case, the Ayn Van Dyk case. 

At the time, Ayn had been gone from her daddy’s home for fourteen (14) days.

Now reader, let this sink in please. It has now been 254 days since Ayn was removed from her father Derek Hoare. Eight months have passed.

This ten year old autistic girl has been in hospital for examination but primarily in foster home care all of this time. She and her father have not seen each other for 254 days. That however is because of her father’s principled choice, a choice with which not all readers agree, and certainly one which the Ministry criticizes and retains as evidence of Derek’s lack of cooperation with its care plan. Ayn’s mom Amie Van Dyk has visited her daughter although those visitation rights have been curtailed or delayed at various times by the Ministry for reasons with which I disagree.

My article garnered an enormous response last June 30^th with 27 comments attached now to that blog post. They are highly interesting comments.    

Well, if 254 days seems long, consider this, a court date has been set to hear this case in December 2012 and carrying over into January 2013. Tell me again, the axiomatic premise for child protection. “In the best interests of the child,’ did I hear you say?

AYN IS CAUGHT IN A SYSTEM WITHOUT GRACE

2007 Album Cover by group 'Without Grace'

Ayn was removed from her father and her home over five months ago. Ostensibly this will have been to observe her. The precipitating cause of this government child welfare action was her three hour unescorted daytrip on June 12th when her father lost touch with her. He was concerned. She had climbed over the fence in the family back yard. She was exploring. Children do that. Autistic children do that. Ayn is autistic. It’s somewhat more difficult to reinforce understanding of potential harm and cooperation with parental authority with an autistic child. Ayn’s exploration took down the street to a neighbour’s yard where she was found playing. She was returned to her father that day.

The Ministry of Children flagged this case. Due diligence would have uncovered a typical litany of episodes and challenges of bizarre behaviour and outburst as well as a record of charming conduct and loving moments. Due diligence would have revealed the primary care of a father, Derek, as dedicated, attentive, systematic and loving. The results of this due diligence would unsurprisingly be confidence in Derek’s parenting skills and a commitment to return Ayn to him in her best interests. How long does a due diligence assessment take? Certainly not five months. Furthermore, whatever paltry assessment was done on Ayn in the initial days of her incarceration, it was sufficient in the estimation of medical professionals associated with her care to justify the prescription of a recipe of anti-psychotic drugs to render her placid. A docile child is manageable and that was especially necessary when the principle calming agent, her father, was withheld from her.

What the Ministry created on the 16th day of June was a basket case child because she cried for eighteen straight days. Then this disgusting excuse for a government care agency requested from Derek, a photo of himself with Ayn so that she could be comforted - BINGO! Wouldn’t that inform intelligent, well trained, perceptive, altruistically-spirited social workers? Of course! So what have we serving the needs of children arbitrarily removed from parents? Something less than appropriate. Something flawed at its heart. Something populated by social workers who cannot break free from the restraints of bureaucratic and judicial shackles in order to be humane. Something administered by well paid bureaucrats who become deaf to the cries of the camps of parental refugees on this democratic continent, and who become sight impaired so they cannot distinguish between true and misleading cases of abuse and neglect.

Ayn is only one of the many cases in which the Ministry of Children and Family Development has erred and failed to acknowledge the error in judgement but subjected children and parents to treatment we all find reprehensible, as would some of the social workers were they on this side of the fence looking over. It is no wonder that we have lost faith in a system that cannot respond with grace.