ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC / Part 303 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Any time that a death of a child occurs while in care of the Ministry of Children, there is a need for close scrutiny of the custodial care and the circumstances in which it happened. The death of a child in care is alarming. It is assumed that a child is in care because that life was vulnerable or endangered by risk of some kind in the existing home care. It is therefore a shock when in the supposed foster place of safety, a child dies. It is assumed that a death should not occur while in foster care unless there were mitigating medical issues. When a child dies while in the system, we can be assured that front line child protection workers are not heartless but that they rather feel the emotional impact. That empathy becomes questionable to us if the system does not openly and publicly probe into the death and learn from it so that there will be improvements to policy and practice for the sake of other future children receiving services.

Loved ones of the deceased child do not want the child's death to be invisible. Chris Martell in Saskatchewan is an example of a father insistent upon the government learning from the tragic death of his two year old son while in a foster care home. He is presently completing a five day walk to Regina today where he will present a petition to the government to take necessary steps to prevent such tragedy. In his son's case, a foster mother has already been charged with a criminal act. The Ministry demonstrates real compassion only when it honestly investigates and assesses cause and takes steps to insure that if there was fault, it is not only punished but corrected, made preventable. In such situations, the government has responsibility to account to the public how things went wrong and what is being done to correct it.

A child does not need to die to warrant a review of process in handling the care of a child. I believe that this type of accountability ought similarly to apply to care situations, notwithstanding the confidentiality concerns written into the child protection protocol. So, when a child is returned to its parents by a court ruling, that must be an occasion for disclosure of Ministry decisions which shaped the entire experience of parents and children during the time they were involved with the Ministry. Don't regard that as sensational but educational. Good social work aims to excel. Clearly, when the court ruling declares that the Ministry has not proven its case that the child should be in or remain in care, yet the child has been removed from the family home for an extended time, then important lessons should be learned and policy and procedure shaped in response. When timelines for custody and care orders that are carefully prescribed in the Act are ignored or stretched, then the attending judge and MCF supervisors and the Ministry in Victoria should disregard excuses and act to correct the practice.  As 2010 closes out on the Bayne case and when Judge Crabtree returns all three children into the care of their own parents, a public accounting will be very informative and hopefully will assist Victoria to fine tune its expectations for outcomes and accountability within its decentralized structure.

EMOTIONAL SURPRISES / Part 151 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Here is what passes unnoticed and unknown to social workers because it may not even be known to those who know Paul and Zabeth the best. These parents keep their children’s clothing and toys month after month. Who can tell whether this nightmare might be over not to far down the road. But one month becomes three, and three months becomes six months, and six months becomes one year. One year, and now some of those little boy clothes that were their eldest son’s no longer fit him but they can fit the middle child. But then, one year becomes two years, and it becomes clearer that many of the items mommy and daddy have been keeping in the children’s spaces will no longer be age appropriate or necessary. The children have grown older. And two years became two and one half years as it was this past week.

This past week Paul and Zabeth had some difficult emotional days. They have done this house cleaning before and it was time to do it once again. Paul and Zabeth had set up many items in the children’s rooms as from time to time they anticipated the children’s return. Grandparents and other friends gave clothing and equipment and toys for the children. Paul and Zabeth had purchased some of the items themselves. The rooms had to be ready with supplies and clothing. They needed to be able to demonstrate that they were ready and able to receive the children. This week Paul and Zabeth examined the children’s belongings once again. Imagine what it was like to handle things that the children never used or would not use at all. So much time has passed. The playpen, a baby’s high chair, a booster seat, diapers are all useful and in good condition but they will not be useful to the Bayne children. Those hoped for times came and went. They had to let these children’s things go – to be replaced. As is typical of them, even as Paul and Zabeth felt these emotions they took pleasure in inviting an expectant mother to take everything they could no longer keep because she was so happy to have these gifts. Of course they must keep the children’s rooms in readiness so all that is necessary for each child must be restocked and this exercise sparks some fresh hope. As always their faith remains strong that God will end this ordeal.