Commentary

Ray Ferris: A British Columbia myth about the best interests of children

by The Georgia Straight Staff on March 5th, 2012 at 5:59 PM

By Ray Ferris

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. The Child Family and Community Services Act says that a temporary order on children under five cannot exceed one year and can only be in three monthly increments.

This protects against the emotional damage known as attachment deficit disorder. The courts often stretch this temporary care to years before any hearing of evidence. They just relabel it as interim custody.

The indefinite limbo of interim custody causes the same damage. At the first hearings, called presentations, courts rubber-stamp approval of social workers' actions, because there is no time to hear arguments. All the judges want to do is to clear the list and not get seized (stuck) with a case.

Contested cases will not be heard for over a year. Kids are often moved from home to home and disclosure is withheld. (Protection of privacy you know.) Chlldren have even been moved from safe relative care to protect privacy. Nobody asks the kids if they are grateful.

The truth is that children's rights can often come into conflict with each other and judgement is needed to strike a balance. That judgement is in the hands of those with power. This means the ministry's regional directors, until a judge rules otherwise.

The paramount right declared in the act is "the best interests of children". The big problem with that is that the best interests are always a matter of opinion. Only the opinion of those with power counts and that can be biased and self-serving.

Family courts have become as adversarial as criminal courts and just as expensive. Some parents who got back their kids had to sell their homes in order to raise the legal fees to do it.

Ask how this in the best interests of the children and you will be told that cannot be discussed to protect privacy. Or that the safety of the children must come first.

In a case recently covered on CBC's Go Public segment and the fifth estate program, three children were kept in limbo care for nearly four years before the parents got them back. The children suffered multiple moves and all had anxiety disorders.

That effort bankrupted the parents and cost the taxpayer an estimated half-million dollars. The act allows the judges to make protection hearings quite informal, so sticking to the rigid, expensive processes is not necessary.

This informality only seems to extend to the social workers and not to the parents. Social workers are allowed to enter as evidence any piece of hearsay, gossip or conjecture. The same leeway is not given to parents, who may not be allowed to say anything at all.

It takes a certain amount of collusion to be able to dodge all the important guidelines and time lines of the act. Collusion between ministry employees, judges, and counsels for both prosecution and defence. Obviously the adversarial process generates much more income than a conciliatory process, so there is little incentive for lawyers to speed things up.

One device is to stack the court with far more witnesses than necessary. Parents are simply outgunned by the legal financial clout. The end result is that child welfare gets drowned in the culture of the courts.

Ray Ferris is a retired child-protection worker and the author of The Art of Child Protection.

Comments

21 Comments

Eastendian

Mar 5, 2012 at 8:44pm

I wonder how much money could be saved with a less adversarial court system?

Zabeth Bayne

Mar 5, 2012 at 9:12pm

Thank you for publishing this article. I have personally read Mr. Ferris' book "The Art of Child Protection" and feel that everyone practicing in this field would benefit from reading this. Ray Ferris has accurately pointed out some of the more detrimental flaws in our current system. I would also like to read some of his recommendations on reforming what has become a failure to children and families.

Concerned Father & Citizen

Mar 5, 2012 at 9:14pm

I am a parent who has watched the inefficiencies of the child welfare system in Canada victimize children first hand. At the age of 4 my son came to live with me, after realizing his mother could not effectively raise him. By this time he was already affected by attachment deficit disorder. At the age of fourteen he ran away from a very caring, loving and responsible home, this being a symptom of his attachment anxieties. The system provided no support to parents or children to bring him the treatment or assistance he needed. At the age of 14 he was placed in an 'emergency placement' home. This home was a ministry resource that consisted of a run down, empty home monitored by a social reject of a staff member. The resource is closed from 8:30am- 5:30 pm forcing it's residences onto the streets of Surrey to find a way to kill time. At fourteen, certainly not the place to be. Problems continued to cascade until at the age of 17 he ended up in juvenile detention. Recently released, we have reconnected and the future is looking brighter for him, unfortunately the emotional and social damage he has suffered will take years to recover from. Each positive step in his life at this point involves his parents pushing, forcing and guiding the ministry in what is best for this child. The scariest part is that for every one child like my son, we have met 10 that did not have any parental involvement, and each of these is being victimized starting at very early ages by the nastier members of our society. A deeper look will also reveal the number of 'profiteers' who are getting wealthy off of contracting care 'resources' to the BC ministry. Simply scary what a good percentage of these resources consist of.

Taxpayers R Us

Mar 5, 2012 at 9:28pm

Thanks for the article Ray, you have given light to one of the oxymorons the courts swear by, and probably the most controversial one.

A deeper look into the courts' "best interests of the child" fallacy opens up the whole can of beans on family law, anti-male sexism, Bar revenues and tampering.

Family law was originally rooted in fair practise - the women didn't have the same career opportunities as men, therefore the courts sought to balance that with some property division, alimony and child support.

Feminist groups got involved, demanded more equity and more support and the Bar listened and answered in kind.

Somewhere in the 90s and the first decade of the 21st century the scales tipped and the Bar started seeing its lawyers making massive profits of off a new industry - Divorce.

They started seeing husbands and fathers as nothing more than wallets with legs - if it was male and had some money or property, it was a target. Attorney Generals (most recently in 2008) sought input on the matter but only heard from feminist groups and lawyers benefiting from this industry.

Fast forward to 2012 - when women earn post-secondary accreditation and have brighter futures than men as a whole, and the industry continues to rape men for anything and everything they have only to hang onto profits. Groups like West Coast LEAF are entirely dedicated to educating women and lawyers on how best to do this, and they get tax payer financing to do so.

Corruption at the court level runs deep when it comes to kids - it means profit in big ways and all of that needs to stop.

lisa arlin

Mar 6, 2012 at 12:53am

Thank your for acknowledging parents don't have any rights it is so true if your child is in care of MCFD. For example when my son's father was alive the MCFD placed our child foster care didn't even consider him self or his family it was like his rights did not exist! The out come was we were forced to adopt our child he was not included in that decision shortly after he committed suicide when the order was made our son will never get to have a relationship with his dad and so many years later MCFD Director Bruce Mcniel says oh and you do have documents which support the return of your child it is sad how many families are suffering MCFD Injustice like the Bayne's family from Surrey B.C. and Derek Hoare fighting for his daughter Ayn and so many more cases where children don't need to be even in MCFD care! Further more children have died or have been critically injured in care of MCFD perhaps if parents rhildrights were recognized instead of being trampled on so many children wouldn't be dying or harmed by MCFD it is so hard as a parent to not be able to protect your children if they are in care we need to raise awareness such as it is not in the child's best interest to be placed in care MCFD just remove children to get their funding I believe MCFD has way to much Arbitrary power and need to be made accountable other wise MCFD will just draw a name from a hat and remove that child because there not accountable and placing children in foster homes with strangers is a much better alternative than preserving families when they can be we need to work together as a community as families and those who suffered MCFD injustice and fight back because children and families are worth it when will the government make MCFD accountable when will MCFD be stopped from destroying families when will this government wake up and see MCFD is not protecting children dose this government not see how many families are suffering and it has been for long enough if you ask me It is worse than what happened with the aboriginal residential schools accept under a new name MCFD essentially parents have had Enough

You may contact me on face book
Lisa Arlin
FIGHT BACK
Parents do have rights
Speak out!

Men first

Mar 7, 2012 at 12:15pm

If you look at BC as one very large ship sinking, it is a certainty women and children would be the last ones left on the boat to learn what it really means to sink or swim. Children in BC are drowning under the sea of BS and the only think Family Services provides is the anchor so the little darling can hit rock bottom.

Katie, is raped, and raped and raped again

Mar 7, 2012 at 12:23pm

Because they can all the while in the hands of a BC foster home, no less, and after getting the courage to bring it up she is told there is not enough proof. The foster home is still open to sweet young girls.
It is more common than not.

Bernadette Murphy

Mar 14, 2012 at 2:06am

Someone is finally taking the MCFD on. I hear they are being sued for bad faith and they are in quite a bind.
You can find it in the civil listings.

People Assisting Parents Association

Mar 22, 2012 at 8:42am

Legal costs for MCFD are a drop in the bucket that their 1.3billion dollar budget easily absorbs. "Just" $10 million yearly is paid to a handful of select external law firms according to MCFD's response to a recent Freedom of Information Request. Lawsuits against MCFD are handled by the Attorney General internal lawyers who's salaries are in the $150,000 range, a rate 50% more than each of the 5 regional MCFD Directors are paid.

The point / effect of child removal is to keep MCFD's 1.3billion budget intact. This means a steady flow of children, or keeping individual children for as long as possible in foster care. Federal funding is provided to pay these 3,300+ B.C. foster home businesses who are exempt from taxes and any accountability on how they spend this cash.

MCFD in conjunction with RCY (Representatives for Children and Youth) continually seeks to expand their mandate. Witness the recent appointment of an investigator for family violence for RCY, an effect of a report done on the perceived failings of MCFD associated with the murder of three children in Merritt.

MCFD will spend more on legal horsepower to make lawsuits go away. On an FOI of MCFD lawsuit history over five years, early payouts range from one million in 2003 to zero at 2008, but the legal costs to defend/deter these have steadily increased.

Translation: MCFD + AG will fight tooth and nail to ensure their ecosystem that violates the rights of children and families by virtue of 3,000+ no-warrant "emergency" class removals of children yearly. The same 3,000 that age out of the system have to be replaced. This is how it works.

The only way to properly educate the public on the incredible harm MCFD really does to families and ongoing insult on the taxpayers return-for-the-dollar spent, is to have off-mainstream press such as the Georgia Straight, that have some investigative horsepower, to talk to affected families like Paul and Zabeth Baynes, and the parents of 11-year-old Ayn Van Dyke, Derek Hoare and Amie Van Dyke.

Social worker Ray Ferris is an effective speaker on the foibles of MCFD. The real story is the 2,600+ career social workers, many with far in excess of 10 years experience, who know how the system really works, and they know how to keep their jobs as Directors come and go. These 'overworked' individuals only have to remove one child per year to ensure their meagar salary continues.

When is a news agency that does not get significant advertising dollars from the government going to take on the task of properly reporting of how MCFD really works?