PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION TO LET A TODDLER STAY WITH FAMILY

Child can’t be identified, but this is the little girl

Three posts entries ago I wrote an article entitled, 'METI FOSTER PARENTS CONTEST THE RELOCATION OF THEIR METIS FOSTER    CHILD'.

Now I want you to consider signing a petition to help these people. This little girl should not be placed in a non-aboriginal home with strangers. I want you to speak to the rights of this child to stay with the only family the child has known and where she is loved and at peace.

SIGN THIS PETITION in support of the toddler staying with family.

At the site, you will find the story that I touched upon in my piece above, but with personal and greater detail. Then the petition button is at the bottom of the prose. Please Sign.  

The Metis Foundation is in support of this child remaining with Metis foster parents in British Columbia who have cared for her since infancy. Her two siblings are with a non aboriginal family in Ontario. The  toddler doesn’t know her siblings. 

SHOULD YOU AGREE TO MEDIATION?

Your child may have been removed from you by the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) in British Columbia. You may sincerely believe that the removal was unjustified. You may feel that you have valid reasons to contest the actions of the Ministry. You are entitled to your day in court so to speak. It is not unusual for MCFD to seek to establish a Mediation agreement with you that disposes with court proceedings.

It is important that you think carefully before agreeing to this.

You can inform the Ministry of the following:

1. It is my right to have legal representation and advice in all dealings with the director.
2.I do no wish to commit to any sort of hearing until I have a chance to seek counsel.
3. I have been advised that mediation places a gag order on me. This means I will be unable to consult with some of my advisers and places me at great disadvantage.
4.The mediation cannot be arranged without my consent and I have been advised that attendance is not compulsory.
5. I have been advised that once a person enters mediation it can postpone protection hearings and this has sometimes caused very long delays.
6.When the director filed a complaint with me under the CF&CSA he clearly placed himself in an adversarial position and this is again apparent in the presentation report. He has great power over me under the Act and this would make any negotiations in good faith to be difficult.

I am informing you that I will not attend or participate in the mediation program.

WHETHER TO REMOVE OR TO RETURN

Parents frequently find it so difficult; it is almost impossible to recover custody of their children, once the child is removed. The emphasis of the cases changes from whether the child should have been removed, to should the child be returned. Now the parent must demonstrate entire cooperation with CPS, good behaviour, complete control of emotion and attitude and the tongue, and fitness to be reunited with the child. The need for the CPS agency to demonstrate the need for out-of-home placement evaporates. The burden of proof shifts from CPS to the parents by virtue of who has physical control of the child. It is a procedural spectacle. Once a child is removed it is very difficult for lawyers to get a child returned to parents whether the removal was appropriate or it wasn't. Children who are removed, are likely to remain in government care for a long time, perhaps years.

IS EMERGENCY REMOVAL OF CHILDREN STANDARD PRACTICE?

reunion party photo

Over a six-year period, this Blog focused upon two cases in which so-called 'emergency removal' of children occurred. That is what propelled me to speak to the grievance, which I became aware was far more frequent than I wanted to believe or that is known by the public. These two consisted of first, a family of four children in which the surprise removal, or removal without notification occurred several times, and second, the case of a girl taken from her school. In the first case, the removal and custody battle lasted four years. In the latter case the girl spent three years in foster care, originating from an incident when she, an autistic child, wandered from her back yard and was missing for three hours.

from www.lukesarmy.com

In the first case, the initial concern was that the infant had been physically abused, shaken. Was seizure without notification necessary in either of these cases? Has it become standard practice? These children were eventually returned to parents. Yet here is a gripping observation. In both the instances, the children were found not to have been maltreated, neglected, abused. That is merely symptomatic of a system that uses emergency removal as the tool with which to deal with appropriate concerns that must be investigated.

INTERFERENCE AND A CHILD'S EMOTIONS

Interference

When a child experiences removal from parents and placement with foster givers, the resultant emotions may be anguish, terror and abandonment. These reactions will be intensified if actual abuse has occurred at home. The feelings are exacerbated when reunion is delayed. For these reasons, laws generally insist that such removal must be done cautiously and sparingly. Parents, children and families should be free of unwarranted government interference in child-rearing. With that in mind, the law customarily asserts that removal of a child is only justified by imminent danger to a child's life or health. Even in such an instance, a hearing and an order is required and a prompt post-removal hearing follow.

THE EXCESS OF EMERGENCY CHILD REMOVAL

It's a bureaucratic spectacle. It is recognizable. Even lawyers acknowledge that within a network of social workers, police officers and judges who make the hard decisions for emergency child-removals, there is a tendency for these professionals to become self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating in all subsequent child protective proceedings. Where are the checks and balances, the accountability, the investigatory due diligence, particularly when it is also statistically evidenced that each day that a child lives in a foster care environment is another day closer to the termination of all parental rights. In a just system, good and responsible parents despite economic, emotional or relational challenges would be identified, would not be cut off from their children and would not lose in their lives, what is most precious to them. There is so much that a just child protection system can do to assist parents to raise their children safely and happily rather than to take the children away.

IT NEVER STOPS

It never stops.

Cases of parents neglecting or abusing their children; cases of parents being accused of neglecting or abusing their children; cases of children being removed justifiably from misbehaving parents; cases of children being removed unnecessarily from responsible parents; cases of children not being held long enough to protect them and cases of children being held excessively long from their parents.

RESOLVING SYSTEMIC AND NON-SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS IN CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES, Part 9

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

ACCESS
The ministry seems to have no clear concept about what access is appropriate and what is not. The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies does have guidelines and these are vastly different from what is practised in British Columbia. There seems to be no differentiation from case to case as to when close supervision of access is needed and when unsupervised access would seem more appropriate. The rationale appears to be that any protection action means that there is risk to a child and therefore there would be dire risk if unsupervised access were allowed. This is not rational. If the director is seeking a continuing care order, then this is a reasonable assumption and it might well be argued that access should not be allowed at all to parents who are so hopelessly unfit as to merit permanent loss of their children.

However, shall we say that due notice has been served on the parents that a temporary order only is sought and the plan on the presentation report was to return the children, then access should be supportive of such a plan. Every person who has had children in care, even for fairly short periods reports the same sort of thing. Any visits are tightly supervised and every word and gesture is tightly monitored, as if the parent would suddenly attack the child. This is so irrational that it strikes people as paranoid. When parents have no history of child abuse, but perhaps it is a case of borderline neglect, there is no reason to waste public money on such over-caution.

The Ontario guidelines also advise social workers to arrange all access visits to be in the family home whether supervised or not. This is to keep the children in touch with familiar things and to lessen their anxiety. I have had hundreds of foster children under the care of my staff and me. We seldom found it necessary to supervise visiting. When parents were able to pick up their children at the foster home and take them out for the day, it gave us good opportunities to evaluate the progress of the parent. If parents were consistent and reliable, it became positive evidence. I would introduce the parent to the foster parent first and our foster parents were often good mentors for the natural parent. If a supervised visit became necessary, I preferred to do it myself, so that I could evaluate the situation first hand.

The systemic change would be to draw up clear guidelines on visiting and to make it part of core training for protection workers. Old staff should be retrained on this matter. Such a device would save a great deal of money.

Ferris retired after a career that included significant years with the MCFD. He has written a book entitled 'The Art of Child Protection.' This is the first in a series of pieces Ray will write here. You can order Mr. Ferris' book entitled 'the Art of Child Protection' by contacting the author directly at rtferris@telus.net.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN by Ray Ferris

A children’s minister once told me that 30% of cases are over-investigated and 30% under-investigated. Looks like he was unintentionally saying that his staff got it wrong 60% of the time. To anyone who has had dealings with that ministry, this will come as no surprise. This blog has been primarily concerned with the cases of over-investigation. Those cases where a family has been persistently pursued and harassed when there was no good reason to do so. I want to write about cases on the other side of the coin. Those cases where the social workers turned a blind eye to neglect and abuse and left children to live in misery for years.

DEFENDING PARENTAL FREEDOM

We have academically agreed that both state and family have roles and bear responsibility. What is the appropriate role of family within a free and democratic society? What is the appropriate role of the government with respect to families? The questions are multi-faceted because of our numerous divisions of governance, local, federal and provincial, and our legal systems and law enforcement.

Tensions subsist within our government and the sectors that comprise it when it comes to converting theory into practice. The discussions surrounding these questions has become increasingly louder with each questionable and contested administration of government intervention into family affairs.

FOR PARENTS - INFO & SUGGESTI0NS - How to Help Yourself, Part 3 of 4

INFORMATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR PARENTS WHO ARE INVOLVED WITH CHILD PROTECTION AUTHORITIES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
Written by Ray Ferris

Part Three of Four
HOW TO HELP YOURSELF

How to help yourself.

There is a lot you can do to help yourself. It helps if you understand the process and what to expect. Any person with a reasonable degree of literacy can research the act. Internet users can simply enter the name of the act (Child, Family and Community Services Act) into a search engine and access it on line and print it. You do not need to know the whole act, but you can quickly learn how some key sections of the act are supposed to work and how they are meant to protect you. You can and should insist on compliance, even if your lawyer wants to be more casual.

FOR PARENTS - INFO & SUGGESTIONS - CHILD PROTECTIOIN & THE COURT, part 1 of 4

INFORMATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR PARENTS WHO ARE INVOLVED WITH CHILD PROTECTION AUTHORITIES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.
Written by Ray Ferris April 29th 2012.

Part One of Four
THE CHILD PROTECTION AND FAMILY COURT SYSTEM

Introduction.

girlsportguide.com

These notes are aimed at helping people who have recently become involved with the Ministry of Child and family services directly or through others. The information is written in the light of a number of cases coming to me and to other child protection helpers. I have borne in mind many of the most common questions that have been asked me. In writing this, I warn readers that the child protection scene is ugly, not only in British Columbia, but throughout Canada and the whole English speaking world. Unfortunately, I have good grounds for this statement, which is based on contact with numerous cases and with consistent reporting on a number of child protection blogs. I am very blunt about it because I believe that people are better off knowing the stark reality of things, than in harbouring false hopes, only to be disappointed.

DEFENDING PARENTAL FREEDOMS IN A CHILD-CENTRED SYSTEM

Strain exists between the state and the parts which comprise it. As it pertains to the family issues aired for the past four years on this blog site, the question has become multi-faceted. What is the appropriate role of family within a free and democratic society? What is the appropriate role of the government with respect to families?

WORLDWIDE CONCERN/ Part 381 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

If you were in any doubt about the clamouring international interest there is in the concerns about families and children and parental rights and freedoms involved with child welfare and child protection and removal and deaths while in care, Google any of the above but let me also tell you who it is who is reading this GPS blog. Even recently, people log on from Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany; Reading, United Kingdom; Lincoln, New Hampshire, United States; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Huntsville, Missouri, United States; Oaxaca, Mexico; Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; Edison, New Jersey, United States; Forest Hills, New York, United States; Twickenham, Richmond Upon Thames, United Kingdom; Algiers, Alger, Algeria; Bonaventure, Quebec, Canada; Indonesia; Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada; Strasbourg, Alsace, France; Mumbai, Maharashtra, India; Sidney, British Columbia; Puerto La Cruz, Vargas, Venezuela; and of course in cities and towns across Canada and throughout British Columbia. Over 143,000 hits have registered and this is not a busy blog. It is however, an intelligible, rational approach and it acquires readers who want to be informed and who appreciate an opportunity to respond with a supportive, informative or corrective viewpoint.

People want to understand how a ministry intended at the start for such selfless and humane purposes can become so wrong-headed no matter where in the world it is practiced.

There is no question in my mind that those who are commissioned and employed to protect a district's children when parents or guardians are failing, are faced with distressing situations that can make them sick and angry. I would respond similarly. There are parents and step parents and grandparents and live-in partners who are prisoners of addictions or behavioural issues that lead them to be negligent custodians of children. And there are parents and others who are cruel and malicious by nature and intent. All of these people forfeit temporarily or forever any right to have children in their care. It is the way it should be. Do you think I have stated this too strongly? These children need a chance to live and to be all for which they have potential. Yet, terrible things happen to children in care too. What must virtuous social workers think and do in such situations? If a child protection agency will remove children for their safety, their alternate living condition must be close to a guaranteed perfect life situation. Such guarantees are not universally pursued - not in every district or region. I am convinced of that when foster parents can actually refuse to be registered yet be given children. Protection agencies informed of a risk situation but which do not act in time to save a child or, having acted to protect a child when a risk was suspected, they refuse to return the child even when no evidence of risk exists and when other evidence points to a return being in the child's best interest.

There is only one word that befits the realities – INCOMPETENCE. It is a universal child protection malaise.

Miranda Rights and a Counsel / Part 294 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Yesterday's Suggestions for Regaining Trust will be available tomorrow.

An Anonymous writer on August 23, 2010 at 9:09 PM wrote the following interesting comment.
Anonymous said...

“Social workers do not only remove children as a last resort. That is ridiculous and very untrue. Over the last seven years I have heard case after case where children were removed when other measures could have been put in place. Cases where more than one family member offered to care for the children but MCFD wouldn't even do the home studies. Cases where the children could have stayed with the parent if certain things were put in place but 'no funding' for that! Several situations where the children didn't even need to be removed. I think, if life is so bad for a child that they must be removed, there better be proof and I don't mean proof without evidence. I mean proof. Why screw up a child's future forever based on a few comments made by a neighbor or an angry ex spouse? And, when children are removed, parents should be told their rights just as it is when a person is charged with a crime because, in reality, what's the difference. Everything a parent says to a social worker will be used against them in court so why don't social workers tell parents that? Why don't social workers take statements from parents that are signed so that no statement can be later twisted and used against them?”

Among the points made were:

1. Kinship and Friend care should be prioritized when a removal is required during an investigation.
2. Child Removal should truly be the last resort not merely on paper and in theory but in practice. 
3. A judge should never grant the Ministry a care order without substantial evidence. 
4. Something like U.S. Miranda rights should be required to read to parents before conversation, interrogation or investigation so incriminating statements or subjectively recorded entries cannot be used. 
5. Any statement from parent(s) to be filed should require parent(s)' signature.

SUPERVISED VISITATION / Part 161 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Supervision during Parental Visits with Children

Don't press the supervised visitation arrow. It's misleading.

This blog post will not be the full story. I am asking that some of you who have had experience with supervised visits, will write a comment to inform the rest of us.

One might think that it should be relatively uncomplicated for parents to visit their children who presently are being held in Ministry care. One might also assume that supervision is unnecessary.

MCFD will always maintain that supervised visits are necessary to insure the safety of the child.
This means that a supervisor is present for each visit between forcibly separated children and parents. A supervisor takes notes.

What becomes clear from the paper and reporting trail of countless case histories is that the supervised visit is an important and invaluable source of information for the Ministry. The information is a collage of observations, impressions and opinions written by the supervisor during the visit. These seldom work to the benefit of the parent(s).

Different types of supervision prescribed by MCFD are noteworthy.

1. A supervised visit might occur in a child-friendly room in the MCFD office suite. These can be two hour visits. They can be conducted without a supervisor in the visiting room. In some cases one way mirrored walls provide opportunity for supervision by social workers secreted behind the wall. This visitation space is free to the parent and means that the MCFD is not required to contract a third party to either transport the children or to monitor the visit in an independent location. In the office environment, if a supervisor is assigned to sit in during the visit, it may be a social worker but may also be an uncertified employee paid a per hour stipend. In the latter scenario, the employee has a modicum of training for this task including how to perform supervision and to write notes. The form used by the supervisor can be a standard fill-in form.

2. A part-time uncertified MCFD employee (not a social worker) is paid per hour to transport the children from the foster home to the parental home for an in-house visit. These may be 90 minute visits. The more acculturated the supervisor has become to MCFD practice the more predictably the supervisor’s notes suggest diminished affection between children and parents(s) and the more they infer or portray perceived problems. Further, the supervisor exercises control over parents by imposing restrictions upon the parents and children i.e. topics of communication, gestures and signs.

3. The visit takes place in a neutral or independent location supervised by an employee of a company or service provider contracted to transport children and to monitor the visit and take notes. Two local supervisory visitation providers Tin Harbour and NICCSS. Tin is an acronym for ‘Teens in Need’ and it was established in 1994. It’s website provides information about Tin. With few exceptions for court ordered visitations, Tin works for the Ministry of Children and Family Development almost exclusively. The work consists of supplying the transportation for children from the foster home to the visitation destination and return. Charges to the Ministry are for travel and reports. NCCSS is the other company doing supervision and its website identifies the details of its services.

Both of these service providers charge about $40/hour and double that on holidays but holidays I have learned are virtually impossible to obtain unless booked very well in advance.

Supervision procedure according to parents:
1. Parents never gain access to a supervisor’s written reports and are therefore unable to refute information that would be mistaken, imprecise, inaccurate or incorrect.
2. Parents are disadvantaged as well because they are not permitted to have guests in attendance lest they become witnesses in favour of the parents.
3. Parents are customarily not permitted to use video equipment during visitation and photos with digital cameras are permitted with supervision only.
4. Supervision is scheduled during regular working day hours, arranged at the convenience of the Ministry and the contracted service providers but seldom or never in consideration of the parents. Parents must miss work or surrender day jobs for evening work or miss their visits. Parents do not have input into the scheduling of visits.
5. Parents testify that the contracted supervision companies have given evidence that their reports tend to reflect the present position of MCFD with respect to the parents, so reports by the same supervisor who has reported parental inattentiveness or lack of affection by parents or children, may capriciously transform into positive affirmations when MCFD is moving to return the children.

I grant that my opinion of supervised visitation is shaped by injured parents but what they say is easily enough to disturb me. Some of the things that I hear should not be happening.

CLEAR COMMUNICATION / Part 150 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

CLEAR COMMUNICATION

Ideally Blue stands for Parent, yellow stands for Social Worker, and red stands for Director. Information freely flows between them as they work to solution. But there is something wrong with that picture. It isn't accurate to the Baynes story, and to many others as well. Quite apart from Paul and Zabeth Bayne, what I hear parents saying is that at every stage that their child is in the protection process with MCFD, the parents are repeatedly deprived of basic information. That is certainly contradictory to the CFCSA intention and prescription because it is essential that the concerns of the Ministry be communicated in order for the parents to improve their situation so they can get their child back home. It is the duty of social workers to keep parents informed about the status of their file and the plan for their child. In spite of that, parents claim they are uninformed or even misinformed. Parents should be apprised of the steps in a plan by which they can have their children returned. Parents also should be notified of any changes of their child’s placement, or health or medical appointments or procedures and it should disturb us all that parents can give evidence of how often their input is not requested and they are left in the dark or at best informed at the last minute. Rather than clear communication a more apt term for what parents should be able to expect is ‘transparent communication.’ Nothing concealed or disguised. It’s preposterous that I even need to describe these distortions of appropriate practice.

Alright now to the Bayne Case. The purpose for Integrated Care Meetings between MCFD social workers and parents is to establish understandings and expectations. During one of the infrequent ICMs with the Baynes, MCFD signed to the effect that the Baynes would be informed and given opportunity to attend all medical related appointments with their children. Before their children were taken, Paul and Zabeth certainly were dutifully diligent about the health care of their children. Just days ago the Baynes were informed that their middle son Baden was scheduled to have an MRI yet they had not been included in either discussing the need for this or invited to attend the procedure. This is their son after all. And had they been invited to the discussion they would certainly want to know why this procedure was being done now when they were the ones with the prior knowledge of his medical care. In fact, when he was very young they recognized Baden’s head was developing an unusual shape so they sought medical advice at Vancouver Children’s Hospital. Baden was given an initial MRI followed by another and then the news that they had no cause for alarm. They were even given professional advice about surgery to reopen the plates of his skull and then wear a helmet twenty-three hours of every day until a normal shape was restored. Further counsel informed them that the treatment was not worth the trauma and the risk and that the boy’s hair covered the slight abnormality. So, here is a case where even while a court hearing is in process, MCFD does something that compels the Baynes to have their lawyer pursue this matter legally. The Baynes also learned that Baden has been registered by MCFD in a mental health program. If this is a necessity, the Baynes should have been informed about the nature of the mental or emotional condition MCFD is seeking to address. What the Baynes have seen is a small boy’s occasional frustration or depression you might call it because of not being able to come home and giving evidence of being hurt and troubled by this ongoing, far too long and insecure living arrangement. If others recognize this, the question once again is why were the Baynes not involved in the decision to register him or given the option of seeking a counsellor or program of their choice, albeit with MCFD approval? Probably, it is fair to ask why MCFD has protracted this process of retaining custody for so long now (thirty months) that a small boy’s need for his parents has produced this result. Let’s be real here. The Ministry has orchestrated care of this child longer than the boy was with the parents and his issues are the result of what the Ministry has done or failed to do.

These past few days have been difficult for them, being able to see Baden for just three hours this week and they know that he needs the parental connection so much just as they need him particularly since the MRI was done Thursday, and as of Saturday, they have not been informed about how this went, what are the results or how Baden felt during this procedure. Would it not have been a generous and proactive gesture to invite the Baynes to be there with their son? But a consideration like that is not in keeping with the MCFD's current court action to remove the children forever.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne – Part 65 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

WHAT MAKES A GOOD PARENT?

Here are eight slices of advice. Parents generally want to do the best job of parenting their children into adulthood and independence. Parents desire to make wise choices so that during the process of raising the children and when the outcome is determined, there are as few regrets as possible but there is an archive of great memories.

What makes a good parent?

1. A Good parent lets go of the notion that the child will be what the parent wants the child to be. That is not to encourage the abrogation of the parental duties that shape good character. It relates more to a restraint from seeking to mold a child into a perfect duplication of the parent’s vision.
2. A Good parent exemplifies love for others and particularly love for the child and communicates this to the child enough that confidence and security are the character building outcomes.
3. A Good parent owns responsibility for the rearing of the child and does not expect others like school teachers or church program leaders to do this for the parent.
4. A Good parent self educates in order to provide optimum health and nutrition, to supply a range of cultural and cuisine experiences, to teach about world concerns, political and social matters.
5. A Good parent is vigorous about learning and respecting a child’s personality and introducing chores at appropriate developmental stages that equip the child for the future.
6. A Good parent takes time at all stages to be interested and involved in what the child is doing and to give undivided attention when it is required so that the parent’s influence is highly effective.
7. A Good parent communicates in physical ways, in body language, in listening and interacting with the child, that home is the safe place where love is unconditional.

Zabeth and Paul are eager to be the good parents God called them to be 24/7, but they are permitted 6 hours per week to be with their children. The children cannot live with their parents. They live instead with foster parents. To live as a family, Zabeth and Paul have missed 33% of their eldest son’s lifetime, 50 % of their second son’s earth time, and most of their daughter’s life. These three children have been in the custody of a government Ministry for over two years. And this, not because the parents ever abused their two boys or abused the baby girl but because medical professionals were taught to associate the baby girl’s physical symptoms exclusively with Shaken Baby Syndrome. Suspicion translated into a fractured family, traumatized and confused children, broken-hearted parents and grandparents. Bureaucratic indifference has set in as each player focuses upon his or her specific task rather than upon the larger objective of what is best for this family and the wider family and the communities in which it moves.

I credit my skeletal content today to Natalie Bahadur whose article ‘What makes a good parent?’ on the Canadian Living website inspired me with its 8 opinions on good parenting, in which she recorded the advice of several Canadian parents on the subject of child rearing and what it takes to be a good mom or dad. Natalie Bahadur is a contributor to ElleCanada.com and the editor of StyleAtHome.com.

Photographs are unrelated to the Bayne family.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne – Part 63 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

PARENTS CAN BE TREATED COURTEOUSLY


Zabeth is an accomplished musician, a concert pianist, a music teacher. That was her life before, our of necessity, the recovery of her family took over her life. She awakens to the daily pain of beginning another day without her babies, of returning to daily duties all of which revolve around gathering information to help her own cause and assist other parents with similar complaints with the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development. Weekly, she writes letters to the Premier, to Members of the Legislative Assembly, to media journalists and news organizations in hopes that someone will listen and someone will respond. She and Paul work are custodians at night. That permits them to be available for each of the two afternoons when they can visit their children every week. Customarily the three children who now live in the same foster home, are brought by a commissioned driver to a location to which Paul and Zabeth go to spend three hours from 1 pm to 4 pm.

MCFD is supposed to be a service and help agency. Nothing is gained when its employees manifest an adversarial posture. If protection of children and eventual restoration of the family is the Ministry objective, it is sufficient to withhold the children from living with the parents. It is pointless to treat the parents badly. Yet there is evidence that thoughtlessness, oversights and lack of common courtesies typify the way some workers in the regional sector of MCFD manage the Bayne case. Consideration of the Bayne parents appears to be a low Ministry priority. Disrespect is repeatedly reinforced. This was one of the most recent examples.

They were informed that all through December and to the end of the first week of January at least one of the three children will not be in attendance at the visitation day. No explanation accompanies this notification. No indication of a makeup visit is given so Zabeth is compelled to request one in writing from the social worker that oversees the daily care of the children. Most of these inquiries are never answered. Zabeth and Paul are not told which children they will see on a given day or who will be absent. This week’s Thursday visit has been entirely cancelled for all three children but again without explanation or suggestion of a follow-up. A phone call from the social worker could easily communicate the explanation.

A network of parents having similar problems with the BC MCFD confers casually and it becomes clear that this treatment is being experienced by others as well as the Baynes. In fact, some parents who were told that a visit was cancelled and therefore didn’t show up, have stated that their children later told them that the MCFD told the children that their parents didn't want to see them today. In other instances parents have been told that the children didn’t want to see them on a certain day which they later learned was untrue. This is one of the reasons why Zabeth and Paul show up for every scheduled visitation time even when one has been cancelled. The Baynes have driven from Surrey to Chilliwack for a visit and on occasion have done so in snowy weather and found no children were there. Zabeth says that “On those days the return trip has been filled with many tears.”

Reader, please hit this link and sign this petition to return the children to Paul and Zabeth.