RESOLVING SYSTEMIC AND NON-SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS IN CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES, Part 5

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

Knowledge and skills.

The knowledge and skills needed by social workers in protection work can be defined, taught and trained. I will start with the skills that are most often lacking. The most obvious one is the lack of evidentiary skills. Social workers do not seem to know what evidence is reliable and what is not. They cannot distinguish between factual evidence, eyewitness evidence, expert opinion evidence, hearsay, conjecture, assumption and rumour. Crown counsel should be screening out the weak items in the spectrum of evidence and counselling moderation. This was done in the B. case, but the director ignored this counsel. If the social workers only proceeded on factual and eyewitness evidence, cases could be shortened and of course expert opinion evidence should not be accepted without rigorous process.

10% WAS ENOUGH & 90% MUST CONVINCE MS. MCNEIL / 538

( This is a mid-day edit because of clarified information)

We have known that June 2 is the concluding day of the court appointed three month temporary care order for the three oldest Bayne children. We naively thought that a court appearance immediately following June 2 might entertain the possibility of a return of these children. MCFD has numerous options to retain the children if it so chooses. Why do I speak so sardonically? Because so many parents have already related their stories. All of them helpless before the system. And then there is the Bayne Case itself.

Yesterday at a court appearance, the Ministry applied for an extension and received it. It also merged the newborn Josiah Bayne case with the case for the other three children so that all four sibling names appear on the same documentation now. Lawyer Robert Hamilton is now working for the Baynes and he managed to arrange a Case Conference in July that will be presided over by a judge who listens to both sides and acts as a mediator but does so with authority. Now we look forward to that. Meanwhile the Baynes continue to work at the programs in which they are engaged as a means by which to demonstrate their sincerity and capacity to parent safely and effectively.

PROJECT PARENT - THE BAYNES LAST CHANCE / 512

Project Parent logo/ Family Services

Paul and Zabeth Bayne indicated some weeks ago their agreement to participate in Project Parent. This is an integral facet of the parental betterment and assessment being done by the Ministry of Children and Family Development on these parents. Project Parent is an intensive eight month program for parents of young children. The Ministry will often refer to Project Parent, a family that it considers “at risk.' The Baynes will certainly be one of these.

CHRISTIE'S FINAL SUBMISSION installment 7of10 Berhe, Humeny, Glen / 495

New to this? Paul and Zabeth Bayne's 3 children have been in court ordered foster care since Oct 22, 2007. On March 2, 2011 a judge ruled ongoing care for 6 more months (recently altered to 3 months).
Lawyer Doug Christie's final SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE to Finn Jensen's closing summation was delivered on behalf of the Baynes on November 4, 2010. Yesterday you read points 15-17 and today in Christie's own words, it is.... Submissions and Analysis, points 18-20 beginning, "First the testimony of team leader Mr. Berhe Gulbot." This is the seventh installment in a brief series of quotations from this public document. 

IF IT WASN'T SBS, THEN WHAT? DON'T KNOW? PRECISELY! LET THE CHILDREN GO! / 486

Maybe this will keep you going until Monday.

The questionable convictions in Ontario in the 1980's and 90's, some of which were were based upon Shaken Baby Syndrome, and some of which were because of testimony by now-disgraced pathologist Charles Smith, render Judge Crabtree's conclusion to the Bayne questionable if not impugnable.

If the Baynes' children should not be retained in the province of British Columbia foster care system because the judge dismissed SBS as a cause for one child's injuries, then there is no reason whatsoever for them to be in care. None whatsoever.

In the middle of a circle of cows

Don't tell me there is a risk. If the law cannot say that the risk is a definite 80%, or 50% or 30% then don't speak about a probability of risk. Then for Judge Crabtree to venture a 10% risk probability is fanciful nonsense, deplorable.

RISK RATIONALITIES IN CHILD PROTECTION / Part 413 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

The risk paradigm significantly influences contemporary social work. Social work and risk are increasingly linked as we have seen in a case like Paul and Zabeth Bayne and the removal of their three children in October of 2007. On the one hand, risk is a factor in contemporary social policy and practice because it must be when a report is received that a child is injured and there is suspicion of abuse. On the other hand, the 'risk' concept in social work is not uniform or uncontested. There are different rationalities for risk within social work which result in differing policy responses and practices. What then is at issue is that different rationalities of risk, regard or assess a 'subject/client' differently and therefore respond in differing ways to the subject. We have heard commenters say that one team of SWs treated the client combatively and newer SW assigned to the task was understanding.

In the case of the Baynes, we have had a Director who believes that at the time of the infant daughter's injuries and diagnosis in September 2007, Paul and Zabeth were a risk to their daughter. Moreover, throughout these past three years and still today as evidenced in the most recent affidavit, the Director believes the parents are a risk to this child. They do not deserve ever to have custody of their children again. That's the essence of the Continuing Care application upon which the Judge is deliberating at this moment. So convinced is the Director about the risk that Paul and Zabeth pose to children that he directed the apprehension of the baby girl's two brothers. Those boys aged two and three in autumn 2007 are now five and six years old and have also been in care rather than at home.

Upon what was this risk based? Well no substantiated evidence exists. No evidence pointed to a criminal act by one or both of the parents. The Director moved initially to the apprehension of the couple's children because of their youngest child's injuries. Even the medical diagnosis by a hospital pediatrician was not evidence. The doctor who was part of the child protection unit of the hospital concluded that the injuries were consistent with something called shaken baby syndrome. The diagnosis is not evidence. It is a theory. It assumes that the only explanation for that set of medical findings is willful harm to the child. Because of its name, 'shaken baby,' this theory assumes more than it should. Its description correctly reveals the serious and sometimes life threatening medical condition of the child, but titling the condition this way, passes judgement on caregivers because the name itself imputes liability without verifiable proof. This has got to stop. The diagnosis is even more contestable today because so many medical and bio-mechanical professionals have been doing research and writing opinion papers that offer grounds for other explanations for the injuries that were sustained by the Bayne child. Many of these were presented to the Director first but when the CCO application was made, these facts were presented in court by the Baynes' lawyer. The Director has retained his risk persuasion because he has never accepted the Bayne explanation for their youngest child's injuries. He has never believed that they are innocent as they have insisted without cowering and with so much at stake. In his mind, they were and are and always will be a risk. Redemption is not in this MCFD team's vocabulary. For that reason as Zabeth has come almost to term with her fourth pregnancy, MCFD has made numerous overtures to discuss with the Baynes the care of the yet to be born child. It is to this that Ray Ferris' letter to Mr. McNeill spoke. A personal letter that illustrated the uncaring stress that this conduct placed upon Zabeth whom the entire local MCFD team knows is vulnerable to seriously premature deliveries. It is time that risk assessments are conducted upon MCFD managers and SWs.

What disturbs me is that another Director with different risk rationalities might have already demonstrated willingness to accept the parents' strengths as well as exercised leniency and compassion to them for the sake of the family.

This Blog has been advocating the return of three children to their biological parents, Paul and Zabeth Bayne, for which a ruling is expected from Judge Crabtree within the next two weeks. Stay posted.

IN ALISON'S OWN WORDS / Part 396 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

You met Alison in yesterday's post. She is a mom and a fourth year student in child welfare and intending a career in child protection. In my blog post today I have Alison's permission to quote snatches from a submission she published on November 27th. She stumbled onto my blog while doing course research and she left a comment. You will appreciate the sincerity and thoughtfulness of this young woman as she entitles her piece The ethics of child protection? and after several paragraphs she wrote the following.

“I have also recently read everything I could find about MCFD since the 2006 Hughes Report, especially what was available about the changes Deputy Minister du Toit intends to make. She is scrapping Risk Assessment in favour of a new model, called "CAPP" which stands for Child and Family Support, Assessment, Planning and Practice, and which is mostly described in aspirational, visionary terms. Specific, measurable outcomes are not published, nor are details pertaining to what staff will actually be doing. Not very transparent, in my opinion, and thus, not very ethical.”

“Two further reports I have recently read are Broken Promises (2008) and  Hands Tied (2009), both researched and published  by Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver. The first talks about how the system has consistently failed children and their families for generations in spite of legislative reform, internal reorganization and changing governments. The second talks about why BC child protection workers are leaving their jobs at an alarming rate: not enough staff, and too much political churn.”

“As well, I have been reading whatever I can find about MCFD in the public domain - media articles, blog posts, and comments on both. One specific blog I have been perusing is GPS, which is 'a personal weblog advocating for the Bayne family reunion and suggesting potential corrections to B.C. child welfare.' The comments on many of these blog posts have led me to conclude that British Columbians despise social workers.”

“I, however, would like to distinguish between social workers and child protection workers. Social Workers in BC are governed by the Social Workers Act, unless they are employed by a government or its agency, a school or a band (um, that's a LOT of exceptions!). Despite Judge Gove's recommendation that child protection social workers actually be social workers (pretty radical, I know!), child protection workers are not required to have a degree in social work, nor are they required to be registered. They can hold a degree in Child and Youth Care (or they can hold a Masters in Clinical Psychology or an M.Ed. in Counselling).”

“Regardless, as Pivot (2008) points out, "apprehensions are generally the result of a parent’s struggle with poverty, addiction, mental health issues or family violence. The government’s lack of commitment to providing publicly funded services has severely undermined the ability of [MCFD] to take a preventative approach to child protection issues."

I believe social work education, which is highly anti-oppressive, which requires continual deconstruction of the current and historical political ideologies which inform social policy, which insists that all knowledge is socially constructed to benefit a small minority of citizens, can effectively train workers to treat all clients with dignity and respect. It is a social worker's job to look for the structural, systemic causes of a parent's "bad behaviour" rather than blaming individual pathology. We consider the person in his/her environment. We stand with our clients, in solidarity. Our mandate is social change, social and economic justice for all citizens, not just for the "good" ones.”

“I just have to keep reminding myself of my mandate as a social worker (as described, above), not as a child protection worker (whose mandate is contradictory, to keep children safe from parental maltreatment while maintaining the family home as the ideal place for children). I have to keep reminding myself that I chose this profession out of my stand for social justice for all, especially the most marginalized; that I chose social work out of an ethical responsibility I feel to children. Otherwise, all those commenters who write that child protection workers are evil, could lead me to despair, lead me to think child protection is a pointless career, characterized by burnout, not appreciated by anyone. And we can't have that!”

Thank you Alison for your willingness to share your aspirations, ideals and opinions for the past two days.

CHILD WELFARE STUDENT'S VIEW / Part 395 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

On November 22nd, Alison wrote a comment on the blog post #375 entitled, A Social Worker's Challenge. There she introduced herself. Following from that on November 27^th, Ray Ferris responded to Alison.There were a few others who engaged her that day on Blog #380. Since then for the past several days she and others have continued to interact.

Alison

Alison told us that she is a mother and that she is a fourth year student with a child welfare specialization at University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford. She happened upon my blog while researching CAPP and Risk Assessment for her class work. She left her informative comment after browsing and reading blog content for an hour. She has chosen child protection as her career track. She knows this is not easy work but she believes that it is honourable work. Very openly and honestly she spoke of her own ethical concerns about aspects of the work in which she will be engaged. She told us that she has received good counsel from her father who is himself a social worker with MCFD with a twenty year service record. She knows that there is a high attrition rate among social workers. Child protection certainly has a high attrition rate as attested by a social worker who as a guest instructor in one of Alison's recent classes stated that she has chosen to move to another province because of disappointment with Ministry changes over the past few years. When speaking of the challenges of the work in which she will be employed, Alison wrote, “There are no black and white cases, they are all painted in shades of gray. However, I chose this work because I believe that someone has to stand for children. I think that, sometimes, standing for children means standing for their parents, supporting their parents, developing their parents. (After all, what is the full name of MCFD? The Ministry for children and family DEVELOPMENT.)”

She thanked me for acknowledging the complexities of the process for keeping children safe in that day's blog entitled 'A Social Worker's Challenge' and then she said, “I will endeavour to live up to the challenge you describe in this post, to be willing to admit when I have made the wrong decision. I think I'm not the only social worker out there willing to take up this challenge...”

I believed hers was a significant comment and because I wanted people with a jaded impression of all social workers to be encouraged, I invited Alison to write to me personally and she did that. I asked for and received her permission to write this information as a blog post. In that exchange she wrote, “It is difficult to not be discouraged after reading some of the comments placed on your blog, it seems that many people lump social workers and child protection workers and politicians and MCFD into one category. I personally see many competent child protection workers, some of whom are trained as social workers, some of whom are not, and I see a few poor practitioners. I also see that many good workers are constrained by the ministry, by their managers (who are no longer protected by a union, and can be fired for not following the 'party line'), and forced to do things they don't want to do.”

Tomorrow I will publish another post that features Alison's thoughts. She represents people who are our best hope for family development within MCFD and responsible child welfare.

She writes a blog called random musings...

A SOCIAL WORKER'S CHALLENGE / Part 375 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Identifying abuse and assessing risk is a complex process. Seldom can social workers establish child abuse based upon a single call-in or information item. Serious injuries to a child do arouse suspicion yet the injuries may be the result of accident or illness. Further even when injuries are non accidental, the offender may not be clearly identifiable. Typically social workers must assemble a picture of the family as well as an account of the incident by fitting together conversations and information from many sources such as relatives, friends and neighbours and professionals. The information with which they deal possesses variable degrees of reliability but social workers must act and make judgements concerning the safety of children in a case. Moreover they must act quickly.

"Variazione - Latin - Change Opinion"

Michael Taylor, leather mask

There is a need for haste if danger is real and also because the governing act has time constraints. So social workers form rapid opinions about parents and often upon limited evidence. It would be reasonable and wise therefore that such opinions would be considered provisional and open to revision. There should always be a willingness to consider many sources of new information that may challenge the initial opinions. In this difficult area of child protection work, social workers are fallible. They cannot make the 'right' decision in any absolute sense. Judgements and decisions can only be deemed the 'best' based on the available evidence. As the case progresses and new information and ideas are received, judgements have to be reviewed and sometimes changed. Social workers therefore often have to recognize, that although their former views were reasonable at the time they were made, they were nonetheless, wrong. They were mistaken. One might even safely say that mistakes are an inevitable part of practice and a preparedness to recognize them as mistakes is an essential element of good practice.

The tension created for social workers is constantly reflected on this blog because on one hand we, the public, want to insure the protection of children against parental abuse and on the other hand we want to champion the family as the citadel of democratic freedom with which no one, including governments should interfere.

Therefore, it is imperative that initial information be checked thoroughly for accuracy of reliability since child abuse is so emotive and reports can be exaggerated or false. Certainly the social workers must make rapid judgements about the character of people, parents and informants but all these should be checked and rechecked for a thorough investigation. Properly following investigative procedure can result in further details that revise the initial case assessment and there must be a willingness to change the opinion. Further, a social worker may find that given some reflective time away from the child and the parents, and in collaboration with others such as a supervisor, the facts produce a different picture of the case.

I have listened to the divergent opinions of a Ministry lawyer and a parent/defendant lawyer, one arguing that the investigation was thorough and all pieces of the puzzle fit together to portray the truth that one or both parents injured an infant, and the other counselor arguing that the investigation was a cursory, inferior narrative to substantiate a medical report and placement of blame to which the social workers had committed themselves early, and that the truth lies in their innocence and in a mistaken diagnosis and blame assessment. I accept the latter position and I am confident so will Judge Thomas Crabtree.

FERRIS' ANALYSIS OF MCFD'S RISK ASSESSMENT / Part 270 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

This blog post is quoted from a comment by Mr. Ray Ferris for Wednesday July 14th 2010 attached to the Add a Comment post that day. Mr. Ferris is retired after a career that included significant years with the MCF. He is a man of principle, experience and wisdom. He is an astute critic of what has happened in child care and protection and has sound advice about positive changes. He is a welcome advocate for the Baynes. He provides regular informative explanations and assessments among the comments on this blog.

“Yesterday I wrote about the ministry risk assessment form and showed that is just an elaborate checklist, which contains the opinions of social workers. No evidentiary rigor is required in order to support an opinion. It is left to the adversary-the enemy-to make the rating, which leaves it open to blatant bias.

Today I show how all this affected the risk assessment on the Baynes. To start with the assessment started over 18 months after the removal of the children. By this time the director was already seeking a continuing care order and was clearly adversarial. Not only that he had subjected the boys to great cruelty when he ripped them from the tender care of their grandparents. He did this in a fit of pique and then tried to find excuses for his behaviour. He eventually offered three different feeble excuses. There was the additional cruelty of subjecting the Baynes to humiliating micro-management of visitations and treating them like dangerous criminals. So clearly he had placed the ministry in a hostile position to the Baynes and the worker who did the risk assessment knew that he would have to please his boss, by making them look as bad as possible.

He did a good job and he did not forget to excuse his boss for ending the relative placement. Throughout the assessment he made the worst possible interpretation of everything that he could. When there is no evidence to the contrary one should rate the function as normal. Time and time again he could only bring himself to check box 9. "Insufficient evidence available" After 18 months he had not had enough contact with the case to find evidence. Imagine that. That did not prevent him from finding every opportunity to smear the Baynes though.

The other thing that betrayed the blatant bias was that he could not find one positive thing to say about the family. He could not bother to read the many supportive letters sent to him, but he would pay serious attention to anonymous callers. The Baynes have many supporters who think that they have many good points and strengths, but all the worker could do was to leave the page for strengths as a complete blank.

Using only established facts, I could easily fill in the risk assessment form and make them look like model parents. With a little poetic license I could probably make them look like martyred saints!

Now what is the net effect of the Bayne risk assessment? It showed very poor judgement to try to bring such terrible piece of work into court as evidence. By the time Doug Christie had finished his cross-examination, not only was the risk assessment discredited, but its author and all those who supported him. We must remember that this assessment, which was little better than smear, innuendo, mudslinging and character assassination, was signed off by his supervisor and approved by the director. They are both equally responsible and there is a good chance that Leslie Dutoit had a finger in the pie too.

If the risk assessment device can be used so destructively in only one case, it is a complete indictment of the format and the way it is used. We know from this blog that many other cases have had similar experiences and this has far-reaching implications. If this is a common occurrence, what does it say about all those highly paid bureaucrats who condone such shabby work. What does it say about ministry counsels and judges who accept such nonsense as evidence. Perhaps worst of all, what does it say about all those defense counsels who do not do everything to discredit such evidence and blandly go along with the ministry.

Doug Christie gave a fine example about how a defense counsel should treat this trash and I will be very surprised if the judge omits to make some incisive comments when he gives his judgement.

If there are any social work professors reading this blog, you should take a good look at this issue and speak up. So should the BC Association of social workers and members of the legislative assembly. Otherwise this sort of abuse will continue.”

ABSENTEE CHILDREN / Part 247 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Each day that Paul and Zabeth awake, they step past rooms in which their children's things are contained and because the children are gone, these clothes and toys are transformed into the signs of their absence. These lonely suffering people begin another day, like so many other days, hundreds of days. It takes their breath away. They start the day with a punch to the gut. Yet graciously the day may be one of the three each week during which three hours are allocated for them to visit with the children who no longer live in their home. The mornings cannot pass soon enough. These afternoon minutes are joy-filled, each treasured and remembered. Children fill Paul's and Zabeth's embrace, climb on their laps, sit astride Paul's shoulders, snuggle into Zabeth's neck. Always, always a supervisor sits as close to this action as possible to hear each verbal exchange, each endearment, each casual comment. A supervisor with the responsibility and the gall to remonstrate these parents if either does or says anything that has previously forbidden. The prohibition may pertain to a conversation topic or taking a child to the washroom. Even the brief snatches of family sanity and wholeness are moderated by an invasion of excessive control. On the other four days each week, Paul and Zabeth live with a reality that should only be a nightmare from which they can awake. The children are not there. They don't sit together for bowls of cereal. They don't ask mom and dad to take them to the beach. They don't make children's sounds at play. Their rooms are silent.

WRONGFUL CONVICTION / Part 246 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Let's be clear about what has been transpiring in Chilliwack court case File 10073 that presently sits on hold until August 9-13^th.  Judge Thomas Crabtree is hearing an application by the Ministry of Children and Family Development for a Continuing Care Order which will authorize the Director of the Fraser Region of the MCFD to permanently keep the three children of Paul and Zabeth Bayne in care until they are adopted by another family.

In order to win this ruling, MCFD is presenting a case that is nothing less than an attempt to wrongfully convict Paul and Zabeth of a criminal act. If you disagree with me, then tell me what I am missing in my appraisal. Please don't say, “the parents' guilt is missing from you assessment,” because guilt is the one thing for which neither you nor MCFD have evidence.

MCFD does not have a case because there is no proof that either Paul or Zabeth physically shook their youngest child, their infant daughter Baby B. If the contested shaken baby syndrome were an iron clad diagnosis, there would still be no evidence other than circumstantial that might implicate Paul or Zabeth. Nevertheless, in the autumn of 2007 following a frightening diagnosis by a reputable Vancouver pediatrician, MCFD was warranted to question the parents and others. The doctor notified MCFD that the baby's condition was consistent with being shaken. MCFD naturally assumed that a probable shaker was one or both parents. MCFD social workers were unconcerned when RCMP found insufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal charge, since the social workers' responsibility was simply to assess risk, not establish guilt. Because MCFD workers did not accept the Baynes' explanation of an accidental impact collision between a toddler brother and the infant sister who lay on a blanketed section of the floor, they have remained suspicious that Paul and Zabeth had caused harm to their child. Suspicion is sufficient legal reason to remove the child for its protection. It's in the child's best interests. The assumption was also made that if the parents are a risk to one child they may be a risk to the other two children. So removing all three children was in their best interests. So goes the rationale and so went the children.

From the initial weeks of this case the MCFD Fraser Region team has maintained a discriminatory opinion about the Baynes. Its legal presentation reveals that all acquired information for the past two and one half years has been processed through a bias and interpreted as corroboration of the Baynes' untrustworthiness and unfitness to parent. The MCFD risk assessment that was entered as evidence is a premier example since the template section which allows for recording positive features or attributes about Paul and Zabeth, was noticeably blank. In the mind of the social worker writing the assessment and director who approved it, this respectable, decent, principled, serious minded, morally and ethically upright, polite and courteous couple, had nothing for which to be commended. Even the fact that Zabeth is an accomplished concert pianist didn't reap a comment as gratuitous as “she plays the piano very well.” In fact under cross examination, the social worker author of the risk assessment admitted that of the hundreds of pieces of correspondence that had been sent by friends and acquaintances over many months to affirm the Baynes as good people and good parents, he had read none.

Already convinced about parental liability, social workers failed to ask greater questions about the reliability not of the pediatrician but of the Shaken Baby assessment, the consistency of the baby's medical conditions with other causes, the credibility of the opinions of the concerned few collaterals whom they solicited, the mechanical medical reasonableness of a domestic accident between siblings, the weight of affirming testimonials by close family members and friends. AND IF THESE SOCIAL WORKERS HAVE NEITHER THE TIME, NOR THE TRAINING AND EXPERTISE TO RESEARCH SUCH MATTERS, THEY ALSO DO NOT HAVE ANY BUSINESS ASSESSING RISK. Instead social workers sought to discover exculpatory connections of abuse within the extended families or of work related and medical stresses that would precipitate abusive behaviour. MCFD stretched whatever thin morsels there were into case content. Whether or not they harmed their child is of little importance when minds are already convinced that they are guilty.

MCFD lacks an evidentiary case against the Baynes. The MCFD attempts to pursue a wrongful conviction. Of course this is not a criminal case but MCFD is essentially seeking to prove that Paul and or Zabeth are criminally responsible for their baby's injuries. How could the parents otherwise be a risk to their children? MCFD must persuade the judge that founded on merely medical opinion, hearsay and suspicion but no evidence, a ruling is warranted that is tantamount to a guilty verdict against the Baynes. I don't think that they have succeeded. I pray that they have not succeeded.

UNSUPERVISED VISITATION REQUEST / Part 213 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Today, the Baynes face yet another day in court. Although their current court case is scheduled for August 9-13th , they are asking for unsupervised visitation in their children's best interests. Once again lawyer Finn Jensen has prepared a copious rebuttal. This is a challenge to which good parents should never be subjected.

Let's examine the preferred development of a case like this. First principle: When social workers remove a child from what appears to be apparent danger, that is only the beginning of the social workers' responsibilities. Then a thorough assessment must be conducted and written. Such a fact-finding process should be undertaken with an open mind. The social worker/investigator must probe for both positives and negatives, affirming and damaging facts. If social workers have committed themselves to working with people, this can only be accomplished by focusing upon strengths and favourable factors. Even when a life or family situation is bleak and unpromising initially, with some closer examination, the hopefulness and promise in a situation may become obvious. What should certainly not occur is the construction of an assessment with as much smear and tarnish as the investigator(s) can accumulate to support an early preconception.

Second principle: Assessing the cause of an injury is not to be regarded as a medical determination but rather a legal one. That has been the error in this case with the Baynes. Examination of the injured child in 2007 and consequent medical evidence was necessary and important and even compelling. However, it cannot be assumed within the purview of the medical examiner's qualifications to determine the cause and then that such testimony is regarded as expert testimony upon which social workers rest their case for child removal and in this case going so far as to propose to take away the children from the parents forever. This leads injustice inherent to the system built on the existing flawed Act. To build an accurate and trustworthy assessment the social worker must take into account both medical and social evidence. A thorough social profile will provide a responsible guide for the social worker to assess likelihood of deliberate injury. Of the many child injuries presented at hospitals each day, most are accidental. That means that an assumption of deliberate injury should never be automatic. Certainly, accidents can be attributed to carelessness by the caregiver yet this still does not adjudge the parent to be unfit to parent or a guaranteed risk to be careless a second time. In the Bayne case, the doctor made the assumption of non accidental injury albeit based upon accepted prescripts in her department of her hospital yet she made this diagnostic choice even when accidental injury was the parents' explanation and a valid alternative explanation as other experts later attested. While one can argue that the social workers are not to be faulted for accepting the doctor's report, had they done an unbiased and more scrupulous profiling they would have discovered contradictions with the diagnosis and with the assumption of non accidental injury.

Third Principle: Evidence in a well attested case should go before the court immediately. MCFD was responding adequately and correctly during the first few months of this case. However, as soon as the alternative and conflicting medical explanations appeared to explicate the baby's injuries this case was in doubt and should have been reconsidered. When the case already looked unwinnable or suspiciously lacking in evidence, MCFD should have reviewed the case. There was no abusive profile for either parent with which to take this awful case to court. At so many points MCFD decision makers should have stopped this and reassessed the case. Jensen himself told his MCFD client to give the boys back to the Baynes because MCFD had no case that it could win, yet here we are. MCFD rejected his advice. MCFD has been seeking to justify its ponderous insensitivity by forging ahead rather than being impeccably professional. For the MCFD a good case doesn't need to be delayed for one year, two years, almost three years. Yet this one has been so delayed. When a case is clear and without question, there is every reason to get the evidence before the court as soon as possible. It should be a concern to us all, to the judge, to the Director, to the Minister and Deputy Minister of MCFD that the CBC story which aired on its website revealed that the MCFD had not followed the time lines required by its own governing ACT (Child, Family and Community Services Act). Jensen tried to dance around this in court.

I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS / Part 199 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Don't miss the Comments Section following today's Post.

I ask so many questions.
I don't have answers for them.
The children were removed as a protective precautionary measure following a serious injury to their youngest child in the autumn of 2007. Risk assessment was done initially and later, both informally and then more officially with a filed document. In every case the assessment reflected badly upon Paul and Zabeth as parents because at no time in two and one half years has the Fraser Region branch of MCFD viewed them as no risk parents who can care for their children without supervision. Yet that assessment differs dramatically from Zabeth's own mother's assessment of their parenting skills and commitment that she saw up close and personal. I published her letter May 22. Now, after all of that time, 2.5 years, MCFD believes it can justify the removal of all three children and leave these parents impoverished of their offspring.

Harming a child means that you are a risk to re-offend, whether or not there is enough evidence for criminal charges to be laid. MCFD has a responsibility to adjudicate the risk factor. However, once that comprehensive risk assessment has been done, it is accepted social work practice to develop a Risk Reduction Plan. The purpose of this is to reduce the highest risk factors. The plan is customarily accomplished in consultation with the child if old enough, and with the family and others who may become involved in the plan. Social workers have access to a MCFD Risk Reduction Planning process and documentation. With it the social workers identifies the risk factors to be addressed; describes measurable outcomes of the plan; describes strategies and services required to achieve the outcomes; and specifies a date for reviewing each strategy. It is crucial that the social worker involves the family and child(ren) and service providers and others who have a role in the plan insuring that all understand what is expected of them.

The social worker is authorized to take protective measures that are based on the level of risk that has been identified. The measures must be adequate to ensure the child’s protection and be the least disruptive to the child. Among the available protective options to the social workers are providing protection services to the child at home for which no court order is required; applying for a protective intervention order according to (Section 28, CFCSA); applying for an order to ensure necessary health care (where risk to the child is limited to a medical issue); arranging for the child to stay with family or friends; developing a voluntary care agreement with the parent; applying for a supervision order; and removing the child. These options are categorized as risk reduction.

Programs and plans exist within our society to assist the recovery of people from all sorts of dependencies, maladies, emotional and relational issues, and unacceptable behaviours. All of these seek to reduce the possibilities for re-occurrence and reoffence. How in two and one half years can the authors and reviewers of the Bayne Risk Assessment fail to develop the Risk Reduction Plan whereby parents, as demonstrably worthy, loving, responsible and conscientious as are the Baynes, can be restored to their children? Efforts are made to rehabilitate even convicted criminal offenders. The Baynes were not convicted of an offence. They have been circumstantially suspect by MCFD. So why, would MCFD personnel not make every effort to reconstruct the Bayne family life? Why? If it suspected that the parents are a risk, why not try to reduce the actual risk? Is it because the parents must first confess to harming the child? Is that when such remedial help is offered? Or is it possible that the MCFD management does not have the resources, either in tools and programs, or funds, or in compassion and will? I am telling you, I want to believe in the goodness of people involved in this work. Yesterday, a community worker assured me that most people are good. Yet damaged people and saddened former social workers tell me with expletives I have deleted that so many in the system are far from good. Who can I believe?

For Love and For Justice / Part 109 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

This Trial Is Done With Loren Humeny, I Think
And this was another Huge Day

On Thursday, February 11, 2010, Doug Christie cross examined social worker Loren Humeny for one more day. I am sure Mr. Humeny was happy to step down from the witness box finally. This has been his third day of witness duty. He is also an observer for MCFD in court almost every day. He listened to all testimony preceding his own sworn testimony. Seems like a bit of a conflict but it wasn’t challenged.

During this cross examination, some progress was made for parents – not simply the Baynes, but parents like them who face allegations from anonymous callers. Now, don’t you want to keep reading? Yes, that’s correct. Presently, people can make calls to MCFD about you, your activities and your parenting or your children’s appearance or behaviour, and those callers can be classified as anonymous. Isn’t that convenient for them? Surreptitious, sneaky, clandestine callers. Mr. Humeny has referred to these anonymous callers as “collaterals,” since among other meanings the term designates those testimonies that serve to support or corroborate and are therefore collateral evidence.

Humeny said there were about six collaterals who communicated about the Baynes. Collaterals were very important to Mr. Humeny’s Risk Assessment document and to his testimony because he has placed more credence in this handful of collaterals who called him, than he did in the credibility of hundreds of people who called MCFD or sent emails or posted letters in support of the Baynes and their parenting and their characters. I know that because he acknowledged in court and it is in the transcripts that he had not read any of that latter correspondence. He did however take seriously the content of the collateral call-ins who cast doubt upon the Bayne’s fitness as parents and it had been expected by the MCFD that these collaterals could remain anonymous. However...........

Doug Christie had earlier requested that these collaterals should be identified in court. The Risk Assessment written by Humeny incorporated these call ins. Christie argued that without identification, reference to the content of the call ins is mere hearsay, rather than evidence. Their testimony is dangerous to the Baynes but the collaterals could not be known or challenged. "How can that be evidence," Christie demanded to know. On Thursday MCFD lawyer Finn Jensen began with arguments against Doug Christie’s request for disclosure of the several anonymous callers.

As he has done once before, Judge Crabtree took a brief intermission to deliberate and then returned with his ruling that this witness must identify the names of the anonymous callers. If you are at all sympathetic to the Baynes, you must agree that this is a good thing.

In fact, this may be precedent setting. This is repetitious but I must make the point. Previously, persons who called the MCFD with allegations of abuse or neglect have had their anonymity protected under the Act that governs MCFD. For the Baynes and for other parents in similar situations, this anonymity of complainants has posed an insurmountable challenge because false information cannot be challenged. Consequently anonymous callers are unaccountable for what they say. On Thursday, Judge Crabtree made a ruling that harmonizes with what fair-minded people have always known should happen. A court of law must make its decisions and judgements based upon fact and not hearsay. When a caller’s information is believed to be untrue there must be opportunity to cross examine these testimonies so the callers must be identified.

The identities and the credibility of the collaterals will be addressed later in this trial.