DEREK HOARE AND HIS DAUGHTER AYN

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.

His nine year old daughter Ayn VanDyk, (her mother's surname) was suddenly gone from his backyard at his Mt. Lehman Road home. He had taken numerous precautions for the care of his children. There is a six-foot fence that surrounds his yard. All windows and doors are locked and the doors require a key to exit from the inside. Yet one day recently, Ayn had climbed into her tree house, scaled the wall and disappeared. Derek spent 10 minutes running up and down the street in a rapid search for her and then he called the police who three hours later returned Ayn to her father. She ran to her dad and rapped her arms around him in a tearful embrace. She had been found safe at a pool in the yard of neighbours two house away.

Great! Right? Wrong! Four days later Ministry of Children and Family Development representatives arrived at his home with orders to remove Ayn. Just imagine what that did to this little girl and to this father.

LET THE FAMILY FINISH WRITING THEIR STORY / 553

As I begin today I want to dispense immediately with what will be the Ministry of Children and Family Development’s default response to what I have to say. That response will be, “The Baynes brought this upon themselves.” Readers, that is categorically untrue. Having made that clear I will get on with it.

random multi-generational no-name family photo

I am a grandparent and our home is just convenient minutes away from both sets of grandchildren. The grandchildren often spend time at our home. They eat meals here. They have learned to strike plastic golf balls. They play soccer and bacci ball. We go for walks to the playground. We stop at the corner store for slushies. They try on clothes that Grandma makes for them. They permit arms around their shoulders, and they listen to soft instruction. Life lessons subtley slipped in while watching TV or sitting together are common.

When I think of the Bayne children’s grandparents I am struck again with the privilege that is mine to enjoy my grandchildren whenever they want to come over or whenever I want to ask them.

BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD / 552

The concept of the ‘best interests of the child’ is a universal theme expressed in a variety of international and Canadian instruments of law and practice. But is it anything more than a theme? Does it actually have content? I am not certain that it does. It is cited with conviction in child protection care proceedings and custody battles but why? Such cases are never decided on the basis of that theme but rather the specific facts of the case. The concept of “best interests” is a part of the rhetoric of child protection agencies.

The deficit is that the modifier “best’ is not defined, in fact perhaps indefinable. Even the touted United National Committee on the Rights of a Child has not taken a position to define the term with precision. Without a definition, “best interests” has no constraints, and then while the trumpeted term sounds politically and morally correct, it can lead to wrong impressions, inaccurate assessments and unjust decisions.

THE LONGEST DAY / 551

June 21st was the longest day. That’s what yesterday was where I live. Actually the last 36 hours were unbelievably long for members of my family.

The first official day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the summer solstice. In addition, the first day of summer, the summer solstice, also marks the longest day of the year. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest. The word Solstice derives from two Latin words, sol (sun) and sistere (stand still) and refers to the Sun's most extreme southernmost or northernmost position in the sky as viewed from Earth. The southern extreme is the summer solstice.

I didn’t really care about any of that when on Monday night, the eve of Solstice, my married daughter, aged forty-two, mother of three children, beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, Master’s in Music from Western Washington U, drove herself to the Hospital Emergency doors and told them she had chest pains. Hours later following testing we learned that she had suffered a heart attack.

THE BAYNE FAMILY / 550

Daddy and Bethany

Mommy and Josiah

Kent getting cozy

Daddy and his sons

Bethany at ease

Mommy and Bethany

Bethany tucking in

What a great family the Baynes are.
Perhaps this summer the children can be permitted to return permanently to live with their parents.

NOT CONSPIRACY THEORY / 549

Jesse Ventura - 'Conspiracy Theory' reality show

Here is a thought. Conspiracy theories have become a cultural phenomenon in our century and that is detrimental for the advocates for meaningful changes to the services of the Ministry of Children and Family Development in B.C.

Conspiracy theories are viewed with skepticism. This blog does not concern itself with conspiracy theories with regard to the Ministry of Children and Families.

FATHER'S DAY 2011 / 548

Jason Payne/Postmedia News Service

Journalists have described the disgrace in downtown Vancouver following Game Seven of the Stanley Cup. They are unanimously at a loss to explain why a segment of the large group of hockey fans broke down steel fences, broke commercial windows, overturned and burned vehicles, taunted and fought with police, posed for photos in the midst of the mayhem and disregarded law and responsibility. But city officials and law enforcement must understand and explain it in order to avert it in the future, since this is the second time that such humiliation has smeared the city’s history. The last time being the Seventh Game in 1994. Immediate explanations have been that criminals and anarchists came intentionally to use the occasion to break the law and to create a war zone.

But what kind of people are these? What has created the kind of person who can parade such disregard for what is right and good? Religious people will certainly have an explanation. Others do too.

THE EVARTS' CONCERN IN ALBERTA

Cathy Evarts and her husband Wade reside in Alberta. Cathy wrote to me some time ago, attaching to her note a copy of a lengthy and impassioned letter that she wrote to Honourable Yvonne Fritz, Minister of Children and Youth Services in Alberta.

Cathy wrote to me because she had spotted the online Bayne saga, and although her story is different she thought it might be of interest. Cathy and Wade have been foster parents, fostering children with family connections to the Buffalo Lake Settlement and the Wades’ experiences and observations developed a deep conviction that the system in that province must change. They became convinced in a short time that “the Government of Alberta Children and Youth Services, together with the Child & Family Services Authorities and Delegated First Nations Agencies is failing to provide adequate care to children in foster care or their families. High caseloads, insufficient caseworker training and compensation, a combination of unstable and ineffective agency management, and a lack of resources plague the foster care systems.” The Evarts resigned.

BELIEVE / 546

The Canucks are on the verge of celebrating a Game Seven Stanley Cup Victory.
Or, the Canucks are on the edge of the greatest disappointment in the 40 year history of this franchise.

Stay with me now. There’s a child welfare application here somewhere.

Some fans would challenge me right there. How dare I even suggest the possibility that the Canucks might lose tonight’s game. They might even revoke my fan credential and criticize my lack of faith. Please understand that I do not lack the confidence that the Canuck Team has a roster of players that can beat any other team in the league on any given day. They were the team that finished the regular season with the best win/loss record. Tops!

QUESTIONS CHILD PROTECTION WORKERS SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES / 545

Observers have become critics of child protection workers and their superiors and not for insignificant reasons. Too many judgements, too many actions, too many interactions reveal a service that has developed, not a bad rap but a bad reputation. I know some social workers and I am convinced that they have chosen this career with altruistic vision. They want to help people. They want to be effective and they want to employ all that is good in the human spirit to lift that which is weak among their community members.

It is to these that I direct some questions which I believe to be appropriate and relevant to good child protection work. They are questions that the child protection workers should ask in each and every case to which they are assigned.