A CANCELLED PARENTAL VISIT - ANY QUESTION?

I want you to be aware of the substance of a statement carried online on the open Facebook page dedicated to advocacy for Ayn’s return to her biological parental custody and care. Look up 'Help Bring little Autistic girl back to her Daddy.'

Derek Hoare is Ayn’s father and on September 5th he was commenting on a disagreeable situation. His ex-wife Amie Van Dyk with whom he has an amicable and respectful relationship and with whom he shares the deep desire for restoration of full parental rights with regard to their daughter Ayn, reported that she had been refused visitation time. (As you may know, Ayn is in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development since June 16, 2011, four days after she wandered from her back yard for a three-hour jaunt, and MCFD workers deemed that she required care and assessment and stronger control and that Derek as primary caregiver to three children, two of whom are autistic, required their assistance. Taking his child, immediately loading her with psychotropic drugs and locking his life into cycle of legal contest to retrieve her is that which Ministry personnel have accomplished.)

Apparently Amie received a call from Community Services at 9:40 AM on Wednesday, September 5th to inform her that her 1 PM appointment to visit her daughter was cancelled because Ayn had another meltdown at school. This was Ayn’s first day back at school. Special needs children began a day later than other children. The meltdown likely occurred soon after school began. It is surmised that a call was placed from the school to the foster home. It can be presumed that the foster home had to decide whether to bring Ayn home from school. The child’s social worker would be informed and would typically decide whether or not to proceed with or to cancel the visitation with Amie. On this day the social worker was on vacation so an acting SW responsible for Ayn’s file will have made this decision, called Community Services that then made the call. Consequently, time passed and Amie who was ready to visit her child, instead received cancellation notice 2.5 hours prior to the scheduled meeting.

No one knows what precipitated the meltdown yet it seems probable that the return to school may have been the trigger. Nevertheless, Ayn knows that her mother visits on Wednesdays and she would have wanted to see her mom, and she could have, and likely would have calmed down in the two hours that followed the meltdown. Cancellation of visitation was doubtlessly unnecessary. But of course, Ayn’s outbursts are managed by drugging the child, a powerful neuroleptic drug called Seroquel. Her tantrums can be controlled with this but of course a proper visit becomes unlikely. The child will not engage with her mother because she will be so severely sedated, she is virtually unresponsive. Knowing that, then of course it became necessary to cancel the visit.

What Derek and Amie find offensive and disgusting is the explanation from the Community Services worker that Ayn had not wanted to come to the visit. Beyond that is the reprehensible assumption that this stupefied condition is in the child’s best interests. Derek puts it this way. “My little girl is suffering; she is angry; she is confused. She needs understanding, not a damn nerve-seizing agent. Regardless of whether she is a child; regardless of whether she is disabled, she has rights.”