PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENT - An answer to Anonymous

Parental Capacity Assessment 

An Anonymous respondent asked for information about this, but placed the response on a post that is several years old. The original post was published on May 3, 2011. It is unlikely that the Anonymous person will be able to find that post again so here is a current post that hopefully catches the person's attention. I referred the query to my colleague, Ray Ferris, an expert on child protection and specifically the work of the Ministry of Children and Families in British Columbia (MCFD).

Here is Anonymous' post followed by Ray Ferris' answer.

Anonymous  August 21, 2017 at 5:48 PM

Wayne .. hey I am a dad of five girls one of them autistic and we had traveled in a truck to keep moving while home schooling the girls once in a house we were case filed by child protection and they have decided to go with the mom after a forced break up the problem that I am having is the fact that no dad has ever been so close with a bunch of kids as I and I had basically raised them on my own now separated for over half of a year they want me to do the assessment for the court and from what I read 95% of the time they recommend against the parent in question is there a recommendation for betterment of situation as to please the courts I mean what do they look for I can only be the dad that I am theirs. So if you are truthful and your self you fail but if you study to mimic what they want you pass ? tell you what I will check this site in a couple of days just to see if there is any good advice have a great night

                        
Ray Ferris  August 26, 2017 at 4:55 PM
There is no short or easy answer to your situation. I do not think a PC is the most important thing to go on, but I will tell you about them anyway. A parental capacity assessment should be a fact based report with as little room for subjective opinion as possible. 'The facts should speak for themselves. There are very few reliable guidelines foe PCA reports. In the part or Canada where I live the college of psychologists has no guidelines and neither does the college of social workers. The law society does have guidelines and they specifically state that psychologists are not qualified to do parental capacity reports without further training and mentoring. They also state that psychometric testing should not be a routine part of an assessment and should only be used in special cases. Regardless of guidelines and training, the only true protection for the public is in the skills and integrity of the assessor. Facts should be sought like level of schooling, job training, work history, marital history and any history of alcohol and drug abuse, or any criminal record. Also telling the truth about the negatives in your life. Right away I would want to talk about your statement that you were travelling in a truck to keep moving. This looks like serious instability to me. You would need to convince an assessor that you were capable of finding and maintaining a decent home for six people and capable of maintaining them. I do not know the age of your girls, but if I were you or your representative, I would want to have them interviewed to find out what they want. If the authorities decide to leave them with their mother, I would want to know that the girls have been interviewed by a third party to find out if they want to keep in touch with you on a regular basis.

Ray Ferris

PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENTS (2nd part of 2 parts)

Parental Capacity assessments (2nd of 2 parts)

Written by Ray Ferris. Ray Ferris is a retired child-protection worker and the author of The Art of Child Protection and occasional contributor to this GPS blog.

Let me tell you about a recent case in Victoria family court. A parental capacity assessment was done under contract to the director. This document completely dominated all the judge’s decisions. The PCA was full of serious flaws and I list them below.

1. The psychologist took five months to do the report, claiming it was necessary to read thousands of pages of legal documents. He did no such thing. He read reams of ministry records that he had no business doing because it made him clearly partial and he is supposed to be impartial.

2. He stated he followed standard guidelines, but he failed to state whose guidelines.

3. He stated he was an expert witness before the court. He was not. An expert witness has to be qualified at a court hearing and his expertise can be challenged. His testimony has to stand up to examination and cross-examination under due process.

4. Under section 64 (2) b of the CF&CSA the judge may consider any written submission or documents he considers relevant. So legally a PCA has no more standing than say a school report or a letter of support for a parent.

5. In soliciting input from other professionals such as psychologists and registered counsellors he misrepresented himself. He said he was doing a court ordered assessment. He was under contract to the director.

6.Because of this misrepresentation others felt obliged to share information, which they would otherwise not have done. One of them stated that had he known, he would have not considered him to be impartial and would have been reluctant to help him. ( In one Vancouver case, the judge did not trust the PCA ordered by the ministry, nor the one contracted by the parent and so he ordered his own to be done. Speaks for itself. )

7. The parent sent relevant sections of the PCA to all the professionals who were quoted. They all provided letters confirming that he had misrepresented himself and made a number of changes to their information so that it was skewed in favour of the director. Some of them specifically asked him if he was audio recording the telephone interviews He said he was not, so they took careful notes of what they said. He presented their input as verbatim in his report and so misled the court.

Conclusion. I could go on, but that is enough for a blog. I write this for those readers who may be suffering from a surfeit of parental capacity assessments. I hope this information is of help to you in instructing your lawyers how to deal with these reports, because most lawyers swallow the psychobabble and do not know how to challenge it. Do not hesitate to contact me if you need help with this sort of problem, rtferris@telus.net

PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENTS (1st of 2 parts)

Parental Capacity assessments (1st of 2 parts)

Written by Ray Ferris. Ray Ferris is a retired child-protection worker and the author of The Art of Child Protection and occasional contributor to this GPS blog.

Parental capacity assessments, or PCAs are the sacred cows of the family courts. Neither the courts, nor the lawyers nor the social workers understand the parameters and limitations of these assessments. So for the benefit of any readers who may be at the mercy of the MCF I will give you the basics.

PCAs are one of a related group of family studies, which require the same skills to accomplish. These are adoption home studies, foster home studies, custody and access reports, general social assessments and risk assessments. All these studies should be carefully compiled and factual family histories done with the emphasis on normal social functioning. Families who have normal educational achievements, good work records and stable housing do not suddenly change their natures and haul off and injure kids or become negligent. One needs to know the risk factors such as parents, who have poor education, poor work records, poor financial histories, serial marital relationships, histories of alcohol and drug abuse, family violence and so on.

I am grateful to Zabeth Bayne for digging up good guidelines for me. These are not issued by the professions of psychology or social work. Neither the college of psychologists nor their association has guidelines for parental capacity assessments and the same goes for social work. The guidelines come from the Law Society in its online education program. They clearly state that psychologists are not qualified to do PCAs without further mentored training. Yet psychologists are hired all the time to do them and they follow no firm guidelines. Guidelines also only recommend psychometric testing in special cases. Also that any psychometric testing should not be done be the same person who does the parental capacity assessment.

Now we have the courts leaving it all to psychologists to determine the outcome of cases. Judges abandon their judicial responsibilities and leave it all on the shoulders of untrained psychologists. Usually the ministry pays for these assessments, and it is well known that so-called expert opinion favours the hand that pays. Repeat business may be in mind. (contact me if you have a question, rtferris@telus.net.)

PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENTS

If you want to know what a Parental Capacity Assessment is, today's blog post is written by Ray Ferris. Ray had career of 31 years service in child welfare and protection as a social worker and district supervisor and family court coordinator. Ray is the author of 'The Art of Child Protection'. You can purchase it from him by writing to rtferris@telus.net

"Parental capacity assessments are essentially a method of making an inventory of the life skills of parents. PCAs are similar to Risk Assessments and the main difference is the starting point of each assessment. A risk assessment usually starts with a perceived risk and then assesses the strengths of a parent to resolve that risk. A parental capacity assessment is principally geared to assessing the historical and current functioning of a family in order to provide a profile. This past and present profile is then used to assess the likelihood of future risk. Some types of risk cannot be assessed properly without considering profile.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR A PARENTAL CAPACITY TEST

If the Ministry is concerned to know Derek Hoare's capacity to parent three children, why not within a five month period state that? Make that happen. What is so fundamentally wrong with the people engaged in this work that the obvious is not apparent?

If you were participating in a parental capacity assessment, would you know what to expect? Have you already been through one of these?

There are several components to an assessment but certainly the elemental interview will subject you to a series of questions which can either appear conventional and non-threatening or if you are nervous to entrust your future to the psychologist who administers the test, they will be unsettling and worrisome.

The psychologist engaged by Child Protection may not develop the questions unilaterally but often a case worker or a team of child protection case workers suggests the questions for which they want to have answers. The parents are customarily presented with these questions in advance of the meeting with the psychologist. If you have had a PCA done, do these questions reflect your experience?

TODAY JOSIAH IS BEING GIVEN BACK TO ZABETH AND PAUL / 587

Josiah in the Month of June

Recently Josiah had an overnight with Paul and Zabeth. The following afternoon I saw him sleeping against his mommy in a soft front baby carrier. He has grown. He has received good foster care for the past five months since he was born and since he was removed from his mom. Today he begins overnighting at Paul's and Zabeth's place forever - it's his place too. 

Since early July Paul and Zabeth have known that their children would be returned to them. In a cordial meeting attended by their lawyer Robert Hamilton, MCFD legal counsel Dean Tate and case worker Matthew Walker as well as new director Sheila Zeiner, they were informed of this news. Since the social worker requested that the Baynes should not make these details known prior to July 23, the date upon which the parents would be allowed to inform their children that they are scheduled to come home, I complied with that request.

I WILL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT / 584

We have celebrated the news that Paul and Zabeth will have their children returned to them in August, beginning with the Aug. 2nd homecoming of Josiah, the five month old boy who was removed from Zabeth four hours after he was born in February of this year. Then on August 25th the arrival of Kent, Baden and Bethany will represent the restoration of family life. That is what the case worker has promised Paul and Zabeth. He gave permission to the Baynes to inform their own children about this event and that was done last week. That was when we could cooperatively go public with this news. However, .................. forget the however, first of all ................

CHILD PROTECTION MEDIATION / 527

Child protection cases, custody battles, and family law disputes are overcrowded with fury and anguish. In most cases when children are removed from parents, it is a crisis situation. In the earliest stages of the disagreement between PC workers and parents, the stress of the emergency is not lost on the children, from toddlers on up. Court processes seldom lessen the desperation. However, if mediation was practiced and if judges understood that this was an available alternative, court ordeals could be transformed. That's what proponents of mediation claim.

DR. BOWDEN AND WHAT PEOPLE SAY / 515

Unidentified mom and child

Parenting Capacity Assessment (PCA) PCA’s are conducted for the purpose of identifying the functional parenting ability of a potential caregiver or active caregiver. PCA’s also identify parenting limitations and possible remediation that may assist an individual in acquiring the skills necessary for effective parenting. PCA’s are usually conducted under Court Order or in respect to child welfare concerns.

You already know that Paul and Zabeth Bayne are engaged with Dr. Conrad Bowden in a Parental Capacity Assessment. I wrote a small bit about this earlier and have been impressed with material produced by Dr. Bowden. Candidly I wonder how the Baynes will find this experience to be.

Parenting Capacity Assessment (PCA) / 507

His Honour rejected the SBS theory but in making his ruling he also spurned the natural judgement to return the children to their parents. Many of you have felt that this conclusion defied logic, because he ruled to continue the government care of all three children without supportive evidence. He had just thrown it out.

Okay, so make the best of it. It is ostensibly three more months of care. Zabeth and Paul must show themselves clean, concerned, cooperative, capable and they have three months in which to do that and this is precisely the type of case for which the Ministry requests a Parenting Capacity Assessment (PCA). PCA's are medico-legal reports and most PCA’s do not end up in court, but result in a plan of action agreed upon by both parties yet nevertheless they are prepared with the expectation that they may be examined in a court of law.