There is nothing like the inner peace that comes from God when you are working with Him. Paul and Zabeth are exploring the life adventure of trust in the one who created everything out of nothing. They have a lot of confidence on this Lord's Day in the one who can transform an ordinary terrible situation into a stunning recovery. You would only need to see the beauty of this Bayne family when they are together to know that the Ministry Director is making a frightful mistake in judgement to press forward to the 21^st of September.

The CBC story this morning. “No foul play in B.C. foster child's death.”
Earlier story on the Port Alberni child's death.
My sympathy to both the biological and foster parents in this tragic case.

HERE IS MY IDEAL SCENARIO / Part 308 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Finn Jensen, counsel for the Ministry of Children (Fraser Region) in this case against Paul and Zabeth Bayne, and of course against their three children rather than in their best interests, will be presenting his summation on September 21st. In some ways the Ministry case is also against all of whom are in foster care under the auspices of the government of British Columbia.

Counsel for the Baynes, Doug Christie, said he needed one hour but he took only twenty minutes to make his summation statement which was impassioned and emphatic and authoritative. He needed no more time because he underscored the failure by the opposing counsel to present any actual evidence to warrant a continuing care order based upon demonstrable risk. At best there had been suspicion but that is not evidence! What kind of shelf life can suspicion reasonably have. It has lasted far too long already. It should have been discarded within weeks and months of the original removal of the children. Instead the Ministry continued with a care program for the children that has separated a family for almost three years. All that because of a presumptive insistence that two innocent parents confess to inflicting an unthinkable trauma to their child. And now we soon will listen to the presumptive call for permanent removal of these children from mommy and daddy. And Jensen said he needs a full day. Oh, I understand it.

It was precisely because of Doug Christie's reminder that no genuine evidence had been presented by MCFD counsel during the course of the hearing that now begs the question, why does Finn Jensen require an entire day to bring his summation on September 21, 2010. The answer I suppose is no more profound than this - when you have nothing to say, you snow job it, filibuster, pad it, so he will talk and talk and attempt to make it appear that the evidence is overwhelming that these children should never be returned to their biological parents. If the evidence was incontestable Jensen could restate it in fifteen minutes, sit down and be confident that the Judge will rule in his favour. To schedule an entire day in court to speak exclusively to the Judge is an insult – an assumption that his honour is so thick that he has not heard much of anything during all the days of court or he will miss it in reading the court transcripts and he now needs everything to be re-articulated in minute detail.

So hear is my ideal scenario.

• Jensen on the 21st September.
• Rapid written response from Doug Christie once he receives the transcript of the Jensen summary.
• Deliberation by the Judge and then his ruling so that on October 22nd, 2010, exactly three years from the date of removal of the children in 2007, those three children will run into the waiting arms of their mom and dad.
• And I trust that Judge Crabtree will find sufficient cause to recommend to the Ministry of Children an independent inquiry into this particular case for the purpose of improving the manner in which cases of this kind are conducted, with a view to working with parents, following prescribed time-lines and protocols, operating with greater transparency and disclosure with parents.
• And when the family of five soon to be six are together, and I provide a week of followup blog posts, I can close this down on October 29th, 2010, exactly one year since I began writing in support of Paul and Zabeth and the kids.

KEVIN LIBIN REINING IN CHILDREN'S AID / Part 307 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Kevin Libin's National Post article, published June 12, 2009 was entitled 'Children's Aid Society workers should be reined in, critics say.'  In 2,200 words he eloquently described the best interests of children as these are perceived by the modern child welfare movement and then he delineated the mess we are in.

The curious thing for me is that I didn't know that we were in a child welfare mess until I involved myself in the stories many of you are telling me about the Ministry of Children social workers' invasions into your lives. I was one of the uninformed and who knows what percentage of Canadians today have no idea what happens when these highly empowered agencies have cause to learn your name. They have the broadest intervention powers in the Western world Libin quotes Brad McKenzie, social work professor from U. of Manitoba. Then Libin writes, “Caseworkers come armed with vaster powers than any police officer investigating crime. It is an immense authority easily abused, without vigilant restraint. It is time, critics say, they were reined in." He quotes children's advocate Katherine McNeill who says, "The social worker system, as it applies to children, is out of control, seriously out of control. And nobody’s doing anything about it.”

If you didn't find his article earlier I am convinced you will now want to read what he had to say. Here he quotes three critics of the child welfare enterprise.

“The social worker system, as it applies to children, is out of control, seriously out of control, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” says Katherine McNeil, a children’s advocate working with families in Nova Scotia and B.C.”

“They violate all kinds of privacy and rights,” says the senior counsel for the Home School Defense League, Chris Klicka, who represents Canadian and American parents.

Marty McKay, a clinical psychologist who has worked on abuse cases in the U.S and Canada said that the work of child-welfare organizations has become “parenting by the state and the imposition of their value system on other people.”

When Libin wrote in 2009, he said that children's aid society workers would intervene in the lives of 200,000 of Canadian children that year.

Read the entire article here.

Robert Glen Harrison Tried for $520 M / Part 306 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Robert Glen Harrison

The false accusation of abuse was a nightmare said this BC man.

From the April 2008 article by Jeff Davies written for CBC, Robert Glen Harrison speaks about his two year journey of horror as his reputation was destroyed by an accusation that was untrue. "I've spent many sleepless nights — the panic that you get … will grip you when you realize what they are saying about you, and it's not true," he said.

He and his wife were running a daycare in Sechelt when in 1996 a complaint was laid against him about which he knew nothing until years later. That complaint was so vague that authorities did not act upon it but the complaint remained in a government file that had now been established with Harrison's name. Someone ostensibly at or near enough to the Harrison family home had informed child welfare authorities that noises had been heard that sounded like heavy breathing, the squeaking of bed springs and a child saying "No, Daddy," at the family's home. The complainant went on to suggest that Harrison might have been abusing his five-year-old daughter.

Ten years later Harrison landed a job as a therapist at a troubled youth facility in the lower mainland. The customary background check was done and a resource worker with MCFD informed the new employer about the old complaint and made the recommendation that Harrison not be allowed to work alone with young people. Harrison was let go. He fought back with a complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner asserting that his privacy rights had been violated. In 2009 the commissioner dismissed his complaint. He didn't stop. He took the matter to the Supreme Court of B.C. where Justice Ian Pitfield quashed the earlier ruling and ruled instead that the Ministry's conduct had denied Harrison his right to employment in child care by disclosing unsubstantiated information. Pitfield wrote, "This is a striking example of the harm that an individual may suffer as a consequence of a provincial government ministry accumulating, retaining, using and disclosing personal information, purportedly in a manner consistent with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act." “Justice cannot allow FIPPA [the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act] to be used in a manner that accords rumours and unfounded allegations made to a public body about the character, reputation or behaviour of any individual undeserved legitimacy,” said Justice Ian Pitfield in reviewing the case. Pitfield recommended that the allegations made against Robert Glen Harrison, 49, be expunged from the records. Then remarkably Pitfield stated that Harrison may be compelled to sue for defamation or negligence.

Harrison drove a limousine as he waited for exoneration. At the time, Darrell Evans, then executive director of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association expressed that Harrison's case was not unique. "We're constantly emphasizing how dangerous false information in an individual's file can be, and the fact that false information can come from very unreliable sources," Evans says. "You know, one false report in a file can destroy a life."

The defendants in the court case were the Ministry of Children and Family Development which cannot be sued and two MCFD employees who were the named defendants, Bruce McNeill and Joan Bischoff.

Harrison immediately launched a $520 million lawsuit against the BC Government Ministry of Children and Family Development claiming his career was destroyed by a false allegation of child abuse. In June 2008, CBC ran a story that relates this aspect of the story and also provides a link to the defence statement dated May 14, 2008 and posted in its entirety here. In that defence statement, the argument is that the government employees followed proper record-keeping procedures and that Robert Harrison signed a consent form to have his file disclosed, not knowing it contained the allegation. It would seem that Harrison expected this could be settled out of court but the Ministry communicated that it intended to book a 10-day trial in March 2009. Once again Darrell Evans said this was a landmark case and that his organization, the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association supported Harrison.

Gerry Bellett of the Vancouver Sun wrote the story on May 2010 that discloses that the B.C. Court of Appeal has quashed an attempt by a former child care worker to sue the government for $520 million after unsubstantiated allegations that he sexually abused a child cost him his job. However, a B.C. Supreme Court judge said the issue regarding Bischoff's part should go to trial as he did not have enough information to dismiss the action.

The Supreme Court of Canada has an online record of docket 33250 Robert Glen Harrison, et al. v. Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, et al. Regarding a sealing order on his file.

Vancouver Sun Article April 10 2008

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch) for information purposes only.

TOO MUCH TALK / Part 305 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

There may be too much talk – too many words. People all over the world are now plugged in. People use words. I am responsible for a certain percentage of these words. Not all of them are helpful. Not all of them were worth the time I spent on them. Most of my words these days find their way online. The world is crowded with words, ideas and opinions. Opinions proliferate. One link leads to another and always we negotiate ideas and opinions. We must possess discernment to navigate our way through all this content. Judge Crabtree has been exercising such discretion as he listened to the words in court presented by Ministry lawyer Finn Jensen and Bayne family counsel Doug Christie. Finn Jensen delivered more words and consumed most of the court time. His word bombardment consisted of opinions. Did you hear that? Opinions! What weight have opinions? Little on their own. An opinion is a belief that upon introduction may not be backed with any type of evidence. An opinion is customarily a subjective statement that is the result of an individual interpretation of data. And that's what we had in Dr. Colbourne's diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome – a medical opinion based upon a personal interpretation of medical findings, the presence of a triad of symptoms which when reviewed by other medical experts became evidence pointing at other causes and put the Colbourne opinion into question. The RCMP dismissed the diagnosis as an opinion without evidence, or at least enough evidence with which to proceed. MCFD compelled Finn Jensen to carry the opinion right into a Continuing Care hearing before a provincial judge at the cost of three years of a family's life plus the less important costs of a home and a grand piano and careers to pay legal expenses and tens of thousands of dollars of tax payers money. That opinion had to be buoyed up with other opinions and that is the way Mr. Jensen will finish on the 21st when he takes the day to deliver his summary.

In contrast to an opinion lets look at the fact which is empirically true and which is supported by evidence. The fact is that Baby B sustained injuries that might have been life threatening at one dangerous juncture in time. It's a fact that medical professionals including Dr. Colbourne stepped in with their assorted skills to save her life. It is a fact that neither her mommy or her daddy harmed her by shaking or abusing her. To say otherwise is to state an opinion - that's all it can be, an opinion! Yet it is upon that opinion that the entire Ministry case against the Bayne parents as expressed in the Ministry affidavit is founded. An opinion! It is a fact that there was an unfortunate and not so uncommon household accident when a sibling brother fell on an infant sister and that fact was witnessed by the baby's mother. To state that her injuries were non accidental is merely an opinion. To claim that the baby's mother did not really see the son fall on the sister is an opinion. Neither opinion was or is supportable by evidence. Yet the fact of the unfortunate and life changing accident is supported by the evidence of a personal eye witness. It is a fact that the delay by medical examiners in local clinics and hospitals to properly assess the baby's condition exacerbated the condition which inevitably created her life threatening scenario. This baby's prematurity may have been overlooked as a factor but it ought to have been regarded as a fact which contributed to damage she sustained through an accident rather than an abusive act by a parent.

Too many words focused upon opinions sums up the Ministry application for Continuing Care.
Convincing words presenting facts borne out by the incontrovertible evidence is what the Bayne defence summarized.
It's only my opinion. Five Baynes won. Evidence is coming. That's a fact.

CHRIS MARTELL UPDATE

He did it yesterday. Chris Martell finished a five-day 260 km walk from Saskatoon to Regina carrying a letter with twelve recommendations to improve foster care and delivered it to the Minister's Office. His efforts are spurred by the recent death of his two year old son Evander Lee Daniels during foster care.

The Bayne Story / Part 304 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Soon compelling documentaries will publicly review the B.C. government's victimization of a five-member family. Victoria is not going to like this. News networks are ready and waiting.

Paul and Zabeth Bayne had it all. They were young. They had love for one another, faith in God, a home and property for children to play on. They had one son whose birth was not easy for Zabeth, and then another son born with the challenges of serious prematurity, born at 25 weeks. Zabeth and Paul had strength, resiliency and determination. They took this child for medical checks several times each week and various services to assist his development were brought into the family home, services to assist with feeding and muscle toning and general health developmental. Their family doctor was pleased with the children's health and the parents' care of their children. And then a daughter was born and their joy was immeasurable. She too had a premature birth.

The Ministry of Children became involved with the Baynes during the first year of their second child's life, prior to the arrival of the baby girl. At his sixth month he was suddenly crying inconsolably and as he squirmed they noticed his arm hung limply. Tests at hospital revealed a fracture. Standard protective procedure you might say. Both parents were questioned. Paul was asked to leave his house for two weeks. A study identified prematurity of bones in the child and Paul was permitted to resume his role at home. But a Bayne file had begun in the MCFD database.

Paul and Zabeth have looked forward to a large and thriving family and they love their children, so the family of five was just beginning their lives together when that determinative day occurred. The new baby was doing well, fed well, slept well – all was well. Of course she, like her brother would contend with the conditions that pertain to premature birth. Then a household accident. Can be perceived as preposterous but then how many similar mishaps have occurred in our homes. This one had serious consequences. One child active and happy fell on the baby resting on a blanket on a carpeted floor where daddy could see her and to whom mommy would soon return from the other room. Zabeth says she saw the fall. You know much of the rest of this story. Within hours their girl's feeding habits changed and other serious signs prompted Paul and Zabeth to take her to local hospitals and clinics without anyone accurately identifying her issues over several days. Then at last the baby was taken to BC Children's Hospital where the brain bleed and other symptoms were noted and the shaken baby syndrome assessment was made.

Even the RCMP needed to investigate a possible case of abuse but closed that down early. The MCFD was loath to discard the SBS and Abuse storyline, even when other medical experts disputed the SBS diagnosis. What you will not know is the archived attitudes, tactics, setups and actions by the local MCFD to sustain the assumption of risk to the children at the hands of their parents or to trip up the parents. I won't bother covering it. Journalists are poised and will be all over this. I am guessing that when these become public, Victoria will not be pleased.

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.

STILL A CONCERN / Part 302 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

As I write daily, I occasionally return to the specifics of the Paul and Zabeth Bayne case of their three children having been removed from their home and custody almost three years ago now. October 22nd will mark the third anniversary of that disruption. When I write about the treatment that they have received from the regional staff of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, my lines have been increasingly less for the purpose of fault-finding but rather for identifying what went wrong.

From the Ministry's standpoint any failure at resolution will rest with the Baynes' refusal to acknowledge harming their youngest child. No member of this MCF team has ever believed the Baynes' protestation of innocence and their story of an accidental fall by one child upon the other or injuries exacerbated by preconditions stemming from prematurity. That presumption of guilt, and that's all that it can be since there is no substantive evidence of parental harm, has affected every MCFD response, decision and judgement with regard to the Baynes.

If, the accurate medical findings in autumn 2007 pointed not at cause as is suggested by the unfortunate diagnostic title of shaken baby, but rather pointed only at trauma induced injury consistent with the accidental collision of siblings and the consequence of a lengthy delay by medical services to accurately identify the nature of the infant's failing condition, then service providers and supervisors have been responsible for numerous errors and misjudgements in this unfolding story of their treatment of these children and this family.

That is a concern, not just for the Baynes, but for every family whose lives are interrupted by the intervention of a regional unit of this provincial Ministry which is decentralized for understandable and valid reasons yet a Ministry which appears still to be struggling with supervision, quality assurance and consistency of operations in child protection within all communities.