GOOD FOSTER PARENTS WANT THEIR FOSTER CHILDREN TO HAVE RIGHTS

"The bare facts of the case are quite enough to convince me that the director has shown very bad judgement in your case. It is the old story. The director is so scared that something unexpected might come up and bite him or her that there is an overreaction to every situation. "

JUNE 2011 - MY FIRST ARTICLE ABOUT AYN

This is archived piece that I wrote shortly after Ayn Van Dyk was removed from her father in June 2011. There were 1000 hits to this post back then. She is still in foster care. This should be over by now. She should be home. But read and learn how this began. All of the info in this post dates back to the date of publication. A court appearance is scheduled now for February 2014.

Derek Hoare has three children and all three lived with him until ……… Well, wait until you hear this.

Photo by John Van Putten shows Derek with Ayn 

Did your child ever go missing for a few minutes, for an hour or so? And were you desperate to find the child. Did you contact the police? And when you found the child weren’t you ecstatic and so grateful? So was Derek. But his joy didn’t last long.

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.

ANOTHER UNWISE CHILD REMOVAL

The case to which I am making reference today is outside of Canada, outside of British Columbia and we might assume it is irrelevant to the focus upon Ayn Van Dyk, the subject of so many posts in this site for many months. It is not irrelevant.

There are numerous distinctions between the two cases but fundamentally, both cases contain an autistic child who wandered from home and hours later was discovered by police, and after reporting the incident to child protection authorities, case workers overreacted with the unnecessary outcome of distress and agony for parents and child due to separation for a prolonged time. 

SOON IT WILL BE 2014. IT'S TIME FOR AYN TO BE RETURNED HOME.

The photo quality may be grainy, the girl in the photo is high quality. She is Ayn Van Dyk, a lovely child. We are closing in 2014 and Ayn has been held by the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development for two and one half years. I underscore once again the perceived unfairness of this action. Examination of the Ministry's rationale would reveal that the perception leans heavily in the direction of fact. The girl did not need to be removed from her father and brothers when in June 2011, she wandered from her fenced back yard. She is autistic. She should not longer be deprived of her siblings and mom and dad. Either of these parents is capable of caring for her. Ministry officials and social workers, please look into this case with determination to make this right.

MAY YOU BE BLESSED THIS CHRISTMAS

LOREN HUMENY PASSED AWAY

We have received word that Loren Humeny has passed away recently after being diagnosed with cancer and battling the disease for a while. Loren was the social worker charged with the responsibilities associated with the Paul and Zabeth Bayne case which occupied so much attention for over four years as they sought to recover custody of their children.

I had one private conversation with him in the hallway of the Chilliwack courthouse building as we waited for the court case to begin. I learned then, that this man was a family man and a community man and there were aspects of his job with which he was uncomfortable. I became certain then that he did not like being typecast as a villain.

I am saddened to hear of his death and I am sorry for his family's loss of someone whom they loved.

FATAL CARE

The entire six part series can be referenced here at the Edmonton Journal. It begins with this ...

Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal
Darcy Henton, Calgary Herald
Photo: Greg Southam

"In 2009, the Edmonton Journal asked the government of Alberta how many children had died in its care that year. The government couldn’t provide a number, nor could it answer other questions about foster care deaths. It was not new; reporters had been having trouble getting this information for years. So, the Journal put in a request to see all internal government reports related to the deaths of children in care from 1999 to 2009. The government declined, citing privacy issues. But in June 2013, after a four-year legal battle, Alberta’s access to information commission forced the government to release information on each child that had died in its care between 1999 and 2013."

NEWS OF ALBERTA FOSTER CARE DEATHS

This is hot off the press news this morning. Two newspapers in Edmonton and Calgary have had staff journalists doing a several month investigation of Alberta's children's ministry and specifically the numbers and kinds of deaths of children and youth in foster care over the past 15 years. It's appalling that the number is so high and that most of these have been undisclosed, that is, kept secret from the public.

• Video: Dead in Six Days: The Story of Baby Delonna

• Fatal care: read the full series

• Editorial: Secrecy in child welfare system fails the powerless

• Fatal Care series: Let us know what you think

• Fatal Care: read the documents

• Fatal care: Foster care tragedies cloaked in secrecy

• The investigation: Why — and how — we did it

• Five other cases of deaths in care the public should know about

No trial, no answers for foster family who tried to help raise troubled 15-year-old
She was murdered and dumped in a ditch in the remote, heavily forested area northwest of Rocky Mountain...

Five other cases of deaths in care the public should know about
A 14-year-old girl from the Blood First Nation near Lethbridge disappeared on her way home from school...

Editorial: Secrecy in child welfare system fails the powerless
In the middle of a blinding snowstorm, an Edmonton Journal team drove west recently to visit the parents...

ROB FORD IS A LIFE COACH

Rob Ford is a life coach right now. Here is what he is teaching Canadians. We have not seen a repentant Rob Ford, not yet. We have seen a proudly apologetic Rob Ford. We have also witnessed defiance. Evidently, apology and defiance can partner together. They are not mutually exclusive. Repentance and defiance however, are diametrical - opposites. Repentance in this situation, can only be authenticated by Mr. Ford’s resignation from the office of Mayor of Toronto. Apology and repentance are not parallel terms or character statements. The citizens of Toronto, the City Councillors, the network of Canadian Mayors deserve more than apology now.