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St Thomas CAS Office Closed

August 30, 2011 permalink

Pat Niagara reports that the CAS office in St Thomas Ontario closed when today's rally group showed up.

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Pat Niagara

On Aug 30th 2011 Advocates from all over Ontario again took Aim at the C.A.S. this time in St. Thomas, ON wanting oversight within the Children's Aid Society.

Advocates from Canada Court Watch, Voices of Innocent Families in Ontario, Unregistered CAS/FACS workers unlawfully working in Ontario, Haldimand Norfolk Citizen's Committee for Public Accountability and Grass Hopper Media all teamed up outside City Hall on Talbot St a crossed from one of the St. Thomas Children's Aid Society Sub Office to bring awareness to the people of St. Thomas about the "MUSH SECTOR" and "The Unlawful

Practice of Social Work by C.A.S. We also collected a large amount of signatures on 3 separate petitions.

We seem to have upset the C.A.S. office with our presence to the point the C.A.S. closed it's doors for the day sending people that had appointments away. C.A.S. also made a number of calls to local police complaining about our presence. All in All it was a good Rally with a great turnout.

★★★ VIDEO TO FOLLOW ★★★

Source: Facebook

Here is a press report:

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PROTESTORS HIT TALBOT STREET

Talbot Street Rally, St Thomas Ontario

They're asking for more accountability. Tuesday in St. Thomas a large demonstration was held outside of City Hall part of a traveling protest requesting independent investigations for organizations that include the Children's Aid Society. Lillian Christine Sorko representing Voices of Innocent Families of Ontario says she doesn't minimize CAS's responsibility to protect children from harmful situations.

audio Lillian Christine Sorko (mp3)

Executive Director of Family & Children Services in St. Thomas Rod Potgieper says he feel they are very accountable with a number of mechanisms in place to keep their employees in check.

audio Thomas Rod Potgieper (mp3)

Sorko says it's not just about the CAS, they're calling on more accountability from all public agencies which include: school boards, hospitals, long-term care facilities and retirement homes. The group will be traveling to Stratford next week and Brantford the following week.

Source: St Thomas Today

Addendum: Here are five pictures: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] and a video on YouTube or local copy (flv).

Many children's aid societies including St Thomas, as shown on the video, respond to rallies not by making policy changes respecting families, but by calling on the police. While there has never been a breach of the peace or property crime at one of these rallies, there has been one arrest.

A separate video shows an interview of a young man recently aged out of CAS care. It is valuable both for the opinions he gives about CAS, and to watch the kind of person who ultimately graduates from foster care. He did not have his own microphone, reducing the apparent volume of his voice, good for listeners offended by off-color speech. YouTube and local copy (flv).

Source: Facebook

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