A BRITISH COLUMBIA MYTH

The mythbuster writes again. Ray Ferris sets down another of his interesting reads. Take a look.

The rights and best interests of children.

In British Columbia children have certain rights. They have a right to be made safe in their own homes, or in alternative care. Right? When in care they have the following rights. They have a right to continuity and stability of care. Right? They have a right to be placed with relatives and to continuing kinship contact. Right? Young children have a right to timely resolution of their cases. This means not being left long in damaging limbo. Right? They have a right to privacy. Right? They have a right to the protection of the courts from unwarranted removal. Right? The ministry director has the responsibility to prove his case. Right? Parents have a right to protect their own children. Right?

Wrong on all counts because in practice they get none of these rights. The system simply cannot deliver them.

FAMILY AUTONOMY

The family is the primary social institution. Family autonomy you would think should be among the most important objectives of provincial and federal governments. What we have come to understand that parental liberty is fundamental to the concept and function of family. The family is the primary conservator and transmitter of values, beliefs and traditions. Can it not be evident to Members of the Legislative Assembly of B.C. and to the Ministry of Children and Family Development and to Educators and to Law Enforcement that any intervention into family is like an invasion into its sanctity because it endangers family customs and ideals?

Such recognition is underscored by the fact that the autonomy of family is both acknowledged and defended within Canadian human rights documents and international papers of which Canada is a signatory. Such documents seek to protect the rights of families against the intrusions inferred here against what is universally recognized as the natural and essential societal unit. It should be entitled to protection.

AMPLE EVIDENCE OF STUPIDITY AND INCOMPETENCE

Ray Ferris has left a new comment on my post "A CRY IN THE NIGHT." Here is what he wrote.

Masters of Spin - it is central to life for ...

"There is no sinister plot. The senior echelons of the children's ministry do not have the brains or the competence to mount a plot. Unfortunately the end result is the same. No indeed dear readers; just look at the evidence. Why look for a canary when there are sparrows everywhere? Meaning---look at the obvious. We see ample evidence of stupidity and incompetence already, so why should we doubt that it is there.

When you have a green and inexperienced staff being directed by dummies who think that filling in forms and obeying drills is good child protection, certain things happen. First the brightest and best get out as soon as they can. This leaves the dumbest and the weakest as the main body of employees. The workers do not trust their superiors and the superiors do not trust the workers, so they work in a constant state of panic that something will go wrong and they will get the blame.

WHY NOT COMPLAIN? BECAUSE THE PROCESS SUCKS!

Have any of you had occasion formally to make a complaint about the ministry?
We are told by the Ministry of Children that it is possible to lodge a complaint.
When you have concerns about the care of your child in the foster care program or when you have a concern about a social worker, you are entitled to make your complaint known. Have you ever done this?

When you have a complaint about a social worker or when you cannot make contact with your SW, you are encouraged to speak with that SW's supervisor. Of course, to do that, you may have to ask the social worker for the name and phone number of their supervisor. Has that worked?

SO MUCH TIME HAS PASSED

On June 30, 2011 I wrote a piece about Child Welfare in Canada, Abbotsford and then I included reference to a relatively new case, the Ayn Van Dyk case. 

At the time, Ayn had been gone from her daddy’s home for fourteen (14) days.

Now reader, let this sink in please. It has now been 254 days since Ayn was removed from her father Derek Hoare. Eight months have passed.

This ten year old autistic girl has been in hospital for examination but primarily in foster home care all of this time. She and her father have not seen each other for 254 days. That however is because of her father’s principled choice, a choice with which not all readers agree, and certainly one which the Ministry criticizes and retains as evidence of Derek’s lack of cooperation with its care plan. Ayn’s mom Amie Van Dyk has visited her daughter although those visitation rights have been curtailed or delayed at various times by the Ministry for reasons with which I disagree.

My article garnered an enormous response last June 30^th with 27 comments attached now to that blog post. They are highly interesting comments.    

Well, if 254 days seems long, consider this, a court date has been set to hear this case in December 2012 and carrying over into January 2013. Tell me again, the axiomatic premise for child protection. “In the best interests of the child,’ did I hear you say?

A CRY IN THE NIGHT

I have just published two comments by the same person to my blog post that was written last July 29 2011 in celebration of the MCFD Ministry decision to return the four Bayne children to their parents, Zabeth and Paul. In that post I referenced Tim Amey, News Director for 895 The Hawk, Chilliwack's Newest Rock Station, who wrote several good pieces about the Baynes. Now seven months later, the only reason I returned to read them was because someone commented twice in the early morning hours today, to that now distant blog entry entitled ‘Tim Amey’s Chilliwack News Article’. The commenter had somehow stumbled on this online story and it triggered a personal response from personal experience that, if it is to be believed, has been an horrific morale-bending and heart-breaking life story.  So now the disjointed thoughts of this 2 o’clock critic appear at the end of the Amey piece.

THE TENSION BETWEEN CP RIGHT AND WRONG

Certainty should be fundamental to CPS, Child Protection practices.
Certainty should be integral to any formal intervention or actual apprehension of a child, youth or adult.
Child Protection and investigation and case management and interaction with parents should be systematic, that is, engaged in the work of determining and delineating the absolute truths of a specific case.

I am wondering from my examination of a few noteworthy cases, whether social workers within B.C.’s Ministry of Children and Family Development, given their mandate to protect children first and foremost and do all that they can for the best interests of the child, are actually viewing truth and certainty differently than I do. The social worker may be prioritizing precaution and prevention over conviction and demonstrability. The difference may be as simple as a few words. If the social worker is trained or determined to settle only upon certainty and truth before making life changing decisions about families and children, he/she will confidently say, “This is the way it is.” However, if the social worker is trained for immediacy of action over certainty, he/she may be satisfied to say, “Maybe.”

This is not merely a right-brain versus left-brain tension. This is a tension between wisdom-righteousness, and imprudence-malevolence.

“Maybe” does not satisfy justice. Maybe this is the right thing to do. Maybe the child is in danger. Maybe we should remove the child. Maybe the parent is guilty of neglect. Maybe the parent harmed the child. Maybe the parent is a risk. Maybe the child might thrive if in a foster environment. That there is even a remote chance that this may be the MO, Method of Operation of an agency with the sweeping power of the B.C. Ministry of Children, is chilling and mistaken.

RESOURCES FOR USING THE LEGAL SYSTEMS.

 by Ray Ferris

author of the book “The Art of Child Protection.”

You can purchase it from him by writing to rtferris@telus.net

Dealing with the ministry is usually as arduous as walking through molasses and dealing with the court system is as arduous as walking through molasses in January. So anyone contemplating either course should know that you can make slow progress, but you will have to push, push, push. Being forewarned is being forearmed and so you will be less frustrated if you keep your expectations low. You may well find out that you also have to push, push, push your own lawyer. So it helps to know how to do it.

CHILD PROTECTION IN B.C.- PROBLEM ANALYSIS

We realize don’t we that there is no uncomplicated quick-fix solution to improving the child protection system. If there were, then why haven’t well-intentioned reforms of the past been wholly successful? Scores of recommendations have been generated by respected judges and their colleagues with which the Ministry of Children has largely complied in recent years.

Too often social workers are either criticized for breaking up families or for missing a case of abuse. However, the system in which they work is constructed around predicting a parent’s ability to look after their child, which is never certain.

PARENT TESTIMONY - Tanya Marrhoubi Sadowsky

I met Tanya last summer during an extraordinary conference. She came from the USA to attend this first of what may become an annual event. The Conference was one called Evidence Based Medicine and Social Investigation. The Fifth Estate television crew showed up during the 2011 Conference to catch certain scenes and interviews for their show called Diagnosis Murder, aired on January 13, 2012.

It’s a 55 minute testimony in which she tells the deeply sad story of the death of her infant daughter and the horror that followed.



The Evidence Based Medicine and Social Investigation Conference scheduled for 2012 will be held on August 3 and 4. 

Among the subjects being addressed by international experts this August will be:

• evidence based medicine

• medical differential diagnosis in cases of suspected child abuse,

• establishing the standards and requirements for a medical expert’s defense witness,

• legal challenges surrounding defending those innocent but accused of criminal acts relating to child abuse and the challenges of defense in family court related issues,

• the standards of practice and guidelines for child protection investigations and process and,

• the failure of the legal systems to protect the innocent.

Tanya's website in the name of her daughter is: http://www.theamandatruthproject.com