German Girl Rejoins Parents

May 18, 2007

The German girl snatched from her parents to end homeschooling returned to her parents, first without approval of the law, and now with it. So a Nazi law to place the education of all children under control of the state is no longer enforced in Canada Germany.

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POLICE STATE, GERMANY

Court gives Melissa back to family

Says teen not in danger in homeschooling environment

Posted: May 17, 2007, 1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Bob Unruh

Melissa Busekros, after her return to her home. (Photo courtesy Klaus Guenther)

A German appeals court has ordered legal custody of Melissa Busekros, the teenager who was taken from her home by a police squad and detained in a psychiatric hospital for being homeschooled, be returned to her family because she no longer is in danger.

Confirmation of the decision by the appellate level court in Bavaria came from the Home School Legal Defense Association, with 80,000 member families probably the world's premiere homeschool advocacy organization. It has been helping Melissa's parents, Hubert and Gudrun, with the legal battle for their daughter.

The HSLDA's translation of the German appeals court ruling said custody of the 16-year-old was returned to the family, because while it was "appropriate" for the judge to do what he did at the time, when he ordered her taken into custody, new information now reveals the lack of danger.

The lower court's ruling had ordered police officers to take Melissa – then 15 – from her home, if necessary by force, and place her in a mental institution for a variety of evaluations. She was kept in custody from early February until April, when she turned 16 and under German law was subject to different laws.

At that point she simply walked away from the foster home where she had been required to stay and returned home, but she and her family had been living under the possibility that police would intervene again.

The appellate court's decision said "observations" of Melissa over the last few months "show there is no danger to her well-being and she may now stay with her family," according to Michael Donnelly, a lawyer working with the HSLDA.

The appeals court referred the case back to the local social welfare office that originally brought the complaint resulting in Melissa being removed from her home.

Donnelly pointed out the ruling does not change the climate of harassment in which the case originally developed, because homeschooling remains illegal in Germany. However, he called the decision a huge victory for the family.

"And a costly one. Their attorneys fees already are in the tens of thousands of dollars," he said. The HSLDA already has set up a fund – linked under its reports on homeschooling in Germany – for volunteers to help defray those costs, he said.

WND reported earlier on confirmation from Joel Thornton, president of the International Human Rights Group, that authorities had told the family's lawyer they would "de-escalate" the case.

That statement was issued not long after the teen fled government custody on April 23, her 16th birthday.

Thornton said because of the different German laws that apply to children depending on their age, when Melissa reached the age 16 on April 23, she left a note for the foster family where she had been ordered to stay and returned home on her own, arriving at 3 a.m. to surprised parents and siblings.

"In a letter to the family's attorney, the youth welfare agency responsible for taking her from her home affirmed that they were going to 'de-escalate' the situation and allow her to remain with her family as long as they would continue to dialogue with authorities," Thornton confirmed earlier.

A separate website, FreeMelissaB.com, launched by American homeschool leaders, also had been lobbying on behalf of Melissa, as well as providing contact information for German officials key to the case.

Melissa had fallen behind in math and Latin and was being tutored at home. When school officials in Germany, where homeschooling was banned during Adolf Hitler's reign of power, found out, she was expelled. School officials then took her to court, obtaining the order requiring she be committed to a psychiatric ward.

Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole."

Drautz said homeschool students' test results may be as good as for those in school, but "school teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct, encourages dialogue among people of different beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become responsible citizens."

The German government's defense of its "social" teachings and mandatory public school attendance was clarified during an earlier dispute on which WND reported, when a German family wrote to officials objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.

"The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling," said a government letter in response. "... You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. ... In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."

Thornton has told WND many other Christian families who object to the German government's sexualized education system are facing persecution, too.

Three other families recently released a letter pleading with Christians worldwide for prayer because of their "difficulties" – fines equal to thousands of dollars, frozen bank accounts and even the threat of the sale of the family home – because they homeschool their children.

The letter came from Alexander and Helene Schneider, Johann and Katharina Harder and Heiko and Anna Krautter and was released through the IHRG.

Thornton told WND the situations are becoming dire and parents more fearful about losing custody of their children because of what happened with Melissa.

"We are turning to all believing gospel Christians and Baptists in the CIS, Europe and America," the three sets of parents wrote. "We are three families of the church in Bischofswerda, and we homeschool our children. For that reason, we had to deal with numerous difficulties with the authorities."

The families cited fines of up to $4,000 the government has imposed – so far.

"We ask that you pray for us and that you make your voice heard before the secular powers," said the letter.

"The German government is taking these actions simply because these parents homeschool their children," Thornton said. "With a very strong Christian faith and a conviction that they should be allowed to raise their children in a Christian educational environment, these families are taking a stand, particularly regarding their right to oversee the sex education of their children as well as protect them from occult influences."

He also said he was able to meet with members of the Brause family, about whom WND has reported. The German courts already have granted custody of the family's five children to social workers, although they had not yet moved them out of the family home.

Michael Farris, founder of the HSLDA, has said he believes the German treatment of Christian homeschoolers is the "edge of the night that's coming" for believers.

"Germany is the only Western democracy taking this incredibly hard-line approach, but there are growing clouds on a number of national horizons," Farris told WND.

"The philosophy that the government knows best how to raise children is really becoming a worldwide phenomenon," Farris said. "I think Germany represents the edge of the night that's coming."

For the U.S., Farris has called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect the right of parents to educate their children at home.

Bob Unruh is a news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.

Source: WorldNetDaily

Take More Children!

May 16, 2007

The Saskatchewan children's advocate wants to take more children from mom and dad in the name of safety. This is the kind of report we can expect in Ontario as long as the child advocate is a career social worker.

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CBC News

Cultural, political agendas put ahead of needs of Sask. kids: report

Last Updated: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 | 3:12 PM CT The Canadian Press

Family ties, cultural issues and political agendas are being placed ahead of the welfare of kids, Saskatchewan's children's advocate said in a report released Tuesday.

Marvin Bernstein said in his annual report that children are being left in homes where there is too much risk of harm, and too many chances are being given to some parents.

He said it is important to have the family and cultural needs of children met.

But in his annual report, the advocate warned that those needs don't trump safety considerations or the need for protection.

The report, tabled in the legislature Tuesday, says the Saskatchewan Child and Family Services Act is "out of step" with most child protection statutes in Canada.

Bernstein is calling on the province to commit to a plan to raise the standard of services for children and youth.

Source: CBC

Sure Way to Keep Baby

May 16, 2007

This article deals with unassisted home birth while avoiding one of its prime motivations. It is the most dangerous medically and the safest from social services. Many women have already given birth at home to avoid baby-snatching in the delivery room.

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DIY delivery

ADRIANA BARTON

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, May 15, 2007 at 8:41 AM EDT

BURNABY, B.C. — When Nicole Becker felt the pangs of late labour in January, she lit candles in the bathroom of her two-bedroom flat in Burnaby, B.C., and filled the tub. Only her husband and the couple's four-year-old son looked on as baby George slid into the water. "It was my dream birth," Ms. Becker says.

Ms. Becker planned throughout her pregnancy to give birth without a midwife, doctor or other birth attendant. After using a doula for her first child's home birth, Ms. Becker decided that the job of a good midwife is to "let the process happen," she says. So with George she decided to go solo.

Choosing to deliver without skilled help remains a controversial and uncommon choice. But now, spurred by the Internet, unassisted childbirth is reaching a broader range of women than ever before.

On sites such as Birthjunkie.com, Mothering.com and Trustbirth.com, women trade tips on such topics as how to measure the uterus to calculate the due date and how to figure out if the baby is breech. One of the most popular sites, Unassistedchildbirth.com, now has 30,000 to 40,000 visitors each month.

Jodie Boychuk gave birth unassisted at home to her second child, Eloise, in 2005, after a difficult recovery from the cesarean birth of her first child. (Charla Jones/The Globe and Mail)

Many women join one of nearly 100 Yahoo groups that list unassisted childbirth in their subject lines, including UCbirthnews, an online newsletter with over 1,110 members. They also browse online for books, videos and do-it-yourself resources such as Unhindered Childbirth - The Online Childbirth Class (at Unhinderedliving.com) as well as inflatable birthing pools.

"People who wouldn't have considered this years ago are considering it now," says Laura Shanley of Boulder, Colo., who wrote the influential book Unassisted Childbirth in 1994 and runs the website Unassistedchildbirth.com.

Until recently, "I was hearing more from hippie types, people more on the fringe," says Ms. Shanley, who gave birth to five children without medical attention - including one breech presentation. "I do think it's getting more into the mainstream."

But most doctors and registered midwives strongly oppose the practice. Skilled attendants play a crucial role in identifying problems such as hemorrhages and fetal distress before they become emergencies, they say.

In a few cases, child welfare authorities in Canada and the United States have investigated parents who planned unassisted births.

Although there are no large or recent studies on the outcomes of planned unassisted childbirth, the evidence stacked against the practice is "overwhelming," according to Vyta Senikas, associate executive vice-president for the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada.

Dr. Senikas questions the rationale for choosing unassisted childbirth. "By all means, choose the home," she says, "but have a skilled attendant there."

Childbirth is a natural process, she adds, "but you can die and you can end up having problems."

Advocates of unassisted birth say that any medical interference, no matter how well-meaning, can disrupt the instinctive and hormonal processes of labour, triggering a stress response that halts the birth's progress. They believe that widespread use of interventions that slow labour can contribute to higher rates of C-section.

Adherents base their beliefs on the writings of authors such as French obstetrician Michel Odent, who wrote Birth Reborn in 1984. Although he does not specifically advocate unassisted childbirth, Dr. Odent says that in his practice, women who weren't observed in their labour had faster and easier births.

There is no way of knowing for sure how many Canadians are choosing to give birth unattended, since neither the federal nor provincial governments collect statistics on planned unassisted childbirth. But the rate is probably much lower than home births attended by registered midwives, which accounted for just 1.5 per cent of all deliveries in British Columbia and Ontario in 2005 and 2006.

Jodie Boychuk of Dunnville, Ont., says she chose an unassisted birth for her second child because of the difficult recovery following the cesarean delivery of her first daughter. In September, 2005, her second daughter was born at home into the hands of her husband, Richard. The labour was smooth and the 8½-pound baby was healthy, Ms. Boychuk says.

But the practice remains controversial enough to impel some midwives and authorities to intervene. When Ms. Boychuk declined the services of a registered midwife during her second pregnancy, the midwife - who questioned the safety of even an attended home birth after a cesarean - promptly called the Children's Aid Society.

A two-week investigation ensued, but it was dropped because unassisted childbirth is not illegal.

Even the staunchest advocates of the practice acknowledge that it's not for everyone.

Sarah Buckley, an Australian physician trained in obstetrics and author of the book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, says a woman must be healthy and educated about birth to deliver unassisted.

As well, she says, the woman should be relaxed enough to avoid triggering the fight-or-flight response that can delay the birth, and should have a backup plan such as transferring to a hospital.

Registered midwives agree that too much medical intervention can impede labour - but they "cannot support the concept of unassisted, unattended births" due to the risks, says Elana Johnson, president of the board of directors of the Association of Ontario Midwives.

For Ms. Becker of Burnaby, the birth of her baby in January is still fresh in her mind. It was a joyful occasion to share with her husband and her son Max, she explains, and most of all, "it was just us."

Source: The Globe and Mail

Legislator Muzzled

May 14, 2007

Here is another case of a legislator being bullied by a child protection agency. In this case a Tucson Arizona representative, Jonathan Paton, is subject to prosecution if he says what he knows about the deaths of three children under watch by child protectors. We earlier reported on Ed Dugay in Maine who also got pushed around by the same kind of agency.

Do you think you can help your case by calling your MP or MPP or Senator or Congressman? Don't bother. He can't do anything even if he tries.

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Ariana Payne

The Arizona Daily Star, Published: 05.13.2007

CPS privacy rules getting new scrutiny

Local kids' deaths raise questions on agency's openness

By Josh Brodesky, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Tucson, Arizona

The refusal of state Child Protective Services to release details about its connection to Tucson children who died this spring under its watch has raised concerns among some state lawmakers and advocates for open government.

They're concerned that the agency's need for confidentiality has outweighed the public's right to know.

CPS maintains that releasing information to the public violates confidentiality laws, though state law allows case summaries for children who die from abuse or neglect to be made public.

At issue is the agency's role in the deaths of Tucson children Ariana Payne and Brandon Williams and the suspected death of Ariana's brother, Tyler Payne.

"I think the public has a right to know how tax dollars are being spent and how state agencies operate," said Rep. Jonathan Paton, a Republican from Tucson who is part of legislative hearings to examine CPS' role in the two Tucson cases.

Paton is one of a handful of people to review CPS' files for the Payne and Williams cases, but he can't comment on what he's learned because of confidentiality. State law mandates that lawmakers sign confidentiality agreements if they are to review CPS cases.

"It's a misdemeanor of some sort," Paton said, explaining what would happen if he talked about the cases or hearings. "I'm not sure what the level is, but it's serious enough that I don't want to risk it."

Citing a lawsuit filed by the Arizona Daily Star seeking the Payne case summary, CPS spokeswoman Liz Barker Alvarez declined to comment about the agency's use of confidentiality laws. She referred any specific questions about the Payne case to the Attorney General's Office.

CPS was thrust into the spotlight after police discovered 4-year-old Ariana's body Feb. 18 in a plastic tub that had been placed in a trash bin. Her body had been kept in a locker at a storage facility. The body of her 5-year-old brother, Tyler, has not been found despite two searches at Los Reales Landfill, 5300 E. Los Reales Road, where police believe he may be buried.

The children's father, Christopher Matthew Payne, has been charged with two counts of murder.

Court documents and police reports show CPS had been working to help Payne gain custody of the two children.

In the other case, on March 21, Brandon Williams, 5, died after his mother and another woman gave him multiple doses of medications.

CPS has said investigators "made repeated attempts" to find Brandon and his mother, Diane L. Marsh. Marsh has been charged with first-degree murder.

Kids' safety and well-being

Under state and federal law, state CPS case reports are confidential and that is, in part, to protect against false or unsubstantiated reports, said Dan Barr, a Phoenix attorney who is representing the Star in its suit for the Payne case summary.

However, Barr said much of the state's public-records law surrounding CPS balances on whether the release of information will promote or hinder the safety and well-being of children, and that it expressly outlines times when information should be released.

"You withhold the information if it's to promote the safety and well-being of children, but if that goal is promoted by releasing it, you release the information," he said.

With a suspect arrested in the Payne case, and Ariana dead and Tyler believed to be dead, Barr said he thought the release of the case summary could only help to prevent future deaths.

"If something can be learned so that a better decision can be made in another case, then that's certainly beneficial to promoting the safety and well-being of children," he said. "You can't have a meaningful discussion without the facts."

In the Payne case, it's unclear what CPS did or didn't do — even for the family members involved.

Police reports show that in March of last year the children's mother, Jamie Hallam, called police to ask for their help in recovering her kids from Payne, who had kept them for more than six weeks.

Hallam had a court order for sole custody, but when police arrived at Payne's West Side apartment, Payne said he was working with CPS to get custody.

The officers called CPS and spoke with a supervisor who said it would be best to keep the kids with Payne because the agency was investigating Hallam. Records show that the investigation into Hallam ended a month later.

Hallam's grandmother, Linda Cosentino, who lives in New Jersey, said the family was never notified that the investigation was closed until she called CPS out of concern for the welfare of the kids.

"We don't understand why she could not get her kids when she had the court order," Cosentino said.

State law also allows for the agency to release case information to confirm or correct information from outside sources, but Barker Alvarez declined to comment about Cosentino's assertion.

"I can't speak to a particular case," she said, citing the Star's lawsuit. "When we are finished with our investigation, we are required to notify the person who is the subject of the allegation, and that is who we notify."

Despite the lack of public information, Barker Alvarez said there are a number of internal controls to assure the proper handling of cases. Those controls range from attorney representations for parents at dependency hearings, which are not open to the public, to an independent foster-care review board, to a family-advocacy office where grievances can be filed and private legislative hearings conducted, such as the ones in which Paton is taking part.

She declined to answer a question about how not releasing case information might shape the agency's image.

However, Paton and Barr both said they thought the agency was taking a hit.

"I think that the current confidentiality laws that exist, one, prevent this agency from receiving enough scrutiny," Paton said. "Two, I think they hurt the agency in the long run because I think that people develop a lot of conspiracy theories in absence of what's going on."

● Contact reporter Josh Brodesky at 807-7789 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

Addendum: A few days later another Arizona paper called for reform as well.

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The Arizona Republic

What's left to protect?

May. 20, 2007 12:00 AM

Arizona's Child Protective Services uses unconvincing arguments to deflect public fears about the agency's ineptitude.

By withholding information on the grounds of confidentiality, CPS gets to bury its mistakes along with the dead children it was supposed to protect.

The Arizona Republic is one of two state papers demanding more openness from the agency. This is not done for reporters' egos or institutional nosiness. As The Republic's filing says, what's at stake is the public's "ability to monitor state government's performance of one of its most basic and important duties: safeguarding children from abuse, neglect, injury and death."

The public - you - cannot measure the agency's effectiveness prior to the deaths of three Tucson children without more information.

What's known - from court and police records - is that the mother of Ariana and Tyler Payne had a court order giving her sole custody. When she called police to help her reclaim the children after a visit to their father, Christopher Matthew Payne, he told officers that CPS was working with him to regain custody. CPS subsequently told the police to leave the kids with the father because they were investigating the mother.

The father is now charged with two counts of murder. Four-year-old Ariana's body was found Feb. 18 in a trash bin. Two searches of a local landfill failed to find her 5-year-old brother, though police believe his body is there.

CPS stands behind a claim of confidentiality and refuses to release information. State and federal law calls for confidentiality to protect the identities of child victims and adults who might be falsely accused.

The children in this case are dead. The man accused is facing public trial.

Who is being protected?

Another child whose story is being withheld is 5-year-old Brandon Williams. His mother is accused of first-degree murder in his March 21 death.

The boy's school had alerted CPS when he stopped attending class. CPS failed to find him, but a Pima County Sheriff's deputy located the mother after a missing-person report.

The deputy saw Brandon with bandages covering legs that had been dipped in scalding water. The deputy didn't know about the CPS involvement and accepted the mother's explanation that the child had fallen into cactus.

This failure of two public agencies to communicate was fatal. Brandon subsequently died of a drug overdose.

Again, CPS refuses to release full information about the case.

Again, the only obvious beneficiary is the agency that should have done more for these kids.

CPS may, indeed, feel legally bound to withhold information. If that's the case, then lawmakers should make it even clearer in statute that secrecy is not the same thing as privacy.

Confidentiality is not about covering up.

Source: Arizona Republic

Hearings Published

May 13, 2007

The legislative hearings held on April 25 and 26 have now been published in the Hansard. The subject before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy was bill 165 to alter the powers of the children's advocate. Many of the witnesses were functionaries of the child protection system, or advocates for handouts to special groups, or children still under the control of the child protection system and so unable to criticize it. But there were many witnesses with valuable contributions.

• Anne Marsden said that the legal procedures for the protection of children are not being followed now, so the enactment of even more rules benefiting children is useless.
• Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office. David Simpson criticized provisions in the law requiring the children's advocate to notify an institution in advance before visiting a child, and requiring the advocate to submit a copy of a report to the ministry thirty days before publication.
• Lawrence Kong. Mr Kong advocated for mom and dad as the best guardians of children, and in their absence, said other relatives offered the best homes. He recounted the sham court processes that now seize children from their parents, and even suggested that committee members educate themselves by reading the websites of Dufferin VOCA and Canada Court Watch.
• Paul Dagenais. His daughter was the target of an attempted rape at school, but for two years nothing was done to remove her attacker.
• Voices for Children. Former crown ward Stephanie Ma likens the experience of seeking relief in foster care to The Trial by Franz Kafka.
• David Witzel, now 60 years old, recounts the horrors of growing up in foster care, and the lifetime of nightmares stemming from it.
• Sarah-Jane Dagg, a former crown-ward, recounted the difficulty of calling for help when access to telephones was controlled, and tells of being drugged into submission with a needle.
• Samuel Fragomeni was separated from his son by the actions of children's aid. He had to watch a lawyer purportedly representing his son, but ignoring the boy's wishes.
• Jeffery Wilson, a family lawyer, said the child advocate needs protection from lawsuits, or her work will become ineffective because of the threat of defamation claims. Also the child advocate needs the power to enter a child care facility without notice, otherwise the facility will use the delay to temporarily remove the problem that is the subject of a complaint.
• Defence for Children International — Canada. Matthew Geigen-Miller voiced concerns for kids in institutions. He said it is vital that such children can call an advocate at any time on their own initiative, and that the advocate must have the power to enter the facility. He advocated making confidentiality rules even stronger.
• Network Group, Pape Adolescent Resource Centre. Witness Julaine (no surname) recounts that a roughhousing incident with her foster parents resulted in a charge of assault, which she was required to fight without help because of lack of access to an advocate. Witness Sashan saw her foster family take their natural kids on vacation while the foster kids had to find somewhere else to go.

Several witnesses thought of the child advocate as a resource to intervene in individual cases to improve the lives of children one at a time. What is also needed is a report on the failings of the system as a whole, something the ombudsman is better suited to do. The child advocate cannot be a substitute for ombudsman oversight.

John Dunn notes that the hearings have been successful in altering the proposed legislation.

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This is something I have not seen happen very often. It appears as if our voices are being heard on this one. Bill 165 is the independant child advocate Bill introduced by the Min. CYS.

The Bill normally goes through first reading, then second reading, then to committee, then to third reading and is passed. This time, it was brought through first, second, committee and then to third but before being read for third it was sent back to committee for changes.

Those changes included removing the 30 day requirement for the Advocate to submit their report to the Ministry before submitting it to the Legislature, something we recomended, so that was done.

Also the Advocate no longer has to warn a resident before entering a facility to look into a child's status. Keep it up people, our voices are being heard.

Here is the latest recomendation in Today's business to return the Bill to committee. IT was recomended by MPP James Bradley.

CONSIDERATION OF BILL 165

Hon. James J. Bradley (Minister of Tourism, minister responsible for seniors, Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I believe we have unanimous consent to move a motion without notice regarding discharging a bill from third reading back to committee.

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): Mr. Bradley has asked for unanimous consent to move a motion without notice regarding discharging a bill from third reading back to committee. Agreed? Agreed.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: I move that the order for third reading of Bill 165, An Act to establish and provide for the office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth, be discharged and the bill be referred to the standing committee on justice policy; and

That, in addition to its regularly scheduled meeting times, the standing committee on justice policy be authorized to meet Monday, May 14, 2007, between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. for the purpose of clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 165, An Act to establish and provide for the office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth.

May, Monday, 14, 2007, 11:00 a.m. Queens Park, Room No. 228 (can only watch but it's good to be there)

The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

CONTACT JAMES BRADLEY TO ASK HIM WHY AND TELL HIM YOU ARE GLAD TO SEE MPP'S LISTENING TO US REGARDING NEEDED CHANGES TO CHILD WELFARE ACCOUNTABILITY

Hon James J. Bradley - Contact Information Constituency 2 - 2 Secord Dr
St. Catharines ON L2N 1K8
Tel: 905-935-0018
Fax: 905-935-0191
email: jbradley.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Source: email from John Dunn

Addendum: Here is an item of committee testimony that we overlooked on the first pass. It is from family lawyer Michael Cochrane on April 25:

(11) On some other related points about the family law system, it’s pretty much in a crisis mode right now in Ontario. It’s a mess. Everything is totally delayed. The level of acrimony is awful. I think the part of it that I find most frustrating is that we see families blowing the equity in their homes, burning up their RSPs, cashing them in, to pay lawyers to fight in the justice system. The CAS is often dragged into cases. I would be shocked if the children’s advocate didn’t have to do an investigation of the family law justice system in this province, because it is certainly not helping families and it’s certainly not helping children. We see it every day.

Cole Norris Speaks

May 12, 2007

Cole Norris has posted a video to YouTube. He details his transfer from his mother's good home to a group home where he was treated like a prisoner. While the family was reduced to penury, he has documents showing the fortune paid to children's aid by the Ontario taxpayers. In case CAS bullies this one off YouTube, here is our local copy (wmv), which requires your own media player.

Indians Steal Baby from White Man

May 12, 2007

Forty years ago in Canada white people were stealing babies from Indians. Now it is the other way around. The man known only as Jeff is the target of a case known in the trade by the one word "clutter" — it means there is no real abuse. Can Canada ever get a law leaving children with mom and dad regardless of race?

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A white man struggles to reclaim his children

Battle to wrest son and daughter from grandmother on reserve highlights clash of cultures between native and non-native Canadians

MARGARET PHILP

May 11, 2007

He always thought of himself as a doting father, a man who read bedtime stories to his two children every night before tucking them under the covers, who would delight in wrapping his arms around them in a bear hug. If not the picture-perfect father, he figured he was close enough.

But the 45-year-old who now lives alone in a spare townhouse more than 1,000 kilometres from his children was anything but perfect in the eyes of the child-protection workers who scooped his pajama-clad son and daughter from his arms in the wee hours of a summer morning almost two years ago.

In the time since, he has fought for the return of children he insists were grabbed without grounds. He has been deadlocked in an unseemly battle for custody with the Onigaming First Nation in Northwestern Ontario, the native community where he and his wife had raised the children before her untimely death and the unravelling of their family.

It is a tangled case coloured by race, cultural biases and conflicting opinions about children's best interests. Jeff is a white man from Southern Ontario who married his Ojibway wife, the band's welfare administrator, in the mid-1990s before settling down in a house on the reserve where they lived for nine years until her sudden death from pancreatic failure in 2004.

That was when Jeff's troubles began. While his wife was sickly for years -- she had launched a wrongful dismissal suit against the band after she was fired for missing too much work -- her mother accused Jeff of murder. The police launched an investigation into the death that would ultimately clear him.

In the meantime, a nasty fight was ensuing over where the body would be buried, with the grieving husband insisting that his wife's wishes were to be buried in Mississauga in his family's cemetery plot and the band furiously demanding that she be buried on the reserve. He eventually relented.

"It was unbelievable," he said. "I couldn't have people physically fighting for the casket."

As time passed, tensions mounted. A few months after the funeral, the band's child-protection agency opened a file on the family. According to court documents, his house was filthy and that a protection worker visiting one time found a sink full of dirty dishes with flies and insects buzzing around. In a slew of unsavoury allegations, Jeff is portrayed as unstable and unkempt, inappropriately feeding the children a starchy diet rich in doughnuts and pancakes and chocolate milk, providing no boundaries for their behaviour, seldom bathing them, and carelessly dressing them in dirty clothes.

The agency suggests he was suffering from depression and possibly an obsessive compulsive personality disorder that impaired his ability to care for them.

He started making plans to move to Southern Ontario to be near his parents and his sister's family, but had not left before protection workers stepped in and apprehended the children.

"As soon as my wife died, I didn't exist. Suddenly, I was the white man, the enemy. It was devastating. I had lived on reserve for about nine years. I had friends there. I knew a lot of people."

But almost two years later, the children remain with their grandmother under the aboriginal child-welfare policy that children be placed with relatives on the reserve, rather than in foster care with non-native strangers. In native culture, the it-takes-a-village philosophy holds sway, and bonds with community and family are equally sacrosanct.

And so, when a threat looms to remove children from their reserve, the band does not take it lightly. The trouble is, this time the threat has come from the children's own father.

To Jeff, his rights as a father have been trampled in an abuse of power.

But to George Simard, the issue is not so simple. The long-time executive director of Weech-it-te-win Family Services, the native child-welfare agency that supervises the band's child-protection workers, the best interests of native children -- even half-native -- are inextricably bound to aboriginal culture and can never be trumped by the rights of a parent. He would like to see the father and grandmother share custody and legal status under a co-parenting arrangement, with the children spending summers on the reserve.

"There's some truth in what Jeff says and some smoke-screening going on in relation to what he says," said Mr. Simard, who, while not free to discuss case details, insists Jeff lost his children for good reason.

"I'm not necessarily offside with his aspirations. I've talked to Jeff any number of times, and yes, the community and himself are polarized. And my advice to him is: Why do the kids become a pawn in the struggle? Why can't you mutually raise them for their own mental health as opposed to one side winning over the other?"

Jeff is an affable man, plain-spoken and earnest. At Onigaming, he worked as a consultant and for a time as a social-services administrator, but has been unemployed for the past few years. He would like his full name to be made public, but Ontario's child-welfare law prevents it.

"This is what I know," said a traditional native healer who provided counselling to Jeff after his wife died, over the objections of a few band members. "The father does not drink, smoke, or gamble. He wasn't functioning well because of his loss. I could understand that. He took it very hard when he lost his wife.

"Some people didn't see it that way, didn't see that a man who had just lost a wife was really hurting. No support from the community to help him with his grief, that's what I saw. I was the only one that supported him."

When Weech-it-te-win asked a court to declare the children wards of the state, the agency took the uncommon step of citing every grounds possible for removing children: that they had been physically abused, neglected, were likely to be sexually molested or exploited, needed medical and psychological treatment that the father refused to provide, and had suffered emotional abuse.

Jeff's lawyer asked for the case to be dismissed altogether. And while the judge did throw out most of the accusations as baseless, he ruled that the father's depression and reported gaps in parenting skills warranted the children remaining with their grandmother, who collects a foster-care allowance for her troubles.

"This case is unlike any case I've ever had," said Michael Cupello, a Thunder Bay family lawyer who has represented parents in child-welfare cases for 15 years.

"It should have been a child custody proceeding. It should never have been a child protection proceeding."

He advised his client that, with lengthy court delays, his children would be returned sooner if he cut a deal with the band. He signed a settlement, and over the months has fulfilled his end of the bargain -- finding a place to live, taking a parenting course, furnishing proof of his mental-health treatment, and opening his door to a Children's Aid Society social worker to assess his parenting and his home.

Completed this week, that home study concludes the children should live with Jeff, the social worker observing that "... both children appeared to trust Jeff and respond to him in an age-appropriate manner. The family interacts in a positive way. ... Jeff appeared supportive of his children, listening to them and encouraging them."

But Jeff doubts the band will budge. He maintains it has violated the settlement by refusing to return the children, limiting his visits, and under a band council resolution unceremoniously banning him from the reserve.

His lawyer plans to file a motion that the child-protection agency be held in contempt of court and demanding the immediate return of children.

As for the children, they make no secret of their desire to live with their father.

On a rare visit over the Easter weekend, the three of them have just returned from the public library. It is only the children's second visit to their father's home, but already they have made friends with neighbouring children their age. There has been a visit with grandparents and cousins they barely knew, an Easter-egg hunt and a shopping trip for new shoes.

"Hey, when are we moving to Guelph?" the girl demanded of her father, bouncing on the couch in his living room shortly before the Onigaming protection worker arrived to whisk the children back to the reserve.

Over and over, the girl repeated that she wants to live with her father. "It's really fun here," she said. "It's fun, and there's a cool bookstore, and my favourite stores are here. And I really like the school. It's nice and clean. And there are no broken windows."

She said she asks her grandmother about when she can move. "She always says he needs to work things out -- cooking and stuff -- but he already did," she said. "He can cook really good. He made a turkey before for dinner. Lots of stuff.

"When we have the next visit, we don't want it to be a visit. We want it to be we move here."

Child welfare

There are about 140 native child-welfare agencies across Canada, including five in Ontario, with the same authority of mainstream children's aid societies to apprehend youngsters considered in need of protection.

The first aboriginal child-welfare agency was the Siksika Family Service agency in Alberta, which started in the late 1960s during the so-called Sixties Scoop, a period of nearly two decades when non-native social workers with new powers to work on reserves and little understanding of native culture plucked thousands of children from poor families. Many would never return after being placed for adoption with non-native families as far away as Europe. The first native-run agencies were a response to cries of cultural genocide.

The number of aboriginal children in foster care has soared by about 65 per cent in the past decade, with one of every 10 aboriginal children in the care of a native or mainstream child-welfare agency, compared with just one of every 150 non-native Canadian children.

Ontario has the highest native population, but there are only five full-fledged aboriginal children's aid societies, and Ontario has recorded the sharpest jump in the number of native children under care in the past decade.

The Spallumcheen First Nation in British Columbia is the only band in Canada with its own child-welfare law and full authority over its child-protection system.

Margaret Philp

Source: Globe and Mail

Addendum: Dad gets his kids back.

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Dad wins custody fight with reserve

ROB O'FLANAGAN, GUELPH (Jul 11, 2007)

A Guelph father who was separated from his two children for more than two years while a tense child-protection case involving a northern Ontario First Nation's community unfolded will get his children back.

The Caucasian man's son and daughter, who are part Ojibway, were taken from him in 2005 by Weech-it- te-win Family Services, a child-welfare agency serving native communities in northwestern Ontario, after allegations were levelled against him by the Onigaming First Nation near Fort Frances.

The children were placed in the care of their grandmother, and the man, who can be referred to only as Jeff, was evicted from his home on the reserve.

He lived on the reserve for nearly nine years with his Ojibway wife. Soon after she died in 2004, the man said in a recent interview, the reserve took action to keep the children there, levelling allegations of parental incompetency against him.

A hearing was held into the case last Thursday and the outcome was in his favour.

"The process takes its course and ultimately the kids will go back to Guelph with their father," George Simard, the executive director of Weech-it-te-win Family Services, said in a telephone interview.

"As I understand it, there is an interim order of supervision and I believe toward the end of the month is when he will be taking his kids to Guelph."

Jeff's struggle to keep his children may not be over. According to Simard, he will be supervised by children's aid officials for a 12-month period, at which time another hearing will be held to determine if it is in the best interests of the children to stay with their father.

"We intend to proceed with the 12-month supervision," Simard said. "If it is granted, fine, if not, he is on his own."

He said they will have children's aid officials in Guelph "supervise on our behalf during that 12-month period, to lend assistance to Jeff, to ensure that he has the proper resources to care for his kids, to assist him with any supports he might need to give him a fair crack at independence."

Simard expressed his opinion that the children would benefit from having their aboriginal identity fostered, and by having their extended aboriginal family as an integral part of their upbringing.

The case received national media coverage because of its political implications.

For decades in Canada, native children were taken from reserves and placed in foster care off-reserve. It is now widely accepted that the practice was detrimental to the children, and efforts have recently been made to ensure that native children at the centre of child-protection cases remain on reserves.

This is an exceptional case because the father is white.

Jeff, 45, is an automotive parts worker.

He could not reached for comment yesterday.

He has launched two lawsuits, totalling $1.5 million, against the reserve seeking compensation for his claimed hardship. His case has been profiled in the Globe and Mail and on the CTV Newsnet program The Verdict.

Source: The Record, Kitchener Ontario

Law Protects Killers

May 12, 2007

Using the restrained language of the press, an editorial in the Edmonton Journal says that confidentiality laws let child protectors get away with murder. Children cannot be safe in state custody until confidentiality laws are abolished. A good start is to end confidentiality for dead children.

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Law lets children die nameless

The Edmonton Journal

Friday, May 11, 2007

In a democratic society, individuals are not supposed to die anonymously.

The community's ability to know the names of the dead and how a citizen leaves this world is a fundamental difference between countries such as Canada and authoritarian states where people can simply disappear.

This is especially important when a person dies in the care of the state. That's how a community holds responsible public bodies to account; a fatality inquiry is the crucial vehicle.

But in Alberta, this principle has been compromised in a troubling way.

The province now prohibits publication of the name of any child who dies in foster care under the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act.

This week, for instance, a fatality inquiry began into the case of a 17-year-old who was killed when he jumped out of a social worker's car on the way to the boy's Spruce Grove group home.

The youth, known only as L.S., was made a permanent ward of the state at birth. As a result, he died nameless and will remain nameless in the community.

A sound argument can be made for protecting the identity of minors in care while a child is alive: for instance, to protect a child from teasing at school.

But when someone dies, that justification is no longer valid.

Indeed, refusing to disclose the name could be harmful.

What if others have helpful information about the person, but it does not not come to light because the identity was not made public?

Think of the six deaths which occurred in foster care in 2005-06.

According to the province, the names of these children cannot be disclosed. The Youth and Family Enhancement Act prohibits identifying publicly any child "who has come to the minister's or director's attention under this act or any information serving to identify the guardian of the child."

Although it's not clear why, the province interprets this protection to cover those who have died as well as the living.

The Criminal Code quite rightly protects the identity of victims of sex assault crimes. The name of the four-year-old girl at the centre of a current sex abuse trial cannot be published, for instance.

In that trial, a judge this week agreed to lift the publication ban on the name of the accused, Darcy Don Bannert, the boyfriend of the girl's mother.

Bannert has a different last name from the young victim and her mother, so there is no danger the girl will be identified.

Yet a provincial government lawyer at the court insisted to The Journal that Bannert's identity could not be be disclosed under the provincial act for fear of identifying the child's mother.

The impact of the province's Youth and Family Enhancement Act is far- reaching.

For instance, in a recent murder case, the province interpreted the law as prohibiting the press from asking the question about whether the victim had any involvement with children's services. One media outlet has been prosecuted for doing so.

The intent of the act is to protect young children from the stigma of being in foster care and to afford some privacy to the good-hearted foster parents who take care of them.

But in effect, the law compromises the community's ability to keep these agencies accountable.

We can't find out -- as we did with Richard Cardinal so many years ago -- if a dead child might have been in a series of foster homes.

Surely that's not what was intended.

The Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act is too blunt an instrument. A community must be able to name the dead, tell their stories and be able to get a full accounting of how their public agencies operate.

Source: Edmonton Journal

Addendum: In later articles, we dubbed this the Alberta Kafka case.

Fosters Usurp Mother's Day

May 11, 2007

In anticipation of Mother's Day this Sunday the Globe and Mail salutes women who care for the children of others for pay.

Dufferin VOCA extends the salute to mothers who risk their lives to give birth, provide years of care at no pay and continue to love their children even years after they are taken away and placed in the care of others.

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In praise of 'other mothers'

SIRI AGRELL

From Thursday's Globe and Mail, May 10, 2007 at 1:15 PM EDT

Melanie Filiatrault has 42 children, not counting the three she gave birth to herself.

This Sunday, the 52-year-old Kelowna resident expects to receive Mother's Day calls from about 12 of the boys and girls she has provided foster care to over the past 20 years - kids she considers her own.

"Even that one call from a child shows that you've made a difference in their life," said Ms. Filiatrault, who has a collection of Mother's Day cards and trinkets piled in her attic.

But while the children themselves express gratitude, some of Canada's approximately 35,000 foster families say their efforts go largely unnoticed by the rest of society, not just on the second Sunday in May, but throughout the year.

"If you go into it thinking you're going to get rewarded, you probably won't," Ms. Filiatrault said. "But if you go into it thinking you're going to make a difference in a child's life, it'll be worth it."

Yesterday, a group of Toronto-area foster parents gathered for a special audience with author and actress Victoria Rowell, who told them about the difference foster care made in her life.

Famous for her role as Drucilla Winters on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, Ms. Rowell has written a book, The Women Who Raised Me, chronicling the 18 years she spent in foster care in the United States before becoming a professional ballet dancer and, eventually, a daytime television star.

She wrote the book to pay tribute to those who wouldn't let her fall through the cracks, but also to celebrate all the "other mothers" - foster parents, social workers, mentors, aunts and grandmothers who often play a major role in a child's development.

"What they did was raise a child, collectively," she said. "There are millions of women who have done what these women did for me."

Among the women who raised Ms. Rowell was a 54-year-old housewife who took her in as an infant, but was told she could not keep a child who was half black. Another foster mother taught ballet to the dance-obsessed young Victoria out of a magazine.

Ms. Rowell had saved more than 500 letters from her various foster mothers, all of whom helped her get over the shame of not being raised by her biological parents.

Susan McDevitt, a social worker and executive director of the Federation of Foster Families of Nova Scotia, said she sees the same efforts being put forward by the 650 foster families in her province.

Most people who work with displaced young people, from foster parents to Children's Aid Society officials, are motivated by a love of kids. But, she said, many foster families still struggle with issues of negative public perception, fuelled by occasional news stories about abuse or neglect. While those cases are rare, Ms. McDevitt says it is still common to regard foster parents as service providers, not parents.

"They don't feel they're respected," she said.

There have been efforts to improve attitudes toward foster mothers and other caregivers. In 2002, the card maker American Greetings introduced a line of Mother's Day cards that acknowledged the "other mother" phenomenon of adoptive parents, aunts and role models.

"Because you're like a mother to me, I'm thinking of you," one card reads.

Ms. Filiatrault said she thinks of all her foster children on Mother's Day, no matter where they are now, scattered across the country.

"You always hope they're doing awesome," she said. "I'm just very pleased and honoured to have been their parent for a short period of time."

Source: Globe and Mail

John Dunn points out that not all foster mothers are as angelic as suggested by the Globe and Mail.

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Having grown up in foster care for sixteen years, I have to say that yes, there are good foster parents out there. Yet at the same time, I have had my head flushed down a toilet for a large bowel movement causing flooding, sat upon and pushed head first into a furnace for wetting a bed, watched my brother get his back hurt while being pushed over a couch, been in group homes which were shut down due to abuse and much more.

These and thousands more stories of physical, sexual and emotional abuse are locked away deeply in "serious occurrence reports" located in the archives of the Children's Aid Societies who protect them with a vengeance. Of course we only hear of the major stories once in a while about abuse of kids in care if they are "serious enough" and get leaked somehow with evidence.

These agencies have extremely high priced lawyers (paid by your tax dollars) to threaten media outlets who dare to publish information or allegations by child welfare clients. One huge, well known Canadian, Crown Corporation broadcaster is currently involved in law suits by child welfare departments for reporting information of such a nature.

Those who come out of the system who have been damaged by it, or those in it, are often looked at as trouble makers, and are silenced, ignored and made to feel as if they are doing something wrong by speaking out. I can only ask you to remember such stories as Cornwall and Native Residential Schools and how people who were trusted the most with the care of our children and how they failed us and tried so hard to cover it up.

Just remember one thing. Who has the most resources? The government funded agencies with Billion Dollar budgets or those who have been left familyless and on the street at 18.

Source: email from John Dunn

Rampant Child Abuse

May 10, 2007

This article from The Onion is intended to be a spoof, but sounds a lot like the real claims of child protectors.

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Majority Of Parents Abuse Children, Children Report

April 13, 2007 | Issue 43•15

LOS ANGELES—A chilling national poll of U.S. children ages 3 through 12 estimated that nearly 75 million youngsters suffer both physical and psychological abuse at the hands of their parents on a daily basis.

An abused child awaits her single allotted hour of television per day.

The poll, whose findings are part of a 700-page report released Tuesday by a coalition of child abuse monitoring and prevention organizations, indicts nearly 95 percent of American parents. It documents abuses ranging from less severe offenses, such as children being denied snacks just before dinner, to more egregious, long-term cases of neglect, such as never ever getting what they want, ever.

"My parents always tell me that I have to finish all my math homework or I won't be allowed to watch TV," said study participant and abuse victim "Derek," 10, who told researchers that some of his earliest memories were of this kind of mistreatment. "They're so mean. I hate them."

"I hate them, I hate them, I hate them," he added.

Encouraged to speak freely and confidentially about their home lives, subjects shocked even seasoned child welfare advocates with tales of systematic deprival and gratuitous cruelty. One Illinois boy told of being forced to linger with his mother in fabric stores and later leaving a Toys "R" Us empty-handed, even though the store sold a water gun he really wanted. An Arkansas 9-year-old said he spent all of third grade carrying a boring brown backpack instead of a super-cool Spider-Man one like a friend, whose parents love him, had. And a 6-year-old girl from Wisconsin was forced to sit at a dining room table for nearly two hours until she finished her canned green beans, a food widely considered by poll respondents to be disgusting and suitable only for adults.

"To hear the sadness in these kids' voices when they talk about how they are scared—literally scared—to bring home poor report cards, is heartbreaking," said Dr. Deirdre Fulton, child psychologist and director of the Nationwide Coalition to End Child Abuse, who co-authored the study. "Some of the children we interviewed even wished they were dead so their parents would feel guilty at their funerals."

"No child should ever wish to die," Fulton added.

According to pollsters, most victims were surprisingly open, even eager, to discuss their abuse, although some were less forthcoming about traumatic experiences that involved inappropriate touching.

"It's so embarrassing, and everybody sees it," said 7-year-old "Harry," whose mother hugs and kisses him goodbye in front of the school bus every day. "When it's happening, I close my eyes and wish it would stop, but it just goes on forever."

Other victims recounted similar forms of privacy invasion, such as being asked if they were wearing clean underwear, and being stripped naked and made to bathe, even after clearly stating that they did not need a bath.

Hair is another focus of unseemly pathological fixations, many children allege: Six out of 10 girls interviewed said that their mothers routinely and painfully pull, twist, and tug their hair into "stupid" hairstyles like pigtails, and some boys said that their mothers go so far as to use saliva to paste their hair into place.

According to the report, a shocking 100 percent of children who claimed to have been abused said their parents repeatedly answered "maybe" to a request, and then withheld from them a definitive answer for hours or, in some cases, days.

In addition to those who admitted to being touched inappropriately, 93 percent of children said they have, at one point or another, been subject to various types of physical abuse.

"My parents make me practice the piano for like 20 hours a day," said 8-year-old "Lacy," adding that sometimes she will hide in her closet to avoid rehearsal. "They told me if I hate it so much I can quit when I'm in seventh grade. That's like 40 years from now."

Some children, mostly boys, have even been pressed into brutal physical labor by their fathers, who demand their sons help them in the yard on Saturdays—one of only two days off for children who spend an average of 600 hours a week at school.

"He treats me like a slave," 12-year-old "Michael" said. "It's like it's my fault that my dad decided to buy a house with a lawn. And then when I do help, he says I shouldn't have had a bad attitude about it."

"Mom just sits there and lets the entire thing happen," "Michael" added.

In some of the more disturbing cases of abuse, parents reportedly take a domineering interest in their children's social lives, often threatening severe but undefined punishment for not being home by dark. Some children said their parents attempt to cut them off completely from the outside world, making many websites and television channels inaccessible and never letting them hang out with their friends.

The National Parents Association declined to comment on the overwhelming levels of abuse. When asked why they wouldn't comment, the NPA released a tersely worded statement: "Because we said so."

Source: The Onion

Lost Son

May 8, 2007

Rob Ferguson, who has been active in helping CAS victims fight for their children, and in organizing opposition to children's aid, had a court hearing scheduled for today. The court had the options of returning his son, setting a trial date or awarding crown-wardship. The judge ruled for crown-wardship, making his son available for adoption.

Messages of condolence can be sent to Rob Ferguson at rfergusonca2@hotmail.com.

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summary judgment

May 8, 2007 at 6:13pm

Well it's over the judge award crown wardship. My son is lost. An appeal may be far out of reach for me. They even already have been showing him to others for adoption. I don't know anymore. So many things going through my head. Some good some bad. I love my son and always will. Thanks for all the support guys I need a few days to myself.

Source: Sarnia's Smoking Gun

Addendum: Social workers show their glee at getting another baby bounty.

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posted by: robferguson

sick feeling

Thread Started on Today (May 12, 2007) at 10:21am

Last night I was at a supervised access building visiting my oldest two children. But right away I noticed a new microwave, pots and pans, and lots of toys. Must have been 1000's of dollars spent. I then overheard one worker talking to another on how all departments of Brant CAS got extra funds cause an adoption went through. I was using pots and a microwave and toys paid for by the stealing of my son. I felt so sick, is that want our governments do, fund through adoption? My son is worth more then all the gifts given to you bastards.

Source: Sarnia's Smoking Gun

Fear of CPS Kills Toddler

May 8, 2007

A mother with a sick toddler kept her away from medical care because of a justified fear that her child would be taken away. Every parent now has to weigh the danger when considering whether to seek medical help for a child. Parts of this story may be disturbing to younger viewers, and older ones too.

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Woman Accused of Starving Child to Death Testifies

KFSN By Andres Araiza

05/07/2007 - A Fresno mother took the stand on Monday and tried to explain to a jury why her daughter starved to death. *Warning: parts of this story may be disturbing to younger viewers.

Both Darlene Sanchez and her defense attorney broke down crying when they saw pictures of two and one-half year-old Savina Gonzales. The child weighed only 13 pounds when she starved to death in 2003. Sanchez struggled to explain why and how the child died.

Investigators say Savina Gonzales looked like a skeleton when she was found dead. There was no fat and all her bones could be seen on the little girl's emaciated body. But, investigators say Darlene Sanchez's other kids appeared very healthy.

Defense Attorney Linden Lindahl sobbed when he asked his own client "Why on April 28, 2003, did your little girl look like that and no one else did?"

Sanchez replied, "...'cause I was afraid."

Sanchez testified she would feed the little girl, but Savina was having what she called fits, vomiting spells, and losing weight. She said, "I was afraid of CPS. They would have just taken my kids. I know it, I know I should have taken her to the doctor...It was my bad decision."

Sanchez said she never sought help from her family nor doctors.

In her three hours of testimony, Darlene Sanchez could never fully explain why Savina appeared to have been starved, for what prosecutors believe was several months.

Darlene Sanchez faces a second degree murder charge. If convicted, she could be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberating later this week.

Source: KFSN-TV Fresno California (ABC)

Mother Convicted

May 8, 2007

A Toledo mother has been convicted of poisoning her own son in a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. This legal theory has been discredited in every case in which adequate resources were applied to convince the courts. In the current case, the mother has no resources and has to rely on volunteer help. Those volunteers report that the case for toxic mold is scientifically perfect. The jury never heard that the mother suffered the same symptoms as her sick son. The test that revealed ipecac is non-specific, and can produce a positive result from other causes as well. Courtroom theatrics were used to discredit the defense scientific evidence. Defense counsel may advise the mother to admit to a crime that never happened to avoid eight years in prison.

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Mother found guilty of poisoning her son

Boy sick for months, apparently from drug

Prosecutors say Carrie Weaver, left, used Ipecac, an over-the-counter drug that induces vomiting, to keep her son ill and thereby gain attention for herself. The boy, now 11, has recovered. Weaver was found guilty of child endangering yesterday and is to be sentenced June 8. (THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON)

By ERICA BLAKE, BLADE STAFF WRITER

Nearly two years after her son was taken away from her, Carrie Weaver last night was found guilty of felony child endangering in what Lucas County prosecutors called a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Weaver, 28, of Toledo was surrounded by tearful family members as she left the courtroom, ending the emotional, weeklong trial that focused predominantly on medical testimony.

She faces up to eight years in prison when she is sentenced June 8 by Judge James Jensen. Until then, she is free on bond.

Weaver was indicted in October, 2005, on the child endangering charge, about five months after her son was removed from her care.

Prosecutors accused her of giving her son chronic doses of Ipecac, an over-the-counter product that induces vomiting.

Calling it a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, prosecutors presented evidence that showed Weaver not as the doting mother at her sick son's bedside, but as the person who made her son ill to bring attention to herself.

"We're absolutely pleased. We've been working on this for two whole years," said Lori Olander, an assistant county prosecutor. "Munchausen by proxy cases, those are all very difficult. We had seven different doctors testify that we had Munchausen by proxy."

Throughout the trial, prosecutors interviewed the many doctors who cared for Weaver's son through his illness. The pediatric specialists testified that they were unable to make a diagnosis until the boy was transferred to a hospital in Michigan where a doctor recognized signs of Ipecac poisoning.

The boy, now 11, testified on the first day of the trial that the illnesses that plagued him during 2004-05 have stopped since he was removed from his mother's care.

He recalled the many days spent in hospitals and the times he spent vomiting and having trouble breathing.

Yesterday, Ms. Olander said that the boy, who now lives with his father, is doing well and is healthy.

Defense attorneys showed a different side of Weaver by questioning family and friends about her character and her dedication as a mother.

Attorney Lorin Zaner also presented evidence suggesting that what ailed Weaver's son was not Ipecac but toxic mold in the home where the two lived with Weaver's mother.

Mr. Zaner called a certified mold inspector and a pathology expert to testify that mold was found in the home and that it was the cause of the boy's heart problems.

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about four hours before reaching a verdict just after 9 last night.

Contact Erica Blake at: eblake@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.

Source: Toledo Blade

Press Errors on Child Protection

May 7, 2007

Stories about child protection in the popular press rarely tell the right story. Today we present an article published in the Arizona Daily Star, along with an analysis by Richard Wexler showing that the story completely misses the mark.

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The Arizona Daily Star, Published: 05.03.2007

CPS staff to see pay cuts if goal is unmet

Target is boost in numbers of kids kept in own homes

By Josh Brodesky and Daniel Scarpinato, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Child Protective Services workers could take a cut in pay this year if the agency fails to increase the number of children it keeps in their own homes, instead of removing them.

The requirement is part of the new CPS pay-for-performance program, which docks employees if the agency fails to meet target goals for keeping children with their families and reducing institutional placements.

A "bonus," as state documents call it, equal to 30 cents per hour, is already included in employees' pay. But if the agency doesn't meet its performance goals, the incentive gets taken away.

"You don't gain (a bonus)," said Liz Barker Alvarez, spokeswoman for Child Protective Services. "You just lose."

CPS officials defended the performance measures and incentives, saying the agency has long had the goal of keeping more children with their families because it creates greater continuity and stability.

But in light of two recent cases in Tucson where parents have been charged with killing their children, the measures have raised the hackles of state lawmakers who are concerned that financial incentives might affect decisions about child placement.

"We're tipping the scale with performance pay," said state Rep. Jonathan Paton, a Tucson Republican who is part of legislative hearings to examine the CPS role in the two Tucson cases. "It's kind of like telling a judge we have too many people in the jails right now, and we're going to base your pay on how many people you don't send to jail."

The Legislature authorized the "pay-for-performance program" last year. But it was left to each agency to implement the policy and set its own performance measures.

Child Protective Services is overseen by the state's Department of Economic Security.

In order to keep the bonuses, the department must meet two of the following three goals:

• Promote economic self-sufficiency.
• Safely reduce the number of children in out-of-home care.
• Reduce the number of children and adults placed in institutions by developing the capacity of extended families and communities. The financial incentives also apply to the placement of vulnerable adults.

Achieving those goals is measured by hitting preset targets.

For example, each year the agency must reduce the number of CPS children in out-of-home care — foster homes or institutions — by 200. It also needs to keep 72 percent of CPS children with either foster families or relatives.

"Safely reducing the number of children in out-of-home care has been a goal for this agency for a number of years," Barker Alvarez said.

CPS has had a hard time meeting that goal over the last three years.

Between 2003 and 2006, the number of children in out-of-home care jumped from 7,535 to 9,833, according to the most recent semiannual CPS performance report.

The same report shows that between 2003 and 2006, the number of licensed foster homes increased from 1,892 to 3,256.

Lawmakers say the process of providing financial incentives may have unintended consequences.

A frequent critic of CPS, state Sen. Karen Johnson, a Mesa Republican, called the policy "perverse. … We've absolutely seen that CPS workers are not being paid enough," she said, adding the base salary needs to be increased.

Salaries for entry-level CPS specialists begin at $32,342 and can be as much as $55,802 depending on education levels and experience.

The semiannual report says "the recruitment and retention of skilled case managers" is one of the agency's biggest challenges. "The Department continues to struggle with an inexperienced work force that is unable to deal with the complex issues present in the child welfare system," it says.

State Rep. Phil Lopes, a Tucson Democrat and House minority leader, said the incentives could result in families remaining intact because the caseworkers may benefit.

"It's not clear what the motivation is," Lopes said.

Also difficult to understand, Lopes said, is how much control the caseworker has had over the situation, since other entities, like the courts, are involved in making decisions.

Ken Deibert, deputy director for the Division of Children, Youth and Families, dismissed the idea that financial incentives would cloud the judgment of case managers and investigators.

"For anyone to speculate that a person who works in child welfare and has made a career commitment to safety for children, that they would jeopardize a child's well-being for 30 cents an hour is absurd," he said. "Anyone who would make that kind of conjecture demonstrates a lack of understanding of the professional and personal commitment that it takes to do child-protection work."

Moreover, he said when investigations are completed, they are reviewed by supervisors. There is also a foster-care review board, independent of CPS, which examines substantiated abuse complaints. The agency also does random reviews of cases, he said.

It's unclear if other states use pay-for-performance measures on employees.

"I have not seen a pay-for-performance like this in my experience," Deibert said.

Neither had Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a Virginia-based advocacy group that agrees with the principle of keeping children with their families.

"As far as I know, linking performance in child welfare to individual pay is extremely unusual," he said.

Nevertheless, he said he supports the idea if it reduces reliance on foster care.

Will Johnson, a senior research analyst with the Welfare Policy Research Project in the University of California president's office, also said he hadn't heard of such incentives in his state.

● Contact reporter Josh Brodesky at 807-7789 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com ● Contact reporter Daniel Scarpinato at 307-4339 or dscarpinato@azstarnet.com.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

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May 7, 2007

ARIZONA: STATE OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE

Last week, I was contacted by a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star, the larger of two competing dailies in Tucson. He’d contacted me the week before, acknowledging he was new to the child welfare beat and knew little about the subject. This time he was calling because he’d gotten a tip.

He’d been sent a memo showing that in Arizona, state employees receive 30 cents an hour of their pay as an incentive bonus. They lose that 30 cents if their agencies fail to meet certain goals each year. The state human services agency, which includes child protective services, needs to meet any two of the following three goals:

• Promote economic self sufficiency
• Safely reduce the number of children in out-of-home care (by less than one-third-of-one percent) [emphasis added].
• Reduce the number of children and adults placed in institutions by developing the capacity of extended families and communities.

I told the reporter I certainly understood why this was newsworthy and why he was calling, but I told him it also was a bit frustrating. I explained that child welfare was a system filled with pervasive incentives, financial and otherwise, and almost all of them encouraged everyone in the system to do the wrong thing.

These incentives include:

• Bounties paid to the state by the federal government for every finalized adoption over a baseline number.
• Per diem reimbursements for private agencies, encouraging them to hold children, needlessly, in foster care.
• Avoiding the risk of negative news coverage by taking away huge numbers of children needlessly, since no caseworker ever has been attacked in the press for taking away too many children, whereas such attacks are common if a worker leaves a child in his own home and something goes wrong.
• Avoiding firing, suspension, demotion or any other penalty of any kind by doing the same thing. Though caseworkers often claim they’re “damned if we do and damned if we don’t” that’s simply not true; when it comes to taking away children, they’re only damned if they don’t.

But reporters almost never write about these incentives.

In our previous conversation, I’d told the reporter how Arizona was in a state of perennial foster-care panic. Between 2002 and 2004, removals of children had soared 40 percent - -and, as usual, this had left children less safe. By 2005, deaths of children known-to-the-system had set a record, as workers, overwhelmed with false allegations, trivial cases and children who didn’t belong in foster care, actually had less time to find children in real danger.

And, of course, as a result, thousands of children needlessly were torn from everyone loving and familiar; they were forced to endure the emotional devastation of foster care and they were placed at risk of abuse in foster care; where there probably is abuse in at least one foster home in three.

In most states, after a year or two of foster-care panic, people calm down, look around, say, in effect, “Oh, my God, what have we done to these children?” and change course. But in Arizona, the foster-care panic has never stopped. Children still are being taken at the same rate as when the panic was at its height.

To counter the state of never-ending foster-care panic, the financial incentives to take away children and the non-financial incentives to take away children, the State of Arizona offered one puny counter-incentive: 30 cents an hour, which also could be retained by meeting other goals.

And to top it off: It didn’t work. The incentives didn’t, in fact, reduce removals. There is no evidence that the incentive, which required maintaining safety, compromised that safety. But there is plenty of evidence that foster-care panics, including the one in Arizona, leave children less safe.

But one thing deeply disturbed the reporter: Why, he asked, should there be any incentives at all in child welfare? Why can’t workers exist in a state of noble purity, immune from all base influences and able to make decisions based solely on what was best for the children?

I told him that was a nice idea - but it could work only if the public knew about all of the incentives and if policymakers then were able to eliminate all of them. I pointed out that incentives, good and bad, are a fact of life in every endeavor, including journalism.

Reporters self-censor, avoiding stories they know management hates, and pursue stories that appeal to editors’ interests in order to curry favor. Or they work harder when they know there’s a vacancy in a coveted bureau – or rumors of still another round of layoffs. Or they work a little less hard if it’s the Friday before vacation and they’re anxious to get out of the office - -just as a caseworker may not make the extra phone call to find, say, a relative with whom to place a child if she can just dump that child in a shelter instead.

It’s human nature in journalism, child welfare, or any other line of work.

So what could good leadership in a child welfare agency do about this? They could try to repeal the laws of human nature and eliminate all incentives. Or they could do everything possible to balance the incentives, so workers are encouraged to do what’s best for the children, and discouraged from doing anything else. That’s exactly what Arizona tried, except the attempt at balance was so feeble, so pathetic, that it changed nothing.

But readers of the Arizona Daily Star would learn none of this.

On May 3, they would find, instead, a lead story headlined “CPS staff to see pay cuts if goal is unmet.” They would finish the story left with the impression that there existed one, and only one, incentive in child welfare: The 30-cents-an-hour for goals that include safely keeping families together. CPS did nothing to correct this misimpression (or if they did, the reporter omitted it) saying only that the incentive would not prompt workers to compromise safety. (Going only to CPS - an agency nobody ever believes, often for good reason - is the standard way reporters with an axe to grind give the illusion of presenting all sides, without the substance.)

Readers probably weren’t alone in being left in the dark by the Star story. Editors read what a reporter turns in, not what he leaves out. So I don’t know if the reporter’s own editors know about all the other incentives. At least one editor from another part of the paper had no idea there were any financial incentives other than the one in the story (and when I explained this, didn’t much care).

It does not appear that the reporter explained this to people he contacted for quotes, either. So it is no wonder the story was filled with comments like this one from a legislator: “We’re tipping the scales with performance pay,” he said. In fact, the incentive did not tip the scales at all; rather it was a puny, pathetic, failed effort to bring them back into balance.

And soon, even that will be gone. You can bet that within a week a memo will go out rescinding the incentive either in fact or by implication. And, of course, the story itself will give one more kick-start to the never-ending Arizona Foster Care Panic.

When I e-mailed the reporter to complain about the omission of all mention of other incentives, I discovered that in just a few days, his question about “why are there incentives at all?” had morphed into a decree; a dictat from which no dissent shall be permitted. He wrote:

You seem to miss the point. It is not that keeping kids with the family is good or bad. It is not that putting them in foster care is good or bad. It is, rather, the issue of linking employee bonuses to outcomes. Those decisions should be made based strictly on the best interest of the children involved. Financial motivations, or even the perception someone could be swayed by financial motivations, are inappropriate.

There are several problems with this.

For starters, while such a comment is appropriate coming from a columnist or an editorial writer, such pronouncements have no place coming from a reporter. Whether financial incentives are or are not appropriate is something for readers to decide - after being given enough information to make an informed decision.

Second, the story deals with only one kind of incentive - and since that incentive deals with only one kind of outcome, keeping kids with the family, the story does indeed deal with the issue of whether “keeping kids with the family is good or bad.” Only a story which dealt with incentives in both directions could be genuinely neutral on this point.

And third, by pressuring CPS to abolish an incentive in one direction while leaving all the others intact, the story does the opposite of the reporter’s own alleged goal. Arizona’s vulnerable children are a large step farther away from a system that makes decisions purely on the basis of best interests than they were five days ago, because the scales are now father out of balance. And that means, these children are less safe. (Of course, if the reporter’s real goal was to encourage more foster care, then his goal was accomplished; and I’ll leave for another day the whole issue of defining best interests and what happens when the best interests of the child conflict with the best interests of children.)

As it happens, on the very day the Star story appeared, the need for balance in incentives was illustrated, albeit indirectly, in a story in Tucson’s other daily, the Tucson Citizen.

It reported on the trial of a foster mother charged in connection with the death of her foster child, Dwight Hill. Dwight died in November, 2005, within weeks of the death of another Tucson area foster child, Emily Mays. These cases got far less attention than the recent deaths of children in the same community at the hands of birth parents. (Nothing new, there.)

Dwight was born with cocaine in his system. He was confiscated at birth and parked at the local parking place shelter. Then he was placed in a foster home recruited and overseen by a private agency. They also were caring for three other foster children, including two toddlers, and a birth son with medical problems. The foster father listed his occupation as unemployed, the foster mother listed hers as “foster mother” – raising a question about financial incentives a lot bigger than 30 cents an hour.

Eleven days later Dwight Hill was dead. According to the Citizen: “A Pima County coroner's autopsy report indicated the baby died of blunt-force trauma, bleeding in the brain and a fractured skull.” The prosecutor said he died "in a way no person should have to endure."

The foster mother says she has no idea how Dwight died and was not negligent in getting him medical attention. That, a jury will decide.

But here’s what we do know:

There was every incentive for the caseworker to confiscate Dwight at birth - and no incentive for her to, say, fight extra hard to find a drug treatment program where mother and child could live together, which research shows is far better for a child’s well-being than even a good foster home. There was every incentive to just dump Dwight at the shelter – nothing could be easier, and no one would ever question it - and no incentive to work extra hard to find a relative, if Dwight really couldn’t stay with his mother. There was every incentive for the private agency, paid for every day Dwight was held in foster care, to push to keep him there as long as possible. There was every incentive for that private agency to stuff as many foster children into that home as the law allowed. And there was no incentive for anyone to ask if four very young foster children and a disabled birth child were too much for the foster mother.

This all happened before the state tried to balance the scales with that tiny incentive to think more carefully and work a little harder to keep children like Dwight and Emily out of foster care.

So by the logic of the reporter who wrote the Star story, the decisions to remove Dwight Hill from his own home and place him first in a shelter and then in the foster home where he died were perfect in their purity, utterly untainted by filthy lucre, and so, must have been made solely based on Dwight Hill’s best interests. The same must have been true with the decisions in the case of Emily Mays.

One thing puzzles me, though.

How was it in the best interests of Dwight Hill and Emily Mays to die?

Source: Richard Wexler's blog

Parentectomy for Sick Toddler

May 1, 2007

A sick child is treated by the medical/child protection systems by cutting him off from mom and dad. This is not the most common kind of protection case, but there have been many others. The story below is an edited version of the mother's own story posted to the internet.

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I need advice

May 1, 2007 at 9:54pm

My 23-month-old son was apprehended from me and my husband May 5, 2006 and still remains in CAS. I have two other children who remain in our care. At the time he was apprehended he had problems one being that he had a feeding adversion and wouldn't drink and two he eventually was diagnosed with acid reflux. All these problems started at the age of two months where he found it painful to eat and wouldn't drink. He then had a feeding tube inserted in his nose and underwent several tests to see why he just wouldn't eat.

He was apprehended because CAS says me and my husband didn't pay enough attention to him and that he was malnutritioned. He has had problems since two months old and we have taken him to the hospital several times to get him help but all those times it was just put against us from CAS in court saying we didn't provide the best care for him. He remains in care and since being in care he has been in the hospital over 20 times if not a lot more for the same reasons as in our care: vomiting, coughing, gagging when on tube feeds, fevers, dehydrations, not eating, etc. He then was transferred to Ottawa's cheo sick kids hospital where they did some of their own tests and found something wrong with him. They found out that the upper sphincters in my son's stomach weren't opening and closing like they should and everything he was eating or drinking was coming right back up. So they had to go in and operate, where they wrapped some of the stomach around the esophagus to put pressure on the sphincters, plus inserted a Gtube in his tummy. He recently was vomiting again from the surgery they did, said it would prevent vomiting. He was admitted back in the hospital in the place I live and was there for a week for vomiting, gagging, and drainage around the site of his tube. He is also back on acid block medication and is out of hospital and so far is doing good.

I am currently fighting CAS and hoping something gives. I have other kids with us that are fine and healthy.

Source: Sarnis's Smoking Gun

Less Help for Families

May 1, 2007

Families unable to hire a lawyer have been able to use the services of lower-priced paralegals in child protection cases, not to make sophisticated legal arguments, but to fill out basic forms and affidavits giving them an opportunity to present their case to the judge.

No more. The ironically named "Access to Justice Act" prevents paralegals from working in family law cases. Now families lacking the funds to hire a lawyer (most of them) will have to use no representation at all, or go with legal aid, which experience shows is often worse.

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Peterborough Examiner

Paralegals now required to have licence to do auto insurance, immigration cases

By SARAH DEETH

Monday, April 30, 2007 - 00:00

Local News - New legislation that will regulate paralegals through the Law Society of Upper Canada is creating controversy among paralegals.

Don Menzies, a director for the Paralegal Society of Ontario, said the province's legislation is the first of its kind in North America.

It comes into effect Tuesday.

"We're not opposed to regulation but we would rather see the law society regulate lawyers and the paralegal society regulate paralegals," he said, adding that paralegals have always been in favour of self regulation.

The title of the legislation, Access to Justice, is almost an oxymoron, he said.

"They call it 'Access to Justice' but it will deny a lot of people justice," he said.

The Law Society has laid out rules dictating where paralegals can and can't work, Menzies said.

Paralegals can work in Provincial Offences court and in any legislation created by the province, such as disability and pension issues.

Paralegals can also work in auto insurance and immigration, Menzies said, but those areas will require a special licence.

"It's what we're not allowed to do that's creating contention," Menzies said. "We cannot do family law and we cannot do wills and estates."

There has always been a lot of work for paralegals in those areas, he said.

"A lot of people are going to be out of business effective (Tuesday)," Menzies said.

"Paralegals generally represent people who can't afford lawyers. People will fall through the cracks because they can't afford a lawyer."

The Paralegal Society is trying to keep its members up-to-date on the situation, Menzies said, and his e-mail has been flooded with people asking questions.

In addition to turning paralegals away from some areas of law the legislation is going to increase business costs, he said.

Paralegals will have to pay a fee in order to apply to the Law Society of Upper Canada, Menzies said, and will have to pay the cost of an exam scheduled for later this year.

Paralegals will also be required to have a minimum $1 million insurance policy, he said.

"A lot of paralegals don't have insurance," he said.

Paralegals who have practiced in a certain area for more than three years will be able to side-step some of the process by being "grandfathered" in, Menzies said.

This involves proving that you've worked in that area for three years, he said, and the deadline for that process is in November.

It's going to be hard for anyone hoping to start a career as a paralegal, he said, especially someone who's not sure where their career path will take them.

"We're in favour of regulation but it's a question of who's regulating," he said.

(Online at 8 p.m. Monday.)

Source: Peterborough Examiner

Brantford Rally for Norris

May 1, 2007

The Norris family is a perfect example of the most common children's aid intervention, a family headed by a single mother. It does not involve any of the common problems in such families, such as alcohol or drug abuse, or (before the intervention) poverty. It is the perfect case for a demonstration, and a rally is planned for Monday June 18.

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Rally in Brantford

posted by: casinternment
date: Tue May 01, 2007 2:15 am

We are having a rally in Brantford on June 18th, at the CAS offices. They are just across the road from City Hall, I was thinking about a protest walk to the City Hall. Let’s let them know we need this system changed for our children, our families and for our future.

Contact: Cathy casinternment@msn.com

Source: Canada Court Watch forum

Brant CAS is at 70 Chatham Street, Brantford. City Hall is two blocks south, at 100 Wellington Street.

Addendum: More plans made May 10:

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This is the itinerary for the rally Monday June 18.

Everyone should meet at Tim Horton's on Colborne St in Brantford at 8:30am. We will proceed to the CAS offices at 70 Chatam St at 9:00am. From there we will walk to the City Hall and then to the MP's office.

We will be organizing a lunch BBQ at Mowhawk Park at 12:00pm.

For those looking for directions, a map and or a ride, please email me at gammy@inbox.com

If you can take anyone with you, email me and I will try and coordinate the rides.

Please feel free to copy and paste this information on any boards you feel would be interested.

Richmond Smith R.I.P.

April 30, 2007

Ronald E Smith is an organizer of a family rights demonstration planned for Washington DC this August 18.

His son Richmond was forced to take Ritalin, a drug which has been associated with cancer. On April 27 Richmond died of cancer at age 20. There will be a funeral at the Carter Funeral Home in Chicago on May 4.

The father's message:

At 8:33pm on April 27th my son Richmond Elihu Smith passed. He made a peaceful transition and has added fervor to my fight to put an end to the senseless medication of our children and parental alienation. I thank you all for your prayers and it is now time to stop asking for our rights as parents to be recognized and begin demanding that our God given fundamental rights as parents to be recognized at all cost. His death will not be in vain.

Minister Ronald E. Smith, CEO
Children Need Both Parents, Inc.
www.cnbpinc.org

Addendum: Here is the preliminary title for the rally led by Minister Ronald Smith:

IS TODAY THE LAST DAY YOU WILL EVER SEE YOUR CHILDREN?

RALLY IN WASHINGTON, DC AUGUST 18 TO ENSURE THE ANSWER IS NO!

Watch a small part of a speech by Ronald Smith on YouTube. Families finally have a leader with real charisma.

Tayler Gets Better

April 27, 2007

The maltreatment of Tayer Diamond by doctors at McMaster has been remedied by transfer of the girl to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. The CAS is no longer menacing the family. Earlier stories January 6, January 2 and October 11, 2006.

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Tayler 'happy' her chemo scaled back

By Susan Gamble, expositor staff - Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 01:00

The young girl who was forced by the Children’s Aid Society to take chemotherapy treatment now has a new set of doctors and treatment regimen in Toronto.

Tayler Diamond, 9, is still undergoing chemotherapy, but at lighter doses which make her mother more comfortable.

The girl was at the centre of a controversy last year when her mother, Lisa Diamond, ended Tayler’s chemo treatments at McMaster hospital, opting to pursue alternative treatments while Tayler’s acute lymphoblastic leukemia was in remission.

The girl had about a year of chemo, which left her burned and blistered and — at one point — she went into septic shock when the medical procedures almost killed her.

When Tayler was removed from the treatments, doctors at McMaster insisted that another year of treatments was needed in order to ensure the leukemia didn’t return. The doctors threatened to call the Children’s Aid Society and then did so.

Tayler was ordered back into treatment despite studies turned up by her mother showing many pediatric cancer patients die of secondary illnesses, often caused by the chemotherapy.

The local CAS used a judge-issued protection order under the Child and Family Service Act that allows the organization to step in if it feels a child needs medical treatment.

While the girl tolerated the next few months of chemo relatively well, Diamond said doctors continued to yell at her for her views, often in front of her daughter.

“I finally demanded a transfer to Toronto,” Diamond said this week.

At an assessment at Sick Kids Hospital, doctors opted for a break from the chemo because Tayler’s condition was too fragile. She had been susceptible to infections for several months and her mother said Tayler’s mouth was full of large canker sores that made it difficult for her to eat.

“Now she’s slowly gaining weight back,” Diamond said. “Toronto also knocked the level of her chemo down by two notches.”

She is delighted with the different attitude she’s found at Sick Kids although she still insists that if it were up to her alone, she’d opt out of the chemo.

The best news Diamond has had in a while is the closure of Tayler’s file by the Children’s Aid Society. The file was closed within about a month of Tayler’s transfer to Sick Kids.

“I’m more comfortable now because Sick Kids seems so committed to double and triple checking everything. They involve me in the process and show us exactly what she’s being given.”

Today, Tayler is less anxious about the chemo protocol and the setting.

She and her mother have to rise at 4 a.m. each week on chemo morning and are on the road at 5:30 a.m. but Diamond said the extra effort is worthwhile.

“She’s happy. She thinks Sick Kids is like a mall where you can shop. You do what’s in her best interests.”

Diamond said Tayler continues to look forward to her alternative treatments of reflexology and reiki (a Japanese holistic touch technique) and continues to take nutritional supplements.

Source: Brantford Expositor
thanks to a VOCA reader for an alert

Runaways

April 26, 2007

Two more girls, who seem to prefer life with their families to CAS care, are wanted by Sudbury Children's Aid.

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Northern Life

Two children missing in Sudbury area

Date Published | Apr. 26, 2007

The Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Sudbury and Manitoulin is requesting the public's assistance in locating two female children.

1) Sara Linklater is an 11-year-old First Nation youth. She is approximately 5'3” and wighs approximately 137 lbs. She has straight, shoulder length black hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. She has a scar on her left pinky toe.

Linklater is believed to be in downtown Sudbury and may be with her sister.

2) Allanah Michelle Harvey is15 years old. She has been seen only on two occasions since December 16, 2006. The last time Alanah was seen was February 28, 2007.

Harvey is 4'9” and weighs 100 lbs. She has blue eyes, shoulder length coloured blonde/brown hair and a light complexion.

If you have any information with regards to the whereabouts of this child, please contact your local police department or Children's Services at (705) 521-7375.

Source: Northern Life

Addendum: From the same source: Published: Apr. 27, 2007. Sara Linklater has been found but assistance is still required with locating Allanah Harvey.

Cole Norris in CAS Custody

April 26, 2007

Cole Norris is back in CAS custody. This time it is in a Brantford foster home, and he is not subject to the harsh conditions of the Kingston Gulag. The family agreed to this as the only way to get Cole prepared for high school next year. The family financial decline continues. Cathy can no longer make long-distance phone calls. She expects all phone and internet service to end soon.

Junk Science Research

April 26, 2007

The following post from a survey participant shows how CAS gets its research results favoring more services. The formal name for this technique is advocacy research.

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posted by Barb, Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:45 am

warning CAS conducting new study

I was contacted by the CAS and asked if I would like to participate in a study by McMaster University and answer questions of the 'services' provided by the CAS. So I jumped at the chance to tell how they can improve and how much they actually damaged our life. I thought I could contribute to a good study that could make changes.

Boy am I brain damaged. I would think that by now I would know how they would run their studies. This of course is being paid by the CAS.

The questions were such: How much money do I have? Am I able to provide food clothing needs? Do I work? Do I get any enjoyment in life? How is my mood now? Any problems feeling happy lately?

OK. I am in poverty now BECAUSE of the CAS. No room for that answer. True or false?

No I don't work because I have to spend all my time getting ready for court and making affidavits. No room for that answer either. I worked BEFORE CAS intervention.

Am I sad, overwhelmed, feeling helpless? YES, BECAUSE OF CAS intervention. Nope no room for that answer.

There were no questions as to how I like the services from the CAS. There were no questions of how it has affected me. Nope. This questionnaire kept stating that I have received services from the CAS and by participating I could receive more services. I have never received services. If they service me anymore I will be homeless.

I see from this questionnaire that in three years when this is done that the CAS will state that all the families they HELP are stressed, overwhelmed, depressed and impoverished. They will use this to give more 'services.'

Source: Canada Court Watch forum

Dunn Follows Up

April 25, 2007

The tenacious John Dunn continues his efforts to get the membership list of his local children's aid society. Following the refusal of CAS to provide the list in conformance with the law, he has followed up with a complaint to the Ministry of Government Services. Whatever the outcome, he has already demonstrated the futility of efforts to reform children's aid from within.

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John Dunn
12-1160 Meadowlands Drive East
Ottawa, ON
K2E 6J2
Phone: 613-228-2178

Ministry of Government Services
Companies and Personal Property Securities Branch
Compliance Section
200-393 University Avenue
Toronto, ON, M5G 2M2

Date: March 25, 2007

RE:
Ontario Corporation No. 37637
Incorporation Date: 1933-05-27
The Children's Aid Society of Ottawa
La Societe de L'aide a L'enfance d'Ottawa
1602 Telesat Court
Ottawa, ON
K1B 1B1

Non-Compliance Report:
I am filing a non-compliance report with the Ministry of Government Services, Companies and Personal Property Securities Branch, Compliance Section regarding Ontario Corporation Number 37637, c.o.b. as The Children's Aid Society of Ottawa / La Societe de L'aide a L'enfance d'Ottawa, a non-share capital corporation registered with the Province under the Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.38, as amended (herein referred to as the Act) and its Board of Directors who together as both a corporate body and as directing minds of the corporation, committed the Offence of contravening section 307 (5) of the Corporations Act by respectively, not furnishing a list of the members of the corporation and by allowing, permitting, or acquiescing to such Offence.

Background:
On February, 05, 2007, John Dunn, a citizen of Ontario, filed in-person with Ontario Corporation Number 37637 a request for a list of the members of the corporation in accordance with section 307 (1) of the Act including the required sworn affidavit and a reasonable fee of $20.00.

The corporation retained the services of a Lawyer, Robert C. Morrow, of Burke-Robertson Barristers & Solicitors who wrote a letter to John Dunn, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the corporation, stating that they were not going to provide a list of the members of the corporation, which according to section 307 (5) of the Act is an Offence and returned the original request package without retaining a copy for their own records.

The letter included opinions of the Board members and false presumptions that John Dunn would not use the list or the information contained therein for purposes connected with the corporation, contrary to his sworn affidavit, and asserted that to furnish the list of members would be in violation of provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

These presumptions and assertions are not valid since the sworn affidavit ensures that the requesting party only uses the list and the information contained therein for purposes connected with the corporation, and since the PIPEDA only applies to a Federal Work, Undertaking or Business, and not to a non-share capital corporation which is exclusively legislated by a Legislature of a province according to ss. 2(1)(i) & (j) of PEPEDA, which in this matter, the corporation clearly is.

John Dunn made several attempts with the Society through letters and emails to resolve the matter, and even went to far as to try and contact the Board of Directors so that he could file the request with them personally but the Society refused to accept deliveries for the Board members.

Instead, John Dunn had to find the contact information of the Vice President and the Treasurer on his own via extensive Internet research so that he could file the request with the Board members personally.

Rick O'Connor, the Vice President of the corporation, and a Lawyer, (City Solicitor for the Cit of Ottawa) told John Dunn to cease and desist from communicating with him at his place of employment, even though he had previously been informed by John Dunn that the corporation was not accepting deliveries for Board members at their offices.

All attempts to communicate with the corporation have been ignored and no action has been taken by the corporation on this matter. This all appears to be in bad faith and it is a strict liability matter, which accordingly only gives them the defences of Due Diligence and Mistake of Fact. Neither of which can be used in this case since they did not do anything to attempt to comply with the request, nor were they reasonably mistaken as to their duty to furnish the list within ten days from the date of the filing of the request with the corporation.

Action Request:
I would like to ask the Compliance Section of the Ministry to please inform me of what steps will be taken to ensure the corporation complies with their obligation to furnish a list of the members of the corporation in accordance with section 307 (1) of the Act.

Sincerely,

John Dunn

---

Relevant Legislation Below: ss. 307 (1) & (5), Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C. 38, as amended.

Where list of shareholders to be furnished

307.(1) Any person, upon payment of a reasonable charge therefor and upon filing with the corporation or its agent the affidavit referred to in subsection (2), may require a corporation, other than a private company, or its transfer agent to furnish within ten days from the filing of such affidavit a list setting out the names alphabetically arranged of all persons who are shareholders or members of the corporation, the number of shares owned by each such person and the address of each such person as shown on the books of the corporation made up to a date not more than ten days prior to the date of filing the affidavit.

Offence

307.(5)Every corporation or transfer agent that fails to furnish a list in accordance with subsection (1) when so required is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $1,000, and every director or officer of such corporation or transfer agent who authorized, permitted or acquiesced in such offence is also guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a like fine.

Car Seat Clinic

April 25, 2007

More kids die in traffic accidents than from child abuse. Car seats sound like a remedy but are useless in practice since they are rarely installed properly. We reported last year on a tragedy that struck the family of professional child protectors.

A clinic to correctly install car seats could be a big help. But who would be the best person to fix your car seat? A mechanic with wrenches, or a cop with handcuffs? Gullible parents are invited to participate in a car seat clinic hosted by the Dufferin OPP on Friday. Bring along you child, so the cops can send him directly to foster care without going to your home to pick him up.

A clinic of this kind might work if hosted by Canadian Tire or Walmart.

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Orangeville Banner

Dufferin OPP host car seat clinic, Friday

Helping parents to keep their young children safe, Dufferin OPP is hosting a free child seat clinic Friday afternoon. Officers will take a look at how the seats are installed and make any corrections.

According to field statistics, nine out of 10 child seats are used improperly, a press release states. When used properly, the seats reduce the risk of injury by 70 per cent and the risk of death by 90 per cent.

To book an appointment, call Dufferin OPP at 519-925-3838. Participants are asked to bring their vehicle manual, car seat manual and, if possible, their child.

Source: Orangeville Banner

Ombudsman Still Needed

April 25, 2007

Ontario's ombudsman André Marin reminds us that a child advocate is no substitute for the ombudsman. Read the press release below or André Marin's submission to the standing committee(pdf)

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PRESS RELEASE

APRIL 24, 2007 - 15:49 ET

Child Advocate is no Substitute for Ombudsman

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - April 24, 2007) -

ATTENTION NEWS EDITORS:

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin today praised the province's proposed new Child Advocate legislation but cautioned that it will still leave a dangerous gap in the system that is supposed to protect vulnerable children.

Bill 165, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Act, takes only "baby steps" toward an effective system of child protection, Mr. Marin says in his submission to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, which is holding hearings on the bill this week. The Advocate may speak for children but, unlike an ombudsman, will have no investigative powers: "An advocate is as much an ombudsman as an apple is an orange."

Yet Ontario's Ombudsman is unable to investigate the hundreds of complaints to his office about children's aid societies each year (more than 600 in 2006-07), because they remain outside of his jurisdiction. Cases that should be investigated are effectively thrown away, Mr. Marin says: "Despite all the government rhetoric that 'children are our future,' we in Ontario are choosing to rid ourselves of hundreds of these serious allegations every year by taking a trip to the dumpster and looking the other way." Ontario is the only province in Canada where children's aid societies escape such scrutiny, he notes. "However you slice, chop or spin it, there is no contest as to which province finishes dead last in investigating children's complaints. Ontario does."

Mr. Marin's submission calls on the government to act, in addition to establishing the Provincial Advocate, to amend the Ombudsman Act to include jurisdiction over children's aid societies. Unlike the provincial coroner and other bodies, the Ombudsman can investigate complaints by parents and children "before tragedy strikes," he points out.

Mr. Marin has advocated for the Ombudsman's mandate to be modernized to allow for oversight of such bodies as children's aid societies since his appointment in April 2005 - following a quest begun by Ontario's first Ombudsman, Arthur Maloney, in 1975.

Aussi disponible en francais

Read the full submission under What's New at www.ombudsman.on.ca

CONTACT INFORMATION

For more information or to arrange interviews with the Ombudsman contact:
Linda Williamson, Communications and Media Relations Manager
(416) 586-3426
Email: lwilliamson@ombudsman.on.ca
Website: www.ombudsman.on.ca

Source: press release

Addendum: Even the Toronto Star has printed an article advocating ombudsman oversight for children's aid.

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Deaths spur dad to action

Daughters died after children's aid society downplayed pleas; now father backs ombudsman in bid for powers to investigate

April 25, 2007, Moira Welsh, Staff Reporter

Every time he sees a child on a swing, Leo Campione thinks of his dead little girls.

Every minute of every day, there is something that reminds him of 3-year-old Serena and 1-year-old Sophia, tousle-haired and grinning.

They were found drowned in their mother's Barrie apartment in October 2006.

Despite numerous red flags and several occasions where the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society removed the children from her care, social workers downplayed his pleas for intervention until it was too late.

"If I am in a mall and there are other children running and I hear a baby call out `Daddy,' it is just a torment to my heart," Campione said yesterday. "It is indescribable. This happened to me. I am going to do everything possible to make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else."

To that end, Campione, 35, who works with the Universal Workers Union, Local 183, is now publicly supporting the efforts of Ontario ombudsman André Marin, who wants the government to give him the power to investigate the province's 53 children's aid societies.

"I have already lost all that is most precious and valuable to me. I really don't have anything to gain, except that their deaths were not in vain," Campione said.

"My greatest resolve now is that this does not happen to any other children. It is what gives me the strength to keep going."

Marin has sent a written submission to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy at Queen's Park asking for investigative powers for the ombudsman's office. The committee is holding hearings this week on Bill 165, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Act, which will give greater independence to Ontario's child advocate, Judy Finlay.

But Marin says that an advocate cannot investigate the way an ombudsman can – a power to scrutinize that he says is enshrined in all other provinces.

"The system is virtually entirely funded by the government to a tune of $1.4 billion a year," Marin said. "But it is a system without checks and balances, where people who have issues about the children's aid have no place to turn unless there is a dead body, in which case the coroner can get involved."

The Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies says there's no need for Marin's oversight. Spokesperson Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern said the agencies are subject to numerous accountability reviews. The Child and Family Services Review Board, created last year, already hears complaints from families, he said.

But Marin, who said his office received over 600 complaints on the societies last year, contends the board does not have strong investigative powers.

Campione lost custody of his daughters after his estranged wife, Frances, accused him of assaulting her and their eldest daughter, Serena.

He was allowed supervised access to his daughters from the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society, and records showed that social workers gave him positive reviews – an issue that angered his wife, who railed against his access.

In January, a judge stayed the assault charges against Campione because the Crown's chief witness against him was his wife. She now faces a trial, after being charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

After their deaths, a family court file was made public. It detailed years of family troubles. It contained a sworn statement from her father-in-law, saying she appeared at their home unexpectedly, behaving in an erratic manner, asking that they care for the girls because someone wanted to kill her.

There were numerous warnings that her mental health was deteriorating. She was hospitalized for her mental instability, losing care of her children each time, although they were always returned.

Despite this, and repeated warnings from Campione that the girls were in danger, the social workers said that the mother was best suited to provide their care.

"It was extremely frustrating," he said.

"I felt like my hands were tied at all times. I felt the children's aid society was an organization that ran independently, that their actions or inactions or whatever decision they made, was unilateral.

"I just felt like David and Goliath."

The Simcoe children's aid society said last fall it was going to conduct an internal review of the decisions leading up to Serena and Sophia's deaths.

So far, says Campione, those investigators have yet to call him.

Source: Toronto Star

Virginia Tech Massacre

April 24, 2007

Following the 33 deaths in the Virginia Tech massacre of April 16, many interested parties have seized the opportunity to advocate for their pet reform. More restrictive immigration. Better gun control. Fewer gun controls (so victims could shoot back). Control violent video games. More (involuntary) mental health services.

In all the high school shootings of the past decade, we have noticed one of the following factors (sometimes both) in just about every case:

• The shooter was separated from his father by force of arms
• The shooter was on psychotropic drugs

So far there is no indication killer Cho Seung-Hui was separated from his father but he was on psychiatric drugs. The exact drug is unknown since his medical records are being suppressed on grounds of confidentiality.

Psychotropic drugs suppress the generation of chemicals in the brain, usually neuro-transmitters. The brain compensates by becoming more sensitive to what little of the chemical is still being produced. Withdrawal from the drug results in restoring production of the neuro-transmitter to normal levels in a brain made hyper-sensitive to it. This produces the behavior oppositite to that intended for the drug.

A multi-media package Cho mailed to NBC news during a break in his killing spree shows a severely disturbed man, not really coherent or rational. This from a man who must have been in the intellectual upper crust to gain admission to the school. Reporters noted the similarity to the rants of the Columbine killers, also on psychotropic medication.

The mainstream press has not dealt with the drug connection to the massacre. The article below is from the internet press, WorldNetDaily.

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Monday, April 23, 2007

VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE

Are meds to blame for Cho's rampage?

Experts say psychiatric drugs linked to long list of school shooting sprees

By Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com

Cho Seung-Hui

Cho Seung-Hui's murderous rampage – during which he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech – is prompting research into gun laws, resident aliens and graphically violent writings. Investigators also may want to check his medicine cabinet, because psychiatric drugs have been linked to hundreds of violent episodes, including most of the school shootings in the last two decades.

The New York Times has reported the killer was on a prescription medication, and authorities have said he was confined briefly several years ago for a mental episode. They also have confirmed that the "prescription drugs" found among his effects related to the treatment of psychological problems.

Dr. Peter Breggin, a prominent critic of psychiatric drugs and founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, said even if Cho wasn't taking psychiatric drugs the day of the shooting, "he might have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft."

While media reports have focused on guns and gun laws, Cho's violent writings and autistic behavior at Virginia Tech and the delay in notifying students and faculty of the beginnings of the shootings, there are those who say the focus should be on his medical history.

"In my book 'Reclaiming Our Children,' I analyzed the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox and I've also testified to the same under oath in depositions in a case related to Columbine," Breggin wrote, referring to the 1999 tragedy when Harris and classmate Dylan Klebold shot and bombed students at the Colorado school until a dozen were dead.

"In my book "The Antidepressant Fact Book," I also warned that stopping antidepressants can be as dangerous as starting them, since they can cause very disturbing and painful withdrawal reactions," he added.

The TeenScreenTruth website, dealing with the campaign to "screen" children for "problems" and then prescribe drugs, has documented an extended list of violent episodes believed connected to the use of psychiatric drugs.

They range as far back as 1985, when Atlanta postal worker Steven W. Brownlee, who had been getting psychotropic drugs, pulled a gun and shot and killed a supervisor and a clerk.

Among the specifically school-related attacks the site documents are:

• In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann, who had been taking Anafranil and Lithium, walked into a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., and began shooting. One child was killed and six wounded.
• Later that same year, 19-year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at the Greenwood, S.C., Elementary School and killed two 8-year-old girls and wounded seven others. He'd been on Xanax, Valium and five other drugs.
• Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old of Springfield, Ore., in 1998 murdered his parents and proceeded to his high school where he went on a rampage killing two students and wounding 22 others. Kinkel had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
• Patrick Purdy, 25, in 1989 opened fire on a school yard filled with children in Stockton, Calif. Five kids were killed and 30 wounded. He been treated with Thorazine and Amitriptyline.
• Steve Lieth of Chelsea, Mich., in 1993 walked into a school meeting and shot and killed the school superintendent, wounding two others, while on Prozac.
• 10-year-old Tommy Becton in 1996 grabbed his 3-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy who accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. He'd been put on Prozac.
• Michael Carneal, 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in Heath High in West Paducah, Ky. Three died and one was paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.
• In 1998, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson apparently faked a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., and shot at students as they left the building. Four students and a teacher were killed. The boys were believed to be on Ritalin.
• In 1999, Shawn Cooper, 15, of Notus, Idaho, took a shotgun to school and injured one student. He had been taking Ritalin.
• April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 24 others. Harris had been taking Luvox.
• Todd Smith walked into as high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada in 1999 with a shotgun and killed one and injured a second student. He has been given a drug after a five-minute phone consultation with a psychiatrist.
• Steven Abrams drove his car into a preschool playground in 1999 in Costa Mesa., Calif., killing two. He was on probation with a requirement to take Lithium.
• In 2000, T.J. Solomon, 15, opened fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., while on a mix of antidepressants. Six were wounded.
• The same year Seth Trickey of Gibson, Okla., 13, was on a variety of prescriptions when he opened fire on his middle-school class, injuring five.
• Elizabeth Bush, 14, was on Prozac. She shot and wounded another student at Bishop Neumann High in Williamsport, Pa.
• Jason Hoffman, 18, in 2001 was on Effexor and Celexa, both antidepressants, when he wounded two teachers at California's Granite Hills High School.
• In Wahluke, Wash., Cory Baadsgaard, 16, took a rifle to his high schooland held 23 classmates hostage in 2001. He has been taking Paxil and Effexor.
• In Tokyo in 2001, Mamoru Takuma, 37, went into a second-grade classroom and started stabbing students. He killed eight. He had taken 10 times his normal dosage of an antidepressant.
• Duane Morrison, 53, shot and killed a girl at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado in 2006. Antidepressants later were found in his vehicle.
• In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

Another case involving a school-age youth – although not at a school – happened in 1986, when 14-year-old Rod Mathews of Canton, Mass., beat a classmate to death with a baseball bat while on Ritalin.

And just a few among the dozens of incidents cited, but not apparently related to schools:

• William Cruse in 1987 was charged with killing six people in Palm Bay, Fla., after taking psychiatric drugs for "several years."
• The same year, Bartley James Dobben killed his two young sons by throwing them into a 1,300-degree foundry ladle. He been on a "regimen" of psychiatric drugs.
• Joseph T. WesBecker, 47, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.
• In 1991, 61-year-old Barbara Mortenson, on Prozac for two weeks, "cannibalized her 87-year-old mother …"
• In 1992, Lynnwood Drake III, shot and killed six in San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay. Prozac and Valium were found in his system.
• Sixteen-year-old Victor Brancaccio attacked and killed an 81-year-old woman, covered her corpse with red spray-paint. He was two months into a Zoloft regimen.
• While on four medications including Prozac, Dr. Debora Green in 1995 set her Prairie Village, Mo., home on fire, killing her children, ages 6 and 13.
• Kurt Danysh, 18, shot and killed his father in 1996, 17 days after his first dose of Prozac. "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done. … This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."
• In 1998, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Paxil, was ordered to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members after Donald Schnell, 60, just 48 hours after taking Paxil, flew into a rage and killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter.

The website also cites psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, in a speech advocating for the treatment of children and youth.

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, towards our elected officials, towards his parents, towards a belief in a supernatural being, and towards the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future," Pierce told a 1973 childhood seminar.

Breggin's conclusion that whatever mental manifestations were causing Cho's dangerous behavior, resulting in a professor asking for him to be removed from her class and two complaints of stalking, there was a solution.

"The answer to vengeful, violent people is not more mental health screening or more potent mental health interventions. Reliance on the whole range of this system from counseling to involuntary treatment failed. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that locking people up against their will or otherwise 'treating' them reduces violence. As we'll see, quite the opposite is true," he wrote. "So what was needed? Police intervention."

He wrote that "it's not politically correct to bring criminal charges against someone who is 'mentally ill' and it's not politically correct to prosecute him or to remove him from the campus. Yet that's what was needed to protect the students. Two known episodes of stalking, setting a fire, and his threatening behavior in class should have been more than enough for the university administration to bring charges against him and to send him off campus."

He continued with a warning, "And what about drugs for the treatment of violence? The FDA has not approved any medications for the control of violence because there are no such medications. Yes, it is possible to temporarily immobilize mind and body alike with a shot of an 'antipsychotic' drug like Haldol; but that only works as long as the person is virtually paralyzed and confined – and forced drugging invariably breeds more resentment.

"Instead of offering the promise of reducing violence, all psychiatric drugs carry the potential risk of driving the individual into violent madness. For example, both the newer antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa, and the antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal and Zyprexa, cause a disorder caused akathisia – a terrible inner sensation of agitation accompanied by a compulsion to move about. Akathisia is known to drive people to suicide and to aggression."

He said he's been writing for more than 15 years about the capacity for psychiatric drugs to cause mayhem, murder and suicide, but it wasn't until 2005 when the FDA issued a warning that such drugs produce "anxiety, agitation, panic attacks …"

He said in the Columbine case, Harris "looks the most like Cho. Both were very emotionally disturbed in an extremely violent fashion for a prolonged period of time."

Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department, said Cho's writings were so disturbing he was referred to the school's counselors.

"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," she said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

In a statement posted on the TeenScreen opposition site, Sidney Taurel of Eli Lilly noted that it would be "unreasonable" to expect "that there is such a thing as a risk-free drug."

Another website concerning the psychiatric drugs, called RitalinDeath, also documents some of these cases, as well as additional ones.

Dr. John Breeding concluded in a report shortly after Columbine that there were about five million school children now being given psychiatric drugs, and the number had been doubling every 10 years since the 1970s.

"This has got to be a cause for major alarm in all adults," he said. "The bottom line is that we are giving stronger and stronger psychiatric drugs to more and more children. Many of our children are taking more than one of these drugs at a time, and many of these drugs were never even tested and approved for children."

Bob Unruh is a news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.

Source: WorldNetDaily

Plea of the Day

April 23, 2007

The exchange below occurred today on Sarnia's Smoking Gun. A teenager using screen name foster kid posted a plea for help. It is repeated below without spelling or grammar correction. Following that are two replies by the webmaster Dean Robinson.

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I just want to go home

foster kid 12:26pm

Im 13 years old and live in a group home I was put here by a lady from children aid. and I want to go home. I have been here for 6 weeks and have only got to see my mother once, when I seen her she was crying and sad because I was taken away. my mother is not a bad mother the lady that took me said she needed help because she had a hard time taking care of me. she came to my school one day and took me to McDonalds then took me to get some new jeans, I may be only 13 but im not stupid I know she was trying to get me to say that my mother was mean to me and thats not true. she ask if my mother hit me I said that she has slaped me but its because I swore at her. now I feel like im being punished because of something I did. if I didnt swear would I be here. I just want to go home.

they will not let me call my mom and I know she has called here because i heard them tell her not to call here any more or the will call the police. when i went to see her at the visiting place they said she never came but i seen her car in the parking lot. i know they are lieing to me. and they are lieing to the police to. I miss my mom and my dog. please let me go home I love you mom

Stacy.

Dean Robinson

Stacy I removed your last and your email name because I know that the CAS watches this board. If they catch you they will try to keep you away from the computers in your school. I have your email. I will write to you and pass along messages to your mom. I know at 13 you know your home number. Pass it back to me in an email and I'll call your mom and give her your email address. Be careful not to let anyone see you emailing or posting. And don't talk to anyone from the CAS unless you have a lawyer with you, if you don't have a lawyer yet, tell them you want one now. Stacy you have legal rights too.

If there is anyone, other kids that want to post messages to their folks, let me know. I'll set up a private email server for you and call your parents and give them the email addresses. The thing is the CAS is trying to pump lies into your head or spin the truth so you go against your mom and dads. Don't let them mislead you.

Source: Sarnia's Smoking Gun

Addendum: The next day Dean Robinson added:

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Well here's the update. I talked to the mother last night and her daughter is to be placed back in her care this week. It seems that her ex-boyfriend is a cop with a grudge. The CAS became involved with this family after she dumped him for being an over-aggressive goof. The funny part of this story is this lady's brother is a lawyer. When she and her brother went to the office to file the plan of care yesterday, the CAS decided it was in the best interest of the child to be reunited with her mother and the case closed. I'm assuming that they figured that this was a family bond that could not be broken.

I'm going to say this again. If you stand your ground, don't take shit from this bunch of idiots, they will back down. The public is becoming more aware of how they manipulate the law and how morally incorrect this society really is.

No Questions Allowed

April 22, 2007

Canada Court Watch started a discussion on the subject: Being a foster parent does have risks. Below is a posting under screen name former foster parent.

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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:12 pm
subject: Being a foster parent does have risks

I just read the article on the Court Watch website about the risks associated with being a foster parent.

How very true it is.

My wife and I once had a child in our care from the CAS. The CAS started telling us that we were to stop the girl who was almost 12 from communicating with her parents and that we were to listen in on her phone conversations. We were never told why she should not speak to her parents.

They had this girl on Ritalin as well.

As we got to know the girl we could see how much she just wanted to talk to her parents and her siblings who still lived at their parents home. The girl also got sick on the Ritalin.

When we started to ask questions about the Ritalin and why this girl could not speak to her family, we were told by the CAS worker that it was none of our business and due to confidentiality, they could not say anything to us.

Suddenly about a week later, we got a call from the CAS worker who said that our foster child would not be coming home from school and that they were transferring her somewhere else. No explanation. This girl liked our place and we enjoyed her being here.

As far as my wife and I were concerned, the reason why they took her away was because we started to ask questions out of concern for her best interests.

We've never been asked to take in another foster child since even though we hear that there is a shortage of foster homes in our area. Its clear that the CAS workers do not want people questioning what they do.

Source: Canada Court Watch discussion board. There is no way to identify of the author.

Strip, or else!

April 21, 2007

Florida DCF has a job opening for a young man looking for an opportunity to meet members of the opposite sex. It is to replace William Williams, who tried to use his powers to get a mother's clothes off. He joins the ranks of Eric M Ferber and Brandon Ware.

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Abuse investigator quits over lap-dance request

By Kathleen Chapman

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, April 21, 2007

A Palm Beach County child abuse investigator lost his job this week after a mother he was supposed to be helping said he asked her for a private lap dance.

Former Department of Children and Families investigator William Williams was assigned to the family's case Dec. 30 after a report to the state that the children were being neglected.

As part of his investigation, he asked the mother what she did for a living. She told him that she worked as an exotic dancer.

According to the mother, Williams then asked whether she gave private lap dances and whether she would come to his home to dance for him.

When she turned him down, she said, he suggested that maybe he could just pay her to cook and clean his house.

The children's grandmother, who agreed to take in the youngsters and their mother, called DCF on Jan. 11 to ask whether the agency could help with rent and groceries. She also reported Williams' behavior with her daughter.

When questioned about the allegations by the DCF inspector general, Williams submitted a sworn statement admitting that he asked the mother if "she did anything else beside dance, if she work in VIP Room, also if she did anything else in the VIP Room, if she gave private lap dances. ...

"This was an error in judgment on my part," Williams wrote, "and can understand how my questioning could be misconstrued."

He said he asked the questions out of personal curiosity, according to the inspector general's report, and that they did not pertain to his investigation.

The mother said Williams made her "very uncomfortable," the report stated.

Williams, 48, was removed from his cases when supervisors heard about the allegations, DCF spokeswoman Laura Tingo said Friday.

He resigned from his job in DCF's Riviera Beach office Monday after his supervisor told him he would be fired, Tingo said.

Williams was hired by the agency in 2005 to take benefit applications. He had worked as an investigator since June 2006.

Discussion of other scandals omitted.

Source: Palm Beach Post

Mother Sentenced, Erased

April 21, 2007

Deborah Farrell has been sentenced for kidnapping her own children. Following the practice of Stalinist historians, her name has been expunged from the public consciousness, though it was published last year.

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House arrest for mom who abducted her own kids

SCOTT TRACEY

GUELPH (Apr 20, 2007)

A woman who abducted her children from their foster mother in the parking lot of a city store was placed under house arrest yesterday for two years less a day.

The 45-year-old earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of child abduction. She cannot be named under the Child and Family Services Act, which prohibits the identification of children in foster care.

Court heard that in the spring of 2006, the local office of Family and Children's Services entered a supervision agreement with the woman that included several conditions, including abstention from drug use and open access by agency staff to the children.

On June 9, an agency worker went to the woman's apartment where he found the children unattended because the woman was asleep. The six-year-old had soiled himself. An earlier test had proven positive for drug use, so the children were taken and placed in foster care.

The next day, court heard, the foster parent was confronted as she put the children into her van in the parking lot of the Zellers store on Stone Road. She was approached by the mother and a female friend, who grabbed the 45-year-old's two kids and put them into a car before speeding away.

Police reported the accomplice turned herself in the following day. Subsequent investigation led police to the Valens Conservation Area where the woman and her two children were located.

Yesterday, Guelph Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno agreed to impose a term of two years less a day, the maximum sentence allowed before someone is placed in a federal penitentiary.

The judge agreed to let the woman, who has a minor criminal record including theft and obstructing police, serve her time in the community under house arrest. She was also banned from possessing weapons for 10 years.

stracey@guelphmercury.com

Source: Guelph Mercury

Addendum: A reader points out that a mother sleeping is now considered to be abandonment, and cause for taking the kids.

More on F21/03

April 21, 2007

Anne Marsden reports more on the family known only as F21/03. First, a letter to the editor:

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St Catherine's Standard

Child protection in Ontario ignores the child's needs

Letters to the Editor - Friday, April 20, 2007 Updated @ 9:50:15 AM

The problems with the Children's Aid Society and their association would have been fixed at least a decade ago if the responsible ministers had upheld the requirements of the Child and Family Services Act as they have committed to do.

There have been many opportunities for various ministers to step in and do the right thing. For example, the present minister has refused to appoint a judge and undertake a review of Section 67 of the Child and Family Services Act that our audits show has seen two little girls isolated from their family in Brantford since 2001, at public expense with not one scrap of evidence that these children are in need of protection from their family members.

Audit results in the hands of our politicians show judges, lawyers (both private and legal aid) and CAS workers have all ignored best interests, legislation and a responsibility to uphold the law as set out in the Child and Family Services Act. Isolation is abuse. NDP MPP Andrea Horwath and the ombudsman are both well informed on the situation, yet I hear nothing of their efforts to force the government's hand and have the review which would show the CAS is using our child protection dollars improperly - and certainly not in the best interests of our children.

Our position is they are all afraid that such review would be the first domino that would see the end of child protection being used as a means to an end that has nothing to do with best interests of children.

Anne Marsden
Ghent Avenue
Burlington

Source: St Catherine's Standard

Anne will be appearing before the Justice Policy Committee Queen's Park on April 25.

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URGENT PERSONAL ATTENTION ANDRE MARIN AND ATTORNEY GENERAL BRYANT

April 20, 2007

Now that the whole of Canada understands the value of an expert witness' opinion associated with the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children (The Dr. Charles Smith fiasco) rather than just me utilizing my McMaster Post-Graduate Course Critical Appraisal of Data credentials, perhaps the Ombudsman and Attorney General might pay some attention to the Brantford CAS issue that I have been pushing for at least a year now.

Our audits showed there was not one scrap of evidence that one would refer to as evidence if one checked it with the evidence standards that lawyers and judges are taught in law school, in the Brantford CAS case that has seen two sisters isolated from their brothers, mother, fathers, grandparents and each other, one for most of her life, she was born October, 2000 and the other all of her life she was born July, 2006.

The expert witness in this case whose "opinion" was relied on to "convict" a mother and grandmother of not being capable of parenting, despite them doing a grand job with the brothers of the two little Brantford girls, also happens to be from the Hospital for Sick Children (perhaps it should be called Sick Staff and not Sick Kids). He is the head of the Dept. of Pediatrics, or was last time I checked, and sells his opinions to the Brantford CAS so when they are low on evidence for a child they have in their care through fair means or foul, he is available to present his expert opinion in the form of a public monies paid for parenting capacity assessment that will say whatever it is that the CAS need him to say. Since when did we have the law of opinions used to convict... I am well credentialed in analysing such reports and my "expert testimony" about Dr. Wittenberg's two parenting capacity assessments that we, yes we, paid a very, very, large chunk of change for and as a consequence of, is that it is purely and simply non-evidenced character assassination that gave Judge Edward an opportunity to say..." see I was right" rather than what he should have said ... "the court apologizes for its actions that were improper and have cast a cloud of suspicion over all child protection cases in the Brantford court".

Judge Edward I am sure you both will agree acted completely outside of judicial standards when he strongly suggested to the CAS in a written endorsement that they bring in a protection application for a child, whose father was before him pleading for the court to return his child, who was in temporary care without the consent of her father and the judge, the CAS, all the lawyers involved knew that this was contrary to rule of law. If you look it up in the Criminal Code it is called abduction (taking a child out of a parent's supervision without lawful justification). Judge Edward then went on to sit in judgment on the child protection case he strongly suggested in his order the CAS bring in ... now how's that for impartiality...

The audit has been reviewed by a lawyer who says:

" if you are talking/emailing to Anne Marsden, let her know .. A LOT of the Society material consists of speculation, innuendo, gossip, double, triple and quadruple hearsay, opinions from people not qualified to make them and character assassination, plain and simple. In many cases, the affidavits are laughable. I think Anne's audit pointed out some very noteworthy deficiencies in the court process... Also a good lesson to the lawyers involved. "

One of those lawyers should be the Attorney General given he has a job to do with regard to do ensuring rule of law is upheld in the Ontario Courts and the best interests of children are protected and they are not taken out of their parent's protection without just cause. And, the Attorney General's job description would, as I understand it, also lend itself to ensuring a crown attorney looks at charges being laid when a child, sorry two children, are taken out of the supervision of their parents without any lawful justification. Further, when Senior Regional Justice, Timothy Culver, has been provided with the audit results, for almost a year now, and has ignored that at least one of his judges is affecting the best interests of children by acting outside rule of law, (not to mention the public purse) I believe that should also be the business of the Attorney General. Perhaps Justice Culver needs to sit down and watch Judgment at Nuremberg again, it may well have been a while since he saw it... the 1961 version I mean.

As you both know the Minister responsible has been asked on several occasions to undertake a Section 67 CFSA Review of this matter by appointing a judge. My letter in the St. Catherine's Standard today refers to my request which the Ombudsman was asked to support through a letter hand delivered to him by Andrea Horwath after my presentation at Queens Park where I was congratulated by my MPP now my Mayor, Cam Jackson, for my advocacy for children's best interests and my tenacity with regard to working for the best interests of children regardless of who they are and where they live... Until last Easter I had never heard of this Brantford family who now are like my own ... the kids call me Grannie Annie. It should not be a very large job for the judge appointed by the Minister given the audit documents are well organized and should be easy for him or her to follow. Mr. Marin, I would ask that you do everything you need to do to get the Attorney General and Minister to appropriately respond to this matter and undertake a Section 67 review at the very minimum.

I will be in Queens Park to appear before the Justice Policy Committee at 10:45 a.m. on April 25, 2007, I would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you both after my presentation to hand over the audit documents for this matter so you can both do what it is that you need to do to ensure our child protection agencies, judges and lawyers act in the best interests of children and only in the best interests of children when funded by our child protection dollars. .... I have more than done my job ..and my husband's responsibility for the expenses associated with this Brantford child protection audit should have ended several thousand dollars ago!

Anne Marsden (Mrs.)
Audit Manager
The Auditors
The Canadian Family Watchdog
308-1425 Ghent Avenue'
Burlington Ontario L7S 1X5
Tel. 905-639-5684

Source: email from a friend of Anne Marsden

Dr Charles Smith Inquest

April 20, 2007

Ontario's Coroner, Barry A McLellan, issued a report yesterday saying there had been mistakes in numerous autopsies conducted by Dr Charles Smith leading to false criminal convictions, some of parents for killing their own children. The public outcry has induced Premier Dalton McGuinty to call an inquest into Dr Smith. For the full story on this matter, refer to the website Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and look through their news archives.

Addendum: Here is a copy of the backgrounder (pdf) from Ontario Coroner Barry McLellan.

Rally for USA

April 19, 2007

A rally aiming to protect families from courts will take place in Washington DC on August 18. The prime organizer is Minister Ronald E Smith, whose son has a cancer that is a side-effect of his forced treatment for ADHD.

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American Family Rights Association

Sacramento -Fair Oaks, California

William O. Tower, President

wm.tower@sbcglobal.net

4934 San Juan Ave #50
Fair Oaks, California 95628
(916) 342-1700
(916) 966-8578

Promoting the Fundamental Liberty Rights & Privileges of Families

All right everybody the RALLY is on and the Date to set your plans on is August 18th 2007. This rally will start at 9:00 a.m. est. and be on going all day. So pack a lunch bring water to drink and join us to get the word to Congress that we are not satisfied with the way that the Health and Human services Department and the Family Courts are running the system that was supposed to protect children and Families “all involved in the family”. The Courts were supposed to be the safety net and they have failed the PEOPLE.

Bring your story done in 20 (twenty) pages or less and take it to one of the tents to register in and get it on the Official Record with Congress. Also review the dcrally2007.com web site for updates. There will also be a format for your story to be put into posted on that website.

We have many Great organizations from all across the United States getting together for this event. And also have planned to have Officials there to talk to the People (us). We need a great show of support on this event and I am sure that all that can attend will be there. This is the next big CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT so get on board and help out, show your support and do your part after all it is really for the children (yours and your grandchildren) so as Larry the cable guy says “GIT IT DONE” we will see you all there.

Bill Tower
President AFRA

Source: email from AFRA

Extortion

April 19, 2007

Canada Court Watch is tracking down one instance of a common CAS practice. In many cases reported to Dufferin VOCA a social worker threatened a parent with a statement of the form: "We are going to take your children unless you ... ".

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EXTORTION by CAS!

(April 17, 2007) - Court Watch received a call today from parents who report that they have gathered solid evidence which shows that CAS attempted to extort them to sign legal documents without a lawyer and against their better judgement. Extortion is an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada. Keep an eye on this site for further updates. The name of the worker involved will be disclosed once evidence has been properly organized and prepared for police investigators.

Source: Canada Court Watch

Bill 165

April 18, 2007

A pending bill 88 introduced by Andrea Horwath would give the power to investigate children's aid societies to the provincial ombudsman. That office is occupied by the hard-hitting André Marin, who is aware of the extent of the problems with children's aid. A report from him could precipitate a scandal leading to real reform. In an effort to protect themselves, social services spokesman Mary Anne Chambers introduced a neutered bill 165 to withhold investigatory power from the obudsman, but to modify the powers of the child advocate, currently career social worker Judy Finlay. The advocate would not have subpoena power, so it is unlikely she could do anything that would cause a public outcry.

There is a website, Child Advocacy Renewal in Ontario, supporting bill 165. We believe it is a creation of the social services system, since it shares their graphic design (all smiling faces) and has the same street address, 25 Spadina Road Toronto, as the Children's Aid Foundation.

Whether or not bill 165 is an improvement, hearings could be an opportunity for victims of the current regime and advocates of true reform to get their objections on record. Those wishing to do so through the social services system can use Child Advocacy Renewal in Ontario; John Dunn suggests asking for Matthew Geigen-Miller. For less biased help, we can suggest:

• The Committee on Justice Policy. Chair: Lorenzo Berardinetti. Clerk: Anne Stokes 416-325-3515.
• The two MPPs most committed to children's aid reform: Andrea Horwath (Sheila White assistant) 416-325-2777 and Howard Hampton 416-325-8300.
• Lisa McLeod, PC critic, 416-325-6351.

Addendum: Another website allied with social services, Voices for Children, says the hearings will take place on April 25 and 26.

Another Chambers Boondoggle

April 18, 2007

As a result of children's aid intervention, orthodontic treatment for T Norris was canceled, and he cannot get his needed braces. Yesterday Mary Anne Chambers made another one of her routine announcements of a grant for some project in the name of children. This one begins: McGuinty government helping children. Providing $250,000 To University of Toronto For Children's Dental Services. The project will do nothing to help Mr Norris. Mrs Chambers should concentrate on leaving children with parents willing to care for them.

CCW Message Board Returns

April 17, 2007

Canada Court Watch opened a new Public Discussion Forum on April 10. The new board requires registration to post, but not to read, messages. A posting on April 11 describes an effort by the Office of the Children's Lawyer to muzzle Canada Court Watch by forcing unfavorable documents off its website. There is nothing to indicate the result of the hearing scheduled for last Thursday.

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Children's Lawyer's Office attempts to silence complaints

posted by justice

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:38 pm

This is right off the Fathers Battling Injustice site Call we need all those that are close to show support. Lets let them know this was a big mistake. If they lose we will get national attention now and it should!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Court Watch Supporters

The Office of the Children's Lawyer has filed a motion against Canada Court Watch and Mr. Vern Beck to remove documents from the Court Watch Website which cast the the Children's Aid Society and the Office of the Children's Lawyer in a bad light.

This is an attempt to remove criticizm of their organizations and to set a dangerous precident to erode the freedom of the press in order to prevent individuals and organizations from saying bad things about them in the future.

The presence of supporters of Court Watch would be helpful and their presence at court would be appreciated. The presence of members of the public in the court sends a strong message to the court that people are concerned and that the Judge must be just.

Mr. Vern Beck will be presenting arguments to the court in defence of Court Watch and members of the public (you) who have been adversly affected by these organizations. To those who have received help or information from Mr. Beck or Court Watch in the past, it is time to return the favour by showing your support in court.

Time: 9:30 am (sharp) on Thursday April 12, 2007

Source: Canada Court Watch message board

Family Cut in Half

April 15, 2007

Remember the two women who appeared before King Solomon, both claiming to be mothers of the same baby? The king ordered the baby cut in half, with half given to each woman. The real mother chickened, begging Solomon to give it all to the other woman, rather than see it harmed.

Here is a current case of a mother compelled to give up her baby to save it from harm.

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April 14, 2007

Desperate mom denied

Children's Aid refuses to hold baby in child protection when single woman is deported to China

By TOM GODFREY, SUN MEDIA

(Mark O'Neil/Sun Media)

MISSISSAUGA -- Single mom Hong Zhang cried a river of tears yesterday after learning she can't leave her baby daughter in Canada with Children's Aid when she is deported to her native China.

Zhang, 39, broke down after leaving the agency's Peel offices, where she had tried to place her only child.

She was told 1-year-old Sherry will be put up for adoption as an abandoned child if left behind, but Zhang wants the girl to sponsor her back to Canada some day.

"I feel very sad right now," Zhang said. "I do not want Sherry to go to China. I want her to have a better life in Canada."

As Zhang wept, the baby started crying and had to be cradled.

"My child will not have much of a future in China," she said through interpreter Jane Lou. "At least here she has some kind of future."

Roy Kellogg, Zhang's immigration consultant, said it can take more than 20 years for Zhang to be sponsored back to Canada by Sherry, who must first reach age 18.

Kellogg said the Canadian-born child will be treated as a second-class citizen if sent to China, where laws ban children out of wedlock. He said Sherry will be stigmatized and will not get health coverage, be allowed to attend school or to obtain Chinese citizenship.

As a single mom, Zhang also faces a fine of $140,000 a child for returning to China with children, Kellogg said.

Zhang came to Canada in 1997 and filed an unsuccessful refugee claim and appeals. She is to report to immigration next Wednesday to make deportation arrangements.

Lucie Baistrocchi, a Peel Children's Aid spokesman, said yesterday each child has to be assessed as requiring protection before they're accepted as wards.

"We are not aware of any child protection issues in this case," Baistrocchi said. "There has to be a child protection issue."

Anna Pape, of the Canada Border Services Agency, said her officers must deport those who have exhausted all avenues for staying here.

"Our job is to enforce the laws of the land," Pape said. "We don't decide who gets to stay in Canada."

Source: canoe.ca

Wrong Rights

April 14, 2007

The Citizen has published a proposed Children's Charter of Rights. It requires an understanding of the difference between positive and negative rights. The proposed rights are all positive, requiring for their implementation intervention by someone outside the family. For example, protection from exposure to family violence requires cops to look inside the family to control it. Families are reduced to one of a set of alternative role models. For more on this issue, refer to the book What's Wrong with Children's Rights by Martin Guggenheim. What children desperately need is a charter of negative rights, granting them the right to remain with mom and dad, unless mom and dad have failed in their responsibilities.

The group producing the proposal is described only as a number of child-centred committees and organizations, a working group of the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Report Card Coalition on the Wellbeing of Children. No members are mentioned, but it sounds like a coalition of social services agencies such as Family Transition Place and Dufferin Children's Aid.

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Orangeville, Ont

Orangeville Citizen

Local News — April 12, 2007

Working group produces Children's Charter

With input from a number of child-centred committees and organizations, a working group of the Wellington- Dufferin-Guelph Report Card Coalition on the Wellbeing of Children has developed a Children's Charter of Rights.

Based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is a document that outlines a vision to make Wellington- Dufferin-Guelph a better place for children and families. The Charter includes a series of statements that outline what our communities need to do in order to ensure healthy development and bright futures for all of our children.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. It sets forth a wide range of provisions that encompass civil rights and freedoms, family environment, basic health and welfare, education, leisure and cultural activities, and special protection measures.

The group's goal is to have the Children's Charter adopted and endorsed by political councils, community organizations and local businesses in an effort to make a compelling statement about our collective intent to support, and advocate for, the rights of children.

The Children's Charter will be launched in the spring with an official signing.

Following is the Charter's text:

All children deserve basic rights and freedoms. A fair share of society's resources must be devoted to ensuring this. While families are responsible for raising their children, all levels of government, in partnership with communities, have a duty to support families by putting the health and well-being of children first.

All children in Wellington Dufferin-Guelph have a right to:

• A quality of life that meets their physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and social needs.
• Have basic needs met including nutritious food, a healthy environment and a safe and comfortable place to live.
• Access quality and affordable child care, early education programs and/or parenting support.
• Safe places and time to play, and access to affordable recreational activities.
• Quality education to enable them to reach their full potential.
• Quality time with their families and/or other nurturing and positive role models throughout their childhood.
• Protection from neglect, abuse and exposure to family violence.
• Be accepted for who they are, and believe what they want without being discriminated against.

Source: Orangeville Citizen

Mom Sentenced

April 14, 2007

In August 2005 we reported the story of the girl Emily Lake maced by police in Oregon and rushed back to foster care in Michigan. Most recently, she was visited by her mother in July 2006. Here is the latest report from Ann Durand on the mother being sentenced for kidnapping her own daughter.

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Mother Sentenced to 30 days

On April 5, 2007 Lynnae Lake was sentenced to 30 days in Jail in the Midland Michigan County Jail for custodial kidnapping of her own daughter from the Department of Human Services on May 28 2004.

She was tried and convicted under MCL 750.350a .

If you are parent and your spouse refuses you parenting time for 24 hours, a weekend or a week or for whatever period just try to get a police officer to take a police report. Just try to get a prosecutor to file charges. It is not going to happen in this state. Believe me I know several people who have tried. The police officer will tell you "it is a civil matter you will have to hire an attorney and go to court". Upon contacting the legislature and requesting and receiving a copy of the legislative intent of this statute it is quite apparent it was not meant to be used by the Michigan DHS in a case like this especially when DHS worker is the one who is deemed to have been the custodian, committed numerous illegal and unconstitutional acts that precipitated the mother's actions.

The DHS says the verbal order to a DHS worker of a referee is a legal order. They say an order with a judge's forged signature is a lawful order. They say it is ok that the worker entered a private Christian School after being challenged by the principal as to his right to demand entry and to interrogate another child of this mother and threatening the principal with calling the police. The worker had no court order in his hands, no warrant to search when he did this. (blatant violation of the 4th amendment) Workers in this state MAY enter a PUBLIC school and interview your children without a warrant or court order. But no state actor, police officer or DHS worker has the right to enter on to any private property without a warrant or exigent circumstances. The worker in this case lied to the principal and told him he had a court order. He did not. He has admitted in court he did not. He held her 17 ½ yr-old daughter behind locked doors in a room in the school physically restrained her and told her not to talk to her mother. This is illegal seizure under the law. Ms Lake was ordered by the principal to take her younger daughter and leave the school. She did.

Also if you will read the statute below you will see the actual statute.

For the complete story go to www.fcr4kids.org/

Emily is still to this day in the custody of DHS and the same adult sister who helped plan this travesty. She is not allowed to see her mother except in a tiny room with a 2 way mirror with a DHS worker in the room. They see each other for 1 hour sporadically at the whim of DHS. This is 20 months after the brutal taking and pepper spraying in the face of this child by police officers and being threatened with attack dogs. She watched the officers beat her mother in front of her as she begged them not to hurt her mother.

Here is the link to the Michigan Custodial Kidnapping statute.

Keep in mind there was NO (lawful) giving the DHS worker custody of this child.

Keep in mind if you are a parent the state will not charge your ex spouse or significant other with this statute which was written to protect your rights as a parent.

This mother was never served with a summons nor did anyone from DHS even so much as call her to appear for hearings of that day or subsequent days. They held a trial 2 months later without proper notification, no attorney for mother, and took unlawful hearsay evidence as fact. The so-called victim, the 17 ½ year old daughter did not testify in the dependency hearings in the probate court. Only the DHS worker did.

Source: AFRA CenCom posting from Ann Durand

Dr Phil Interviews Allison Quets

April 14, 2007

Allison Quets, who fled to Canada in December with her toddler twins, was interviewed in jail by Dr Phil. During her pregnancy she developed the life-threatening condition hyperemesis gravidarum. While still weakened from the disease after the birth of the twins, she was subject to two all-day psychological warfare sessions in the office of an adoption lawyer, who induced her to sign the necessary documents. During one she called 911 in a frantic and unsuccessful effort to get help. Florida provides no cooling-off period for this kind of document, so Allison legally lost her children.

The video is not online, but three slide shows of Twin Tug of War are available on the Dr Phil website.

Previous articles: January 4 and December 29.

Lawsuit Ends

April 13, 2007

The Supreme Court of Canada has ended a lawsuit seeking funding for the treatment of autistic children. If successful, the suit would have removed the power to appropriate tax funds from the legislature and given it to the courts, and would have increased the amount of money and power for social services, further diminishing the role of parents in the lives of children.

Correction: In an earlier version of this item, we mistakenly said this was the Anne Larcade suit. That is another pending matter.

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Posted AT 10:25 AM EDT ON 12/04/07

Supreme Court spurns autism appeal

Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from a group of Ontario families seeking money for specialized treatment for autistic children.

Robin Wynberg, front, with her legal team in a civil suit over special education for autistic children, from left, Pheroze Jeejeebhoy, Jonathan Strug and Mary Eberts. (Tibor Kolley/Globe and Mail files)

The 28 families initially won a court ruling over government financing for costly intensive behavioural therapy, but that was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

As is usual in leave-to-appeal rulings, the court gave no reasons for its decision.

A Senate committee last month recommended that Canada develop a national plan to deal with autism, including new measures to help families saddled with huge bills for therapy.

Source: Globe and Mail

Putman Retiring

April 13, 2007

Gary Putman will retire from Dufferin Child and Family Services in November. The article below, based on information provided by Mr Putman himself, puts a positive light on his accomplishments. In our experience, during his tenure he has terrorized Dufferin County. We have spoken to parents, newspaper editors and his own employees who live in fear of Mr Putman.

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Orangeville, Ont — Orangeville Citizen

Local News April 12, 2007

Putman retiring from Dufferin Child and Family Services

Tom Murray, President of Dufferin Child and Family Services, has announced the planned retirement next November of the agency's executive director, Gary Putman.

Mr. Putman began his social Work career in 1971 after graduating from the University of Toronto's School of Social Work. He developed his skills and gained valuable experience working with the Hamilton Children's Aid Society, the Lynwood Hall Treatment Center and the Peel Children's Aid Society.

In 1978 he began his tenure with Dufferin Child and Family Services. At that time the agency dealt only with child welfare and operated with a staff of eight employees.

"Throughout the following 29 years, Gary developed and demonstrated his skills as a leader not only within the agency, but also within the community that he proudly served," Mr. Murray said in a press release recently.

"Gary participated and helped in the development of many local community planning bodies.

He was instrumental in the early development of Family Transition Place and Community First in Dufferin County. He participated on the Boards of Community Living Dufferin, Big Brothers of Orangeville and District, North Peel-Dufferin Community Legal Clinic and served two terms on the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies."

Mr. Putman was described as having nurtured and guided the agency through significant growth within Dufferin. "There have been many ups and downs, but Gary continually planned and developed for the future of Dufferin County," Mr. Murray said. "Through Gary's vision and guidance, Dufferin Child and Family Services has now developed into a multi-service agency, providing child protection, children's mental health services, developmental support services and the supervised visitation program."

He said the director's 36 years of dedication to child welfare is greatly appreciated by the communities he has served in, "and by the children's lives he has touched directly and indirectly. He has always been optimistic with a vision to developing children and families to their full potential."

In informing the agency's directors of his plan to retire, Mr. Putman praised the staff as "immensely dedicated and talented professionals who I will very much miss."

He plans to retire on November 30. The Board of Directors will begin a search for a new executive director immediately.

Source: Orangeville Citizen

Tracy Cain R.I.P.

April 12, 2007

John Dunn reports the death of a mother who was in regular contact with her daughter in foster care until CAS hardball tactics separated them. The despair of permanently losing her daughter drove her drug abuse, leading to her death.

In separation cases like this, it is easy to overlook the fact that uniting mothers and daughters can improve the mother as well as the daughter.

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Date:	Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:39:58 -0400
From:	John Dunn afterfostercare@hotmail.com
Subject:	Sad News

Dear List Members,

I have been informed recently that a person I used to work with, who was an excellent fighter for her daughter, but who at the time was subject to the restrictive CFSA, has passed away. Her daugther was placed in a foster home while the mother was involved in a rather unfavourable situation ending up in a two year prison situation.

As a result of her two years in prison, her daughter went into foster care, and was in a good home. After her sentence, she worked, stayed in Narcotics Anonymous and became very deeply involved in running the program, organizing dances and other activities in NA.

She kept clean, worked full time and was doing well for herself while dealing with personal matters but keeping clean. She had ongoing visits with her daughter who was in a good foster home for four years when the CAS started to reduce her visits.

The visits were being reduced in order to promote adoption. (Still unsure of who was seeking adoption at the time) but the foster home was excellent at keeping the family in touch. Then, the CAS told the little nine year old girl at the time that she would be seeing her mother for the last time.

The mother was trying to get a visit around Christmas a few years ago when the CAS was refusing to allow it. We went on a campaign to attempt to stop the CAS from preventing a Christmas visit with her siblings and mother. The campaign involved a poster which, if they did not allow the visit, was going to be spread far and wide and postered all over downtown. The Poster read "CAS Keeps nine year old girl from her mother and siblings at Christmas against her will" and provided numbers to call at the CAS to have the public privide their opinion on the matter.

Fortunately, the notice to the Society was effective, we did not have to go on the campaign. The CAS offered her on the phone "Just this time". They had the visit, which resulted in a great picture on a site I will link to later.

Sadly, after that, the pressure of permanently losing her daughter pushed her back into the underground and there she stayed until January 2007, where she unfortunately passed away from a blood disease, I think caused by drug use.

If the mother and daughter had of at least been able to keep in touch, especialy since the mother was supportive of the foster home and the open relationship they all had maintained between each other, this now thirteen year old girl would still have a mother who loved her unconditionally.

We are not even sure if the girl has been made aware of the fact that her mother has passed, but I will be updating the list on the events as they come to be. This girl is now adopted, so is no longer the subject of a court proceeding or hearing, therefore making the following link to her web site made by her mother three years ago exempt from the secrecy legislation in the CFSA.

More will follow, since the mother's parents have informed me of the fact that her ashes have yet to be burried and I will discuss options of who might be able to visit or not during this ceremony, and if we will be making it a public affair or not.

Also these grandparents have not been able to maintain contact with the girl since her adoption. (3 years?) The CAS is even blocking Christmas cards etc. and are going to contact Kim Craitor, an Ontario MPP who has Bill 8 2005 in first reading status. This bill is to give grandparents a right of access to grand kids during custodial matters. (CAS as well I think)

I will follow up with more, this is just an emotional response letter to the list, more detailed and organized information will be provided on the web site later.

The internment ceremony willl be held this month some time we believe.

You can see how happy the girl was to be with her mother (front row on Mom's lap smiling widely in obvious happiness at being with her mother on her last visit at the CAS of which the mom fought for and won) tracycain.tripod.com

I would like to ask everyone to please take a moment to remember this image, for it is important that we realize how much their relationship meant to each other.

Sincerely,

John Dunn
The Foster Care Council of Canada
www.afterfostercare.ca

Michelle, Eric and Melissa with mother Tracy Cain

Foster Boy Becomes Vegetable

April 11, 2007

Three-year-old James Bradley Jr was injured in foster care in Belleville Michigan, and is now fighting for his life in an Ann Arbor hospital after doctors had to remove parts of his skull and brain. The story from Fox news in Detroit may disappear soon.

Addendum: James Earl Bradley Jr died from his injuries on April 13. A Michigan reader commented on his newspaper's board:

*monotone voice

There is no problem here.... there is no problem with the system.... Everything is fine... We are doing our best... there is no problem here....

riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Source: Lansing State Journal

Foster Company Loses Business

April 11, 2007

In case there was any doubt that foster care is run for profit, a foster care company, Lifeway For Youth Inc., is suing the state of Ohio for loss of business. It seems the state is unfairly punishing them for placing a boy with a family that murdered him, burned his body and threw his remains in the Ohio River.

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Last Updated: 7:44 pm | Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Lifeway sues state agency

BY SHEILA MCLAUGHLIN | SMCLAUGHLIN@ENQUIRER.COM

The company that placed 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel in a deadly foster home sued the state for $1 million Tuesday, saying the state spread lies that cost it business.

Lifeway For Youth, Inc., of New Carlisle, filed suit against the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in the Ohio Court of Claims in Columbus, saying the agency’s motives were “purely political.”

The 13-year-old private foster care company accuses the state of libeling the company in the press, interfering with business relationships with foster families and referring agencies and abusing the state licensing process.

It claims the state launched its campaign to revoke Lifeway’s license even before it finished an investigation into Marcus’ death.

“(The state) has been more concerned about shifting blame than about the welfare of Ohio’s foster kids,” said Mike Berner, Lifeway’s founder and executive director.

Berner nurtured Lifeway from a ministry to a $15 million business that operates in six states, including Kentucky and Indiana.

The court filing comes a day after lawyers for the company and the state met to set nearly two weeks of hearings in June so Lifeway can challenge the state’s effort to take away its operating license in Ohio.

Lifeway still plans to go forward with those hearings. Those proceedings won’t affect Lifeway’s licenses elsewhere.

Berner claims he’s lost about one-third of his business in Ohio.

“The department, by being so thorough and relentless in its public statement about the inferior quality of Lifeway, effectively ruined their business,” said Melissa Mitchell, a Columbus attorney representing Lifeway.

“It affected their business in a very serious way, so much so that they might not be in business by the time of the hearings.”

State officials did not have an immediate comment, but are expecting to issue a statement later this evening.

The lawsuit alleges that the state:

• Issued a press release saying it had advised all counties to check on children in Lifeway homes even before starting its investigation into Marcus’ death.
• Repeatedly and publicly stated that it would revoke Lifeway’s certification three months before it notified Lifeway of its intentions.
• Altered reports from state field investigators who were involved in licensing Lifeway.
• Made false and misleading statements to the media, including that it had found 147 violations when 55 of them were actually related to the revocation proceedings.

Lifeway also has asked a judge to place a gag order on state officials to keep them from making any further false statements to the media or saying anything negative about Lifeway to its referring agencies and foster families.

Lifeway officials said they’ve watched its Ohio business fizzle since August in the wake of Marcus’ death.

The developmentally delayed Middletown boy was bound and left in a closet for two days while his Clermont County foster parents went to a family reunion. Liz and David Carroll Jr. are serving life terms after being convicted in February of Marcus’ murder.

Since then, foster placements have fallen off from 600 to about 360 children because county children services agencies quit placing foster kids with Lifeway, Mitchell said.

Foster families have jumped to other agencies or quit and about one-third of Lifeway’s staff has resigned since the state began revocation proceedings in January, Berner said earlier.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer

Advocating Reform is Criminal

April 9, 2007

When the State of Arizona threatened Robin Scoins with prosecution for asking the legislature to change child protection laws, Richard Wexler tried to get press coverage:

Weeks after I let NCCPR’s “Arizona List” of journalists know what Hershberger was doing, only New Times reported the story. I’ve found not a word in any major daily; certainly not the state’s largest daily, The Arizona Republic. It was encouraging when the Republic columnist who most strongly supports using CPS to tear apart impoverished families briefly expressed an interest in the story – but nothing came of it.

— from today's entry in Richard Wexler's blog

The two articles below describe Robin Scoins child protection case, and the effort to prosecute her.

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Suffer the Children

By Sarah Fenske, Published: October 26, 2006

Portions of this article not relating to Robin Scoins have been deleted by Dufferin VOCA

Robin Scoins admits that her case, too, had its complications. She knows it was ridiculous not to realize she was pregnant until just weeks before giving birth.

But what happened after that wasn't just ridiculous, it was a nightmare: a classic example of how faulty evidence — pushed by a caseworker without the time to do her homework — can trump the facts.

It started after the birth of Scoins' third child, a boy. Then 35, Scoins was seriously depressed. She had good reason: Her then-boyfriend was an alcoholic, she says, and had been abusive in the past. The relationship was on its last legs. And Scoins' oldest son, then 14, had been diagnosed with a host of mental-health problems.

The doctor at Southwest Behavioral Health Services put Scoins on heavy-duty antidepressants, according to records provided to New Times by Scoins' lawyer, Scott Ambrose.

For the seven months that Scoins saw counselors at Southwest, her doctors reported that she was anxious, worried about her older boy, and depressed about her relationship ending, records show.

But they never once suggested that she was a bad parent. And they never noted a suspicion of drug use.

Then Scoins found out she was pregnant again. Very, very pregnant.

She'd gained weight with her previous pregnancy, so she was already heavier than usual. She complained to her doctors about nausea, and irregular periods, but records show that she assumed it was a side effect from the meds.

So in early September 2003, Scoins found out she was pregnant, and on September 27 her little boy was born — two months early, weighing only three and a half pounds.

And that's when Scoins, who insists she'd never used illegal drugs, tested positive for amphetamines.

Even the hospital's own test results warn that antidepressants, like the ones Scoins was using, can create a "false positive" for amphetamines. So can cold medicine, which she'd also been on.

Not only did the baby test negative for everything, but Scoins subsequently passed two more drug tests.

No matter. When Scoins' boy (called C.Q. in court papers to protect his privacy) was big enough to leave the hospital in November, Scoins didn't get a call to pick him up. Instead, a CPS worker left her a note.

CPS had taken the baby.

The reason: According to the caseworker, Scoins had "tested positive for methamphetamines."

Amphetamines are present in any number of drugs, not just crystal meth. But while CPS caseworkers deal with thousands of meth-related cases in the course of a year, the staffer on Scoins' case didn't seem to realize that. Nor did she acknowledge that Scoins' amphetamine "positive" was in dispute.

Instead, CPS's report claimed that Scoins was a drug addict. The caseworker wrote that she'd "abused substances for a long period of time" — an absurd claim for which the worker offered no supporting documentation. The report also claimed that Scoins had been homeless and living in a car. Again, completely false.

Even worse, in the same report, the caseworker claimed that Scoins' baby had yet to be tested for drugs.

That wasn't true. C.Q.'s tests were complete within days of his birth, two months before. He was negative for all drugs.

Taking C.Q. amounted to a rush to judgment that may have been triggered by good intentions — but doesn't hold up to scrutiny today.

Scoins was devastated at losing her baby.

"I was just a mess," Scoins says. "I kept thinking, there's some mistake. I've never used drugs; they must have me confused with someone else. When they find out, this will all be over. But that never happened."

Instead, CPS only let Scoins see C.Q. during supervised visits. And Scoins' caseworker filed paperwork to take away her other three children, too.

Ultimately, the agency dropped its threat; when C.Q. was nine months old, CPS finally returned him to his mother. But that was only thanks to an attorney friend who handled Scoins' case for free.

"I probably would not have my son back today without that," she says.

Throughout a three-hour interview with New Times at the public library in Surprise, Scoins' two youngest boys interrupt frequently to show their mother books, pester for her library card, and ask for help with the computer. They have a warm rapport; Scoins is affectionate with them, and they clearly adore her in return.

Since her battle for C.Q., Scoins founded the Arizona Family Rights Advocacy Institute and devotes much of her time to helping families across the state fighting CPS. She doesn't get paid, yet she estimates she easily spends more than 60 hours a week taking their calls, helping them with paperwork, even showing up in court to offer an assist.

She knows the dark side of Napolitano's push for safety first. She's lived it.

"This wasn't even a case where they took the kid and asked questions later," says her attorney, Ambrose, disgusted. "In this case, they didn't even ask questions."

Source: Phoenix New Times

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Public Enemy Number One

She went after CPS -- but now the state may be coming after her

By Sarah Fenske, Published: March 22, 2007

Robin Scoins is the perfect face for the argument against Arizona Child Protective Services. And she believes that's exactly why she's drawn the ire of state representative Pete Hershberger.

Martha Strachan

Robin Scoins got involved fighting CPS after her son was taken from her in 2003.

Three years ago, Scoins lost her newborn son to CPS custody. The agency claimed, falsely, that she'd tested positive for crystal meth; it took nine months to sort out what proved to be a sloppy mistake and get her little boy out of foster care.

Today, Scoins devotes her time to parenting her four kids — and to fighting CPS. As the founder, executive director, and sole staffer of the Arizona Family Rights Advocacy Institute, she helps families with their custody battles, inveighs against legislative efforts to increase CPS funding, and pushes for laws that increase parental rights.

She's had some victories. Typically, the Legislature will renew an agency's mandate for 10 years; with Scoins on the attack last year, CPS's parent agency, the Department of Economic Security, was renewed for only two. She was also able to draw attention to social workers who raised complaints about the agency's operations in Kingman (see "Suffer the Children," October 26, 2006).

And Scoins knows how to work the bully pulpit. If nothing else, her story provides great political cover for CPS critics like Senator Karen Johnson, a Mesa Republican. It can be difficult, politically, to criticize an agency that fights child abuse. It's a lot easier when you have an example of a non-abusive mom, like Scoins, caught in its bureaucratic net.

But despite her success at the Capitol, and despite the fancy title, Robin Scoins is no Jack Abramoff. She lives on Social Security and does her advocacy work from the bedroom of her Section 8 apartment — because, as she explains, "I don't even have a kitchen table." She has no funding, not even from the families she advocates for, although sometimes they'll help out by babysitting. She's never wined or dined a legislator in her life.

But is she a lobbyist? That's the question that could cost her up to $1,000 or even a misdemeanor conviction.

Under Arizona law, lobbyists must register every two years and pay a $25 registration fee. They must also file annual reports.

Scoins never did any of that. And last month, Representative Pete Hershberger, a Republican from Tucson, wrote the secretary of state to request that the office investigate whether Scoins is "properly registered for the activities she is undertaking." He then forwarded the letter to the attorney general and Maricopa County attorney.

Hershberger chairs the House's Human Services Committee and is one of the Legislature's most outspoken CPS supporters. While many Republicans harshly criticized the agency's Napolitano-era mandate to prioritize child safety above family preservation, Hershberger applauded it. When Napolitano asked for $34 million for the agency in 2003's landmark "CPS reform" special session, House Republicans countered with $1.7 million. Hershberger crafted the compromise that got CPS $17 million instead.

As Hershberger pointed out in his letter, Scoins has signed in at committee meetings as a representative of her family rights institute. The secretary of state's "lobbyist handbook" suggests that could be enough, in and of itself, to trigger a violation, although an actual penalty would require Scoins to have "knowingly" failed to follow the rules.

Joseph Kanefield, the state election director for Secretary of State Jan Brewer, acknowledges that complaints like Hershberger's are highly unusual. "I can tell you that it's the first one we've gotten this session," he says. It'll be up to his office to determine whether there's "reasonable cause" to suspect that a violation occurred. If there is, he says, the case would go to Goddard.

Kanefield sent a letter to Scoins on March 8 with two questions: Was she paid by the family advocacy institute to lobby the Legislature? And had she spent any money to woo legislators — say, buying them lunch?

Scoins has done neither, as she explained in her reply to Kanefield last week.

"At no time have I ever presented myself as a lobbyist, and in fact stated in public hearings, that I am NOT a lobbyist and I am not paid by anyone to speak in support of or in opposition of any bill," she wrote. "I have not been paid to provide testimony at the request of a legislator as a citizen expert on CPS issues. I am a mother, who volunteers time to help others exercising my right to participate in government processes."

Kanefield says it's too early to say whether Scoins must register just because she represents a group. The law is complicated; Kanefield doesn't want to comment on the merits of the complaint until his office's investigation is done.

But others are crying foul on Hershberger.

Dan Pochoda, legal director of the Arizona chapter of the ACLU, says he's waiting for the secretary of state's decision before he gets involved. But if lobbying laws are used to stop a citizen from speaking in front of a committee, even if that citizen is part of a bigger group, he believes it "would raise significant First Amendment issues."

And Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform and an outspoken critic of CPS, calls Hershberger's complaint "absolutely unheard of."

"Most legislators," Wexler says, "at least pick on someone their own size. I've never heard of anyone going after a grassroots activist like this."

Even if Hershberger is right about the law, it doesn't help that he and Scoins disagree so vehemently on the issues. If nothing else, this looks like an attempt to harass a dissenting voice, and one of a low-income single mom at that.

Nor does it help that, in the private sector, Hershberger is getting paid by a company with strong ties to CPS. Before he was elected to the House, Hershberger was a full-time employee at a Tucson social service agency called Open Inn. Tax records show that Open Inn gets the bulk of its funding — more than $3 million annually — from government contracts. As Hershberger acknowledges, some of those contracts are with CPS's parent agency.

It's not clear just how much he's being paid. The personal disclosure form that Hershberger has on file with the secretary of state shows only that the total is over $1,000. He claims he hasn't billed Open Inn in months and that the company's ties don't factor into how he feels about CPS. (And what he's doing is not a legal conflict of interest, according to Arizona's rather lax laws regarding legislators.)

Hershberger insists that his letter wasn't intended to silence a critic.

"I was just curious," he says. "My understanding is if she's representing someone other than just herself, paid or unpaid, she has to register. That's to protect the public and let them know who's representing who. . . . Now it's up to them. If she didn't do anything wrong, okay, I'm done with it."

Richard Wexler, for one, doesn't buy it. If Hershberger was just "curious," he asks, why not just talk to Scoins and ask about her funding?

"That's what he would do if he was curious," Wexler says. "But if he wanted to bully her, he'd send a letter to the secretary of state — and then he'd forward it to the county attorney."

Details: E-mail sarah.fenske@newtimes.com, or call 602-440-1130.

Source: Phoenix New Times

Addendum: Richard Wexler reports on some help for Robin.

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April 16, 2007

THE ARIZONA ACLU STEPS IN

The Legal Director of the ACLU of Arizona has written to the Attorney General’s office on behalf of Robin Scoins in connection with the controversy discussed in the previous post to this blog. In the letter, ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Daniel Pochoda writes:

“We are troubled by the manner and results of this process and are assisting Ms. Scoins at this stage. Application of the lobbying registration requirements in this context has First Amendment implications and will likely result in chilling rights of speech and to petition the government.”

Source: Richard Wexler's blog

Fake Social Workers

April 9, 2007

Among the dangers for parents we now have impostors claiming to be social workers. It is an easy way to spy inside homes or for pedophiles to see some skin or just to terrify neighbors. The current article is from Wyoming. We include an older case of the same scam from Nova Scotia.

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Riverton officials looking into alleged DFS impostor

RIVERTON (AP) -- Authorities are investigating reports of a woman posing as a Department of Family Services case worker, entering people's homes and asking questions about their children.

Sada Selvig, supervisor of the DFS social work department in Riverton, said she got a call March 27 from a couple suspicious about such a visit.

"I've just never seen or heard anything like this," Selvig said.

According to Selvig, a tall, middle-aged woman wearing jeans and a blue sweater knocked on the couple's door in northeast Riverton and said she was there to conduct an inspection. The 23-year old woman who answered the door let her in, but became suspicious when the woman began asking about her young children.

The victim and her husband reported the incident to Selvig and to police later that day.

Riverton Police Capt. Milan Vinich said after the couple's complaint circulated around the department, another local woman filed a similar complaint.

"Turns out that the daughter of a police department employee experienced a similar encounter three weeks prior and didn't think much of it until hearing about this account," Vinich said.

Selvig said she knew something was amiss as soon as she heard how the impostor was dressed.

"That was my first tip off," Selvig said. "The woman was wearing jeans. Case workers are not allowed to wear jeans."

Selvig said most DFS employees on home visits are accompanied by a police officer. And although DFS employees don't wear uniforms, they should wear a DFS badge in a visible location and should be driving a state vehicle with an "S" on the license plate.

Selvig also said DFS does not have the authority to remove children from a home, and that anyone who says they have that authority through DFS should be treated with suspicion.

"So if there is a caseworker alone that comes to your home and says they will be taking your child into protective custody and placing them in foster care, you should call law enforcement immediately," she said.

Vinich called the whole situation "disturbing."

"We don't know what the motivation would be," he said.

Source: Casper Star-Tribune

The Nova Scotia case from 2004:

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Thursday, July 15, 2004
The Halifax Herald Limited

Social worker hoax odd, puzzling

Women posing as staffers stripped kids; 2nd such scam in six months

By DAN ARSENAULT / Crime Reporter

Halifax RCMP have released composite sketches of two women who falsely claimed to be social workers in order to enter a house, undress children and examine them.

On Wednesday, police issued the drawings put together with help from an Eastern Passage woman who let the two women into her home in late May.

"We're trying to see if the public can recognize these two individuals," RCMP spokesman Sgt. Joe Taplin said Wednesday.

"We tried every other avenue in the investigation and right now we're releasing the composite." RCMP say two women pulled a similar stunt in Timberlea in November, but police aren't sure the two incidents involve the same people.

The police also hope to alert others about the women so no one else is duped into letting the impostors into their home.

In the most recent incident, two women went to a Main Road house on May 28. Claiming to be child protection workers, they identified themselves as Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Geddys. They wore business clothes, carried briefcases and told the woman in the house that they wanted to check the two children there. She let them in.

"They went over and took the clothes off the two children," said Sgt. Taplin. "They checked the children for bruising."

"They played the role right to a T."

The children's mother stood by while the kids were undressed.

The phoney child protection workers eventually left. Afterward, the woman's husband came home and called the Community Services Department after hearing of the situation.

"It was determined at that time that no social workers were sent to the residence and that's when we entered into an investigation," Sgt. Taplin said.

The Eastern Passage woman described one intruder as short and heavy-set, with shoulder-length black hair. The other is taller and thin, with shoulder-length hair.

Sgt. Taplin would not reveal the name of the Eastern Passage woman or the age of her children.

Police are puzzled by the women's motives.

"It's the same as the incident that happened in Timberlea," Sgt. Taplin said.

In both instances, the children's clothes were removed but no pictures were taken, nothing disappeared from the house and the children were not inappropriately touched.

The Timberlea incident took place at the home of Dana Curtis.

In an interview Wednesday, she said she has no idea what the pair were up to, although she found their behaviour to be a little odd.

"They just seemed kind of uppity, snotty, very aggressive.

"They said they wanted to check them (her children) over because they received a complaint about my daughter.

"They asked me to strip them down."

Shocked by the horrible accusation, she readily set out to prove them wrong by disrobing her two toddlers.

After that, the two women went through some closets in the house.

Ms. Curtis has seen the RCMP sketches and said "there were definite similarities" to the two women who came to her home, though she noted one of the suspects looked much thinner than she remembered.

In her case, one of the fake social workers wore a tag identifying herself as Kathy Miller. A subsequent call to the Children's Aid Society showed no one by that name worked there.

Ms. Curtis said her intruders knew beforehand how many children she had.

The ordeal has made her more suspicious. She's reluctant to answer the door and won't let her older child play outside.

She's also curious about the women's intentions.

"There's so many different things they could have wanted. It's just odd."

Terri Green, a Community Services spokeswoman, said people with concerns about visiting social workers should make sure they see some identification that can be checked out before allowing anyone to enter their home.

"All child welfare workers are required to have an identification badge," Ms. Green said.

Although such workers can belong to different agencies, all staff carry cards with their name and that of the agency they work for, she said.

She said parents who aren't sure of the validity of such cards should phone the agency the people claim to work for.

Sgt. Taplin said people can phone police in such a situation, too.

Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to call Halifax RCMP, Halifax Regional Police or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Senior Shrink Arrested

April 7, 2007

Those child psychiatrists who prescribe mind-numbing drugs to your kids and write reports justifying separation of kids from their parents are not all saints. Here is one arrested for multiple instances of child sexual abuse. The article claims the real tragedy is that parents entrusted their children to him. An even bigger tragedy is that at his level of seniority, he could set standards for child care throughout the country, and ever internationally.

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Respected child psychiatrist arrested on molestation charges

San Mateo doctor investigated in cases dating back to '60s

John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer, Friday, April 6, 2007

A highly regarded child psychiatrist from San Mateo who once headed the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry was arrested Thursday on 14 felony counts of child molestation, police said.

Dr. William Ayres, 75, was arrested at his San Mateo home at about 6 p.m. after a four-year investigation into allegations he molested boy patients dating back to the late 1960s.

"The real tragedy here is that parents entrusted their children to this doctor for help and they were victimized while in his care," San Mateo police Capt. Mike Callagy said after the arrest. "That's so tragic."

For decades, the psychiatrist with the ruddy face and reddish beard was a fixture in San Mateo County mental health and political circles.

He served with San Mateo County District Attorney Jim Fox and Supervisor Richard Gordon on the county's Children and Families First Commission, and in 2002, he was honored by the county board of supervisors with a lifetime achievement award for "his tireless effort to improve the lives of children and adolescents."

During his long and distinguished career as a local child psychiatrist, he received patient referrals from the San Mateo County juvenile justice system.

From 1993 to 1995, he served as president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the leading professional medical association for child psychiatrists with more than 7,500 members nationwide.

Callagy said the doctor did not resist arrest and was "very stoic" when officers arrived at his home Thursday night.

Prosecutors Thursday filed 14 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old against Ayres, Callagy said. He said the charges involved multiple victims, but he declined to give a specific number.

Ayres is being held in San Mateo County jail on $1.5 million bail and is expected to be arraigned today in a Redwood City courtroom.

The arrest follows years of accusations against the doctor that raised red flags but never amounted to a criminal case. It was only after San Mateo police received a complaint in 2002 that authorities obtained a search warrant in March 2006 for Ayers' medical records, police said.

The records produced a list of 800 names of former patients whose contact with Ayres could fall within current statutes of limitations, police said. Police interviewed the patients and identified alleged victims that led to the current prosecution, Callagy said.

Among some of the other accusations that are documented in public records but never led to criminal charges are the following:

• At least five men -- none of them the alleged victims in the criminal case -- claim in police reports, civil depositions and a Child Protective Services report that Ayres molested them in their youth.
• One of those former patients sued Ayres in December 2003, accusing the psychiatrist of masturbating him under the guise of a medical exam on multiple occasions in the late 1970s when the patient was 13 years old. The case was settled confidentially in 2005.
• Police investigated at least two other molestation reports against Ayres before the 2003 lawsuit, records and deposition transcripts show. One was determined to be "unfounded" in 1987, and the alleged victim in the other didn't cooperate with police, according to those records and statements.
• At least two other men came forward separately in 2005 saying Ayres had also molested them as teens in the 1960s and 1970s, but the cases could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired, police reports show.

One of those former patients, whose name was redacted from the report, told police he arrived early for an appointment one day and saw another teenage boy emerge from Ayres' office.

"The victim said the look on the other boy's face was like, 'He's going to do it to you too,' " the report read.

In the 2003 lawsuit, filed against Ayres and his medical group, Peninsula Psychiatric Associates, attorneys for the former patient accused the psychiatrist of exploiting his position of power and trust to prey upon young boys who were patients.

The lawsuit contended the alleged victim, referred to in court documents as James Doe, was not Ayres' first molestation victim. The lawsuit alleged "there were at least four others, and possibly more."

The two sides reached a confidential settlement in July 2005, after which Ayres' attorney said the psychiatrist did not concede any wrongdoing.

Ayres said under oath he didn't remember the alleged victim and denied molesting him, according to a transcript of his deposition in the lawsuit.

"It is very common that I'll be having lunch and a person in their 30s will come up to me and say, 'Aren't you Dr. Ayres? I wanted to thank you again for the help,' " Ayres said in his deposition. "I'll look at them, and I won't know who the hell they are. It turns out I saw them when they were in seventh grade."

Ayres also acknowledged he sometimes conducted physical examinations of juvenile patients, according to the transcript.

"I do not think there is any standard of care that says it's inappropriate for a physician who is a child psychiatrist, that they should not do physical examinations," Ayres said, according to the transcript.

He said the county's juvenile justice system, its court-appointed attorney program, pediatricians and social workers all referred patients to him for years, and he estimated in 2004 that he had seen about 2,000 patients in 40 years of practice in the county.

He evaluated a patient referred by juvenile court Judge Marta Diaz as recently as March 2003, even though San Mateo police or the county social services department had received at least three complaints of molestation by that time, records show.

E-mail John Coté at jcote@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

No Real Reform

April 7, 2007

Who can best assess the needs of a child:

1. mom
2. dad
3. a computer

If you chose c, you think like a Children's Aid reformer. In a complex press release, the OACAS announces policy changes responsive to the Auditor General's report. The most needed reform is not mentioned — independent oversight. The proposed changes are diversionary. The news article below simplifies the matter.

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Changes to come at Children's Aid after auditor's report

Last Updated: Friday, April 6, 2007 | 5:25 PM ET, CBC News

Ontario's Children's Aid Societies vow to bring about major administrative changes after a hard-hitting auditor general's investigation revealed serious problems regarding the agency's spending habits.

Auditor General Jim McCarter tabled his report at the Ontario legislature last December, detailing expense abuses at several family and youth services agencies, including incidents where luxury vehicles, gym memberships and personal travel costs were charged to the province.

The investigation also reviewed the risk assessment system used by Children's Aid Societies (CAS), and new cases were delayed by weeks because of red tape.

McCarter made a series of recommendations that Children's Aid is now ready to implement, said Jeannette Lewis, executive director of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies.

Those recommendations include:

• New policies for international travel, credit card and company vehicle use.
• New policies for staff spending.
• New computer system for assessing abuse and neglect risk in reported cases.

Lewis acknowledges the agencies' reputation took a hit after the auditor's report, but said employees are committed to protecting children.

"Investigations will be completed professionally and in a timely manner, and I think that's what the public needs to know and understand," Lewis told CBC.

She wouldn't say when the policies would be in place.

Source: CBC

Bounty for Cole Norris!

April 2, 2007

In the latest development in the Norris case, Brantford CAS wants the case transferred to them, but Frontenac (Kingston) CAS still wants to keep the case in their hands.

Want to know the real reason Kingston CAS wants to get Cole Norris returned? Forget all the psychiatric reports. When Cole's brother Tyson spent two weeks in CAS care the bill was $8260.56, $590.04 per day. If they can put Cole in those accommodations for a year, that is $215,364.60 steered from the taxpayers to CAS associates. Here is a link to the special rate agreement, (photocopy). Your browser may require another click to see the full-sized image. The document is part of an incomplete file disclosure given to Cathy Norris. A few parts were blotted out by CAS, not Cathy. To facilitate searching, here is the special rate agreement as a text file.

Note: We hereby offer to provide Cole Norris with food and shelter for an entire year for only $115,364.60, saving the taxpayers $100,000!

Addendum: justiceseeker has posted another YouTube video, The family Separated by the Kingston Children's Aid, showing the Norris family from babies to teenagers just before CAS intervention.

Addendum: Here is the pap children's aid and the police feed to the press. They make it look like Cole ran away from mom and dad, but has been happily returned after a major investigation. Sure.

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The Whig-Standard

Local News - Tuesday, April 03, 2007 Updated @ 11:21:50 PM

Missing boy found in Brantford area

A 13-year-old Deseronto boy who went missing in August has been found, provincial police said yesterday. Napanee OPP said Cole Norris has been located in the Brantford area.

Norris sparked a major investigation when he went missing Aug. 17, after telling his family he was going downtown or to the town library.

Source: Kingston Whig-Standard

Serial Killer Strikes Again

March 31, 2007

Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge have had nine children taken by the State of Michigan. The state's score so far: two dead and seven to go. No, make that eight to go. Jennifer is pregnant again. In the latest development, the state has finalized the removal of two more children.

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Detroit Free Press

Lethbridges and youngest children won't reunite

March 30, 2007

By JACK KRESNAK

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A Washtenaw County judge decided today that Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge, whose nine children all have landed in foster care, will not be reunited with their two youngest children.

Family Court Judge Darlene O’Brien ordered the couple’s parental rights to their 11-month-old daughter terminated, but she did not end their rights to their 4-year-old daughter, saying it would not be in the child’s best interest. Instead, the judge ordered the child’s current foster parents in Washtenaw County to consider becoming her permanent guardians.

O’Brien said the girl “would have the benefit of continuing to have her parents in her life, but she wouldn’t leave the foster parents’ home. She would be raised by them.”

The Washtenaw County foster parents have expressed an interest in adopting the girl’s 11-month-old sister.

The 4-year-old was in foster care in Detroit with her 2-year-old brother Isaac when he was killed in his foster mother’s home last August.

On hearing the ruling, Matt Lethbridge, 33, initially broke down and then appeared confused about the implications. He said he and his wife would try to keep a relationship with the 4-year-old through her foster parents.

Six of the Lethbridges’ older children were removed from their care after complaints involving neglect. All were later adopted. Isaac and the 4-year-old landed in foster care in 2005, and an infant daughter born last April was placed in foster care almost immediately. The couple’s 10th child is due next month. Washtenaw County authorities plan to file a petition to remove that child after its birth.

The Lethbridges, who now live in Canton, had contended that they have matured as parents and recognize why their children were removed from their care. Among the past problems: Their homes were filthy and there were signs of emotional and medical neglect of the children.

Washtenaw County Assistant Prosecutor Stacie Shaw told the court that the couple’s living conditions get worse when authorities are no longer involved with the family. “Their history and their actions speak louder than their words,” Shaw said, adding, “I don’t doubt in my heart that the parents truly love both of these girls,” but the risk is too great to entrust the children to their care.

The children’s attorney, S. Joy Gaines, also asked O’Brien to terminate the Lethbridges’ parental rights.

“I’m clear that they love their children and that they want to be parents,” Gaines said, but “with the extensive protective services history, there are more issues than just cleanliness. There are real mental health issues.” She also said it would not be good to move the 4-year-old, who is in her fourth foster home, again.

Earlier today, O’Brien heard testimony from Washtenaw County Protective Services worker Joseph Lanczki who said, despite the family’s long history of involvement with protective services and the juvenile court dating to 1997, things had not improved by September 2005, when Isaac and his 4-year-old sister were removed from the Lethbridges’ filthy Westland home.

“When conditions of the home reach a level of criminality, it’s pretty severe,” Lanczki said. The couple were charged with misdemeanor child neglect after the children were removed. Jennifer Lethbridge, now 30, served 45 days in jail; Matt Lethbridge, now 33, received probation.

Matt Lethbridge, given one last chance to convince the judge to return his daughters to their care today, said, “We are fanatic cleaners at this point. We don’t even think the old way any more. We are not those people any more.”

Jennifer Lethbridge attended today’s hearing by phone. Matt Lethbridge said he and Jennifer quit smoking last Friday, though he said he cheated twice after having a vasectomy on Tuesday.

Isaac’s foster mother has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree child abuse in connection with his death, but no one has been charged with the fatal beating. His death was the subject of a three-day series in the Free Press in January that detailed the failings of the Lula Belle Stewart Center, the Detroit foster care agency that handled Isaac’s care, and the state Department of Human Services, which supervised the agency.

Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313-223-4544 or jkresnak@freepress.com.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Addendum: The State of Michigan wants the Lethbridges' next child was taken as well.

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Detroit Free Press

Parents of Isaac Lethbridge fight to keep newborn

Couple has lost custody of 7 other kids

April 27, 2007, by JACK KRESNAK, FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER, UPDATED AT 3:05 p.m.

Wayne County Child Protective Services on Friday filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge after removing their 15-day-old baby boy from their Canton Township home.

The Lethbridges -- whose 2-year-old son Isaac was beaten to death in a Detroit foster home last summer -- said they will try to regain custody of their newborn even though judges in Washtenaw County have terminated their parental rights to seven of their nine previous children.

The couple appeared at a preliminary hearing in Wayne County juvenile court this afternoon. Referee Peter Schummer Jr. authorized the petition and said the case would be transferred to Washtenaw County unless that county rejected it for some reason. If that happened, the case would be returned to Wayne County.

Schummer also suspended the Lethbridges' visitation rights.

The baby, named Xavier Isaac Lethbridge, was removed by CPS, a division of the Wayne County Department of Human Services, about 4 p.m. Thursday with the assistance of Canton Township police, officials said.

The DHS' permanent custody petition sought to transfer jurisdiction of the boy to Washtenaw County DHS because of the family's history there. Judges in Washtenaw ended their rights to the other seven children on the grounds that the couple neglected them and did not benefit from counseling and other programs to improve their parenting skills.

Matt Lethbridge, 33, said the baby's seizure by CPS was improper because Xavier was not at risk of any harm under his parents care, despite the past history.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Lethbridge said before the court hearing. "There is no danger to him whatsoever because there are so many monitors in place right now."

Lethbridge said he and his wife, 30, did not keep the baby's birth a secret from anyone and would have told DHS about Xavier's birth at home on April 12 if they had asked. He said the couple told their private therapist, Celeste Brown, who saw the child herself on Tuesday.

Lethbridge said their townhouse in Canton is clean. The couple lost custody of Isaac and his then 3-year-old sister in September 2005 when police found the children in their filthy home in Westland. Both Matt and Jennifer Lethbridge later were convicted of misdemeanor child neglect in that case.

On March 30, Washtenaw County Family Court Judge Darlene O'Brien terminated their parental rights to an 11-month-old daughter, but declined to terminate rights on the now 4-year-old daughter who allegedly was abused in the same foster homes as her brother Isaac.

Last December, Matt Lethbridge initially denied to the court that his wife was pregnant, but quickly recanted and said he was afraid authorities would again take their newborn away. Washtenaw County officials said they would seek to remove that baby from the Lethbridges and terminate their parental rights. That county's DHS was waiting for a birth, though it was Wayne County officials who removed the child.

"I knew the second they knew he was born they were going to come and take him," Lethbridge said. "We didn't run. We didn't hide. We were right there. We opened the door and were cooperative."

Charlsie Adams-Rogers, 59, of Detroit is scheduled to be tried June 4 on involuntary manslaughter and child abuse charges in Isaac Lethbridge's death last summer in her foster home.

Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313-223-4544 or jkresnak@freepress.com.

Isaac Lethbridge, age 2 1/2, photographed during a supervised visit with his parents in June 2006 at a McDonald's. Isaac was beaten to death in August while in foster care.

Matthew Lethbridge and wife Jennifer Lethbridge, the biological parents of 2-year-old Isaac Lethbridge who was beaten to death in a Detroit foster home, were photographed at their home in Whitmore Lake on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006. (ROMAIN BLANQUART/Detroit Free Press). Display this image for more resolution.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Norris Videos Purged

March 29, 2007

Most of the videos of the police manhunt for Cole Norris are gone from YouTube. Here is a statement posted in explanation. We have confirmed that it comes from Cathy Norris.

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Hello

I did take down the video’s from ‘youtube’. One of the reasons for this is a disturbed individual has posted a video response using a gun. I consider myself a social activist , but I will not ever be associated with anyone who uses threats or violence or hate language. I believe from the messages I received that the message from this disturbing video was directed towards me, not the CAS worker. I am glad of that as I would not want to compromise anyone else’s sense of safety and security.

I want to thank you all for the support you have shown my family and I.

Cathy.

Source: Sarnia's Smoking Gun

Addendum: Children's Aid has provided Cathy Norris with a food voucher for $100. This is compensation for loss of her farm, a year's legal bills, moving her family from Kingston to Brantford, the stress of several police raids on her home and halting the orthodontic treatment of her son Tyson.

Chambers Announces Nirvana for Children

March 28, 2007

Following Mary Anne Chambers' announcement of a new era of plenty for Ontario's children, we give some comments.

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CHILD POVERTY

Hon. Mary Anne V. Chambers (Minister of Children and Youth Services): It gives me great pleasure to speak about the Ontario child benefit, which Finance Minister Greg Sorbara unveiled last Thursday. We know the future depends on the type of start that we give our children in life. The $2.1-billion Ontario child benefit is a historic investment that will help to give our vulnerable children the opportunity they deserve. It’s at the heart of our government’s 2007 budget because our government believes that Ontario’s future depends on giving our children the best possible start in life.

Unfortunately, many children come from families who are struggling to make ends meet. If only they had some of the opportunities that so many of us have been fortunate to have been afforded, they could move beyond the poverty they struggle against. Our society pays a heavy price when our children grow up in poverty. That heavy price is the cost of failed opportunities, lost hopes and forgotten dreams.

Let me share with you a sampling of statements on poverty from grade 4 and 5 children in North Bay, taken from excerpts from Our Neighbours’ Voices: Will We Listen?

• “Poverty is being afraid to tell your mom you need new gym shoes.”
• “Poverty is feeling ashamed when my dad can’t get a job.”
• “Poverty is not getting a hot dog on hot dog day.”
• “Poverty is pretending that you forgot your lunch.”
• “Poverty is hiding your feet so the teacher won’t get cross when you don’t have boots.”
• “Poverty is not buying books at the book fair.”
• “Poverty is not getting to go on school trips.”
• “Poverty is being teased for the way you are dressed.”

What is perhaps even more discouraging is to hear from members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, who say, “Poverty in my classroom is students who have no hope for the future because the future costs money.”

An Ontario where children and youth have no hope for the future is not the kind of Ontario that our government wishes for its children and youth. Our government has been tackling the issue of poverty from many angles, and we are determined to do more. That is why we are championing strong, progressive initiatives that will make a difference in the lives of 1.3 million Ontario children in 600,000 lower-income families.

The Ontario child benefit is about opportunity. It is about making that opportunity available to everyone. Our government has taken a giant leap forward to expand opportunities for all Ontario’s children and families so no one is left behind because of a lack of opportunity.

We cannot separate social and economic priorities if we want to have an inclusive society. So we went one step further than just simply ending the clawback of the national child benefit supplement. We are providing assistance to every lower-income family in Ontario. The Ontario child benefit is about increasing opportunity to help people get out of poverty and get on with building a better future for their children.

The Ontario child benefit is also about giving parents the opportunity to move off social assistance without worrying about losing support for their children. It is about enabling families to make real choices for the betterment of their children and, more importantly, to see the realization of the hopes and dreams they have for their children.

The Ontario child benefit will fundamentally change how our children receive the benefits they need, benefits that our government believes children deserve.

Most income support is provided through social assistance, and that excludes the majority of low-income working families. The Ontario child benefit provides help to all children in lower income families. In the first five years, these families will receive an additional $2.1 billion. Ontario children and their families will be better off.

The experts agree that our government has made the right investment for the right reasons. Gail Nyberg, executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank, says, “It’s been a long time since poverty reduction measures were at the forefront of a provincial budget in Ontario. We congratulate the government for having the courage to take on this significant issue, and we expect to see a reduction in food bank use in the coming years as a result…. The Ontario child benefit will reduce barriers faced by families with children who are trying to leave welfare for work.”

Finally, an editorial from the Globe and Mail last Friday said the McGuinty government has “devised an Ontario child benefit that, when fully implemented in … 2011, would be on the cutting edge of 21st-century social policy reform.”

Our budget clearly demonstrates that Ontario is well-positioned to take on the challenges of the 21st century. But in order to ensure our province’s prosperity, we will need every person in Ontario to achieve his or her individual potential. The Ontario child benefit will help to make this a reality. Helping children in lower income families to succeed is the right thing to do, and it is the smart thing to do for our society—a society that enables all children a real chance at success in life.

I ask all members of this Legislature to join me in supporting the Ontario child benefit. We owe it to the 1.3 million children of Ontario who will benefit; we owe it to the 600,000 families who will benefit. This is an investment in our children, an investment in Ontario families and an investment in the future.

Source: Ontario Hansard

Politicians cannot always use complete condor, but Mrs Chambers speaks without connection to reality. Look at the list of poverty symptoms from the North Bay children. In most areas of Ontario, showing even one of the symptoms would get a kid snatched by children's aid. How many children still living with their parents are that poor? Well, there is Cole Norris. His mom could provide all the things he needed until Kingston Children's Aid intervened.

As for the financial benefits for families, they will not fully be implemented for four years, long after the tenure of the current government. Below is an analysis by a journalist who has studied the details.

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No end to Ontario's child tax benefit clawback

People on social assistance are still having their federal child tax benefit taken away from them by the Ontario government. The Liberals have broken yet another promise.

>by Michelle Langlois, March 23, 2007

There appears to be some confusion over whether the federal child tax benefit clawback from Ontario social assistance cheques has been ended by the Dalton McGuinty government this week. Allow me to clear up the confusion: the clawback is still in full force.

On Thursday, Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara announced a new Ontario Child Benefit for low income families. This means that in Ontario, there will be both a federal and a provincial benefit for low income families with children.

People on social assistance will continue to have the federal benefit clawed back from their welfare cheques. The new provincial benefit will not be clawed back. Ontario families who are not on social assistance will get both benefits. Ontario families on social assistance will receive the Ontario benefit (which is much smaller than the federal benefit), but the McGuinty Liberals will continue to clawback the federal child tax benefit from them.

Seems like a pretty clear and easy-to-understand policy, right?

Then why is the McGuinty government trying to confuse people by claiming that the new Ontario Child Benefit will “effectively end the current clawback of up to $122 per child per month from the National Child Benefit Supplement” according to “government officials” quoted in the Toronto Star on Friday?

The answer is simple. The Liberal government promised during the 2003 election campaign to end the child tax benefit clawback from the families who need it most desperately: social assistance recipients. As with many of their other promises, they did not follow through.

The Ontario Child Benefit is a very small but welcome addition to the social safety net in Ontario for low income families. But it's a pretty big stretch to claim, as Greg Sorbara does, that this $50 per month benefit, which doesn't even start until July of 2008, “takes children off welfare.” This July, families will receive a lump sum payment of $250 per child. For those of us with calculators at home, this works out to $20.83 per month. This, Sorbara claims, “transforms the system.” Doesn't sound all that revolutionary to me.

It does not address the fact that people on social assistance are still having their federal child tax benefit taken away from them by the Ontario government. It also does not address the fact that the McGuinty Liberals have broken yet another promise.

Don't let Dalton McGuinty or Greg Sorbara try to tell you otherwise.

Michelle Langlois is on the staff of rabble.ca.

Source: Rabble website

Jury Verdict Against California CPS

March 26, 2007

A California mother has won a $4.9 million jury verdict against her local child protectors for taking her children without cause, and fabricating evidence while withholding exculpatory evidence. For those not familiar with litigation, this requires more than just convincing a jury. Before getting a jury, the lawyers have to navigate a legal minefield of motions and discovery, during which child protectors usually avoid liability by pleading one of their statutory immunities. Contrary to what the lawyers say in the press release below, this verdict may not get Orange County to implement procedures to prevent future abuses. Their first move may be to get the legislature to strengthen their immunity.

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March 26, 2007

Orange County Jury Awards Mom $4.9 Million Against Department of Social Services and its CPS Workers; Punitive Damages to Follow

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

Orange County Jury finds Orange County, its CPS workers and the Department of Social Services agency liable to mother for $4.9 million in compensatory damages for constitutional rights violations arising from interference with association with children. Punitive damages to be determined against the individual CPS workers.

San Diego, CA (PRWeb) March 25, 2007 --

RE: :

Fogarty-Hardwick v. County of Orange, et al. Superior Court of California, County of Orange Case No. 01CC02379 (Trial before Hon. Ronald L. Bauer, Dept. CX103)

On March 23, 2007, the Orange County Social Services Agency and two of its Social Workers, Marcie Vreeken and Helen Dwojak were found liable for violating the parental rights of Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, as guaranteed under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The jury found 10-2 in favor of the Plaintiff and awarded $4.9 million in economic and non-economic damages. The punitive damages phase of the trial will begin on Tuesday, March 27, 2007.

The verdict follows the filing of a civil suit for civil rights violations by Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, a mother of two minor children, against the Orange County Department of Social Services and three of its social workers. The Plaintiff Deanna Fogarty-Harwick sued defendants County of Orange, Orange County Social Services Agency, Marcie Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and Helen Dwojak.

The Jury found against the Plaintiff and for Defendant Elaine Wilkins, by a 10-2 jury vote.

This case was brought by Plaintiff against Defendants to recover damages arising from Defendants alleged violations of Ms. Fogarty's constitutional rights to raise and associate with her children, free from governmental interference.

Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick alleged that social workers Marcie Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and Helen Dwojak caused Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick's children to be removed from her custody without cause, and continued to detain them without cause, violating Ms. Fogarty-Harwick's Constitutional right to familial association. Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick alleged that these defendants, while working as social workers for Orange County Social Services, intentionally fabricated evidence to obtain a court order to detain Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick's two young daughters on February 17, 2000. Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick also alleged that Orange County Social Services, Marcie Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and Helen Dwojak maliciously failed to provide the court with exculpatory information, and filed false reports in furtherance of the effort to keep Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick separated from her children.

The second civil rights claim alleged that the policies, practices, or procedures employed by Orange County Social Services and the County of Orange in the removal of Plaintiff's children from her care also violated Ms. Fogarty-Harwick's constitutional rights, under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and to raise and associate with her children free from governmental interference. The unlawful policies, practices or procedures pertained to the detention of children without a finding of imminent danger or serious physical injury; interviewing children without a parent present; continuing detention after learning there was no basis to do so; using trickery and fabricated evidence; and failing to adequately train employees regarding the Constitutional rights of parents.

Lead trial attorney Shawn A. McMillan states "My client Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick, is satisfied by the Jury's recognition of the harm that the defendants caused her. But, obviously, no amount of money can ever undo the damage inflicted upon Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick or her children. We expect the Jury's 4.9 million dollar verdict will cause the County of Orange and its Department of Social Services to implement procedures to prevent future abuses by County social workers and protect other families."

San Diego Lawyer Shawn A. McMillan, of the Law Offices of Shawn A. McMillan, was trial counsel in the case. Attorney Sondra S. Sutherland was co-counsel.

For additional information, contact:

Shawn A. McMillan, Esq.
THE LAW OFFICES OF SHAWN A. McMILLAN, A.P.C.
4955 Via Lapiz
San Diego, California 92122
Telephone: (858) 646-0069
Facsimile: (206) 600-4582
Website: www.mcmillan-law.com

PRESS RELEASE DISTRIBUTED BY WWW.FEARNOTLAW.COM

Source: eMediaWire press release website

Family Saved by Recordings

March 25, 2007

Here is some good news from Canada Court Watch, which as usual withholds the names of the family.

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Tape recording CAS workers pays off for one family

(March 24, 2007) A family called Court Watch today to thank them for the advice about how to covertly record CAS workers. CAS workers had made promises they did not keep and refused to close the family's file even when the parents had met all conditions laid out by CAS workers. At first, CAS workers tried to jerk the family around and said that they were not going to close the file. When the parents showed the workers the hidden video and audio surveillance recording devices and advised workers that everything that workers had said since the day the file the file opened had been recorded, including previous commitments by workers, the CAS workers left the home with their tails between their legs. The parents were then advised the next day that their file would be quietly and immediately closed. Of course, the CAS workers involved did not want the evidence of their unprofessional actions to be found out. The parents plan to personally sue to workers involved using video and audio recordings as their evidence.

Court Watch receives many complaints from children and parents about CAS workers fabricating false information and lying in court documents. Electronically recording CAS workers will help put to a stop to this. All families dealing with CAS are highly encouraged to covertly record all of their conversations with CAS workers. If CAS workers are honest and doing their jobs professionally, the workers should have nothing to worry about. Recording will make people accountable for their actions and words.

Source: Canada Court Watch

Experiment on Girls

March 24, 2007

This week's federal budget includes $300 million for a vaccine, Gardasil, against HPV.

Budget pledges billions for provinces, environment

Kady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Mar 19, 2007 | 6:42 pm EST

other budget items omitted

Slightly more contentious may be the $300-million earmarked for the provinces to vaccinate girls and women against HPV - the sexually-transmitted virus responsible for 70% of cervical cancers. In recent weeks, several American states have been forced to back down from making the vaccine mandatory after social conservatives objected to it on the grounds that it could promote promiscuity.

Source: MacLeans

In the days when contagious disease killed half of all children before age of majority, vaccines, even dangerous ones, were a godsend. For Gardasil, the benefit is not so clear. It helps only sexually promiscuous women and even among them, only a small proportion die of HPV induced cancer. Gardasil is new, and long-term dangers are unknown. If it causes some hitherto unknown pathology, it could do more harm than good. Canadians will have no choice in the matter. The presence of CAS alleging "medical neglect" will make Gardasil mandatory for all Canadian girls.

Gardasil is not cheap. Vaccination for one girl costs several hundred dollars just for the drug. In this case the drug company, Merck, has aimed its promotional efforts at legislators instead of consumers. The Conservative government led by Stephen Harper, which started out on the right foot by cutting public funding for daycare in favor of more money for parents, now seems to have shifted back to the old policies of strengthening the medical and social services systems at the expense of families.

Girl Killed with Drugs

March 24, 2007

The death of Rebecca Riley has been in the news for three months, finally there is a thoughtful article dealing with her case. She died from prescribed psychiatric drugs. The parents were the kind who took advice from doctors uncritically, and may even have tried to help their child by giving her more than the doctor ordered. Rather than deal with the failings of the drug-pushing system, prosecutors have taken the easy route and blamed the hapless parents.

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Girl's overdose death raises questions

By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press WriterFri Mar 23, 7:02 PM ET

AP Photo: Michael Riley, 34, left, and his wife, Carolyn Riley, 32, are shown in Hingham District...

In the final months of Rebecca Riley's life, a school nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a "floppy doll." The preschool principal had to help Rebecca off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly. And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca's mother kept coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more and more medication. None of their concerns was enough to save Rebecca.

Rebecca — who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity and bipolar disorder, or what used to be called manic depression — died Dec. 13 of an overdose of prescribed drugs, and her parents have been arrested on murder charges, accused of intentionally overmedicating their daughter to keep her quiet and out of their hair.

Interviews and a review of court documents by The Associated Press make it clear that many of those who were supposed to protect Rebecca — teachers, social workers, other professionals — suspected something was wrong, but never went quite far enough.

But the tragic case is more than a story about one child. It raises troubling, larger questions about the state of child psychiatry, namely: Can children as young as Rebecca be accurately diagnosed with mental illnesses? Are rambunctious youngsters being medicated for their parents' convenience? And should children so young be prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs meant for adults?

Dispensing drugs to children diagnosed with mood or behavior problems is "the easiest thing to do, but it's not always the best thing to do," said Dr. Jon McClellan, medical director of the Child Study and Treatment Center in Lakewood, Wash. "At some level, I would hope that you'd also be teaching kids ways to control their behavior."

According to the medical examiner, Rebecca died of a combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication Rebecca had been prescribed for ADHD; Depakote, an antiseizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for the little girl's bipolar disorder; a cough suppressant; and an antihistamine. The amount of Clonidine alone in Rebecca's system was enough to be fatal, the medical examiner said.

The two brand-name prescription drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in adults only, though doctors can legally prescribe them to youngsters and do so frequently.

Rebecca's parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, say they were only following doctor's orders. Rebecca, they told police, had been diagnosed when she was just 2 1/2, and Rebecca's psychiatrist prescribed the same potent drugs that had been prescribed for her older brother and sister when she diagnosed them with the same illnesses several years earlier.

But Rebecca's teachers, the school nurse and her therapist all told police they never saw behavior in Rebecca that fit her diagnoses, such as aggression, sharp mood swings or hyperactivity.

Prosecutors say the Rileys intentionally tried to quiet their daughter with high doses of Clonidine. Relatives told police the Rileys called Clonidine the "happy medicine" and the "sleep medicine."

Through their attorneys, Michael Riley, 34, and Carolyn Riley, 32, have accused Rebecca's psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, of over-prescribing medication.

Kifuji did not return calls for comment and declined to be interviewed. But Kifuji has vehemently denied any role in Rebecca's death. She has agreed to a suspension of her license while the state's medical board investigates.

Kifuji told police Rebecca had been her patient since August 2004, when she was 2. She said she based her diagnoses of ADHD and bipolar disorder on the family's mental health history, as described by Carolyn Riley, and Rebecca's behavior, as described by Carolyn and briefly observed by her during office visits.

Kifuji told police she became alarmed in October 2005 when Carolyn Riley told her she had increased Rebecca's nighttime dose of Clonidine from 2 to 2 1/2 tablets, and warned Carolyn the increased dose could kill Rebecca.

But Carolyn told investigators Kifuji told her she could give Rebecca and her sister extra Clonidine at night to help them sleep.

Tufts-New England Medical Center, where Kifuji worked, issued a statement supporting Kifuji, saying her care of Rebecca "was appropriate and within responsible professional standards."

In the months leading up to Rebecca's death, others noticed there was something wrong.

Teachers and staff members at the Johnson Early Childhood Center in Weymouth, about 20 miles south of Boston, say they called Rebecca's mother repeatedly to tell her that Rebecca was "out of it," but her mother said the girl was tired because she wasn't sleeping well.

A neighbor who lived next door to the family in the last month of Rebecca's life said Rebecca and her siblings seemed listless.

"They looked like little robots. They looked very lethargic," Phyllis Lipton said. "I said, `Wow, they don't look right,' but who knew?"

Pharmacists at Walgreens in Weymouth called Kifuji twice to complain that Carolyn Riley was asking for more Clonidine, even though her prescription was not due to be refilled yet, according to state police.

Once, Riley said she had lost a bottle of pills, and another time, she said water had gotten into her prescription bottle and ruined the pills, according to police.

Kifuji authorized refills, but after the second incident, she began prescribing Clonidine in 10-day refills instead of 30-day supplies, investigators said.

On Aug. 16, a prescription for 35 Clonidine tablets — a 10-day supply — was filled at Walgreens, even though the Rileys had obtained a 10-day refill only the day before, investigators said.

Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said: "The scrip was filled as written, as it was prescribed by the doctor, and all the appropriate information on the medications was given to the family."

After Rebecca's death, police found only seven Clonidine tablets in the family's medicine tray; the pharmacist said there should have been 75. All together, prosecutors say, Carolyn Riley got 200 more pills in one year than she should have.

The Rileys' lawyers call them unsophisticated people who did not question their children's doctors.

Both were unemployed; they collected welfare and disabilty benefits and lived in subsidized housing. Michael Riley, who is also awaiting trial on charges of molesting a stepdaughter in 2005, claimed to suffer from bipolar disorder and a rage disorder; his wife told police she suffered from depression and anxiety.

"They are not the sort of people who go on the Internet and look on WebMD. These are the sort of people who, when they go to a doctor, the doctor is God and they do what the doctor says," said John Darrell, Michael's lawyer.

Carolyn's lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, said that because the Rileys' three children were all taking Clonidine, Rebecca's prescription may have come up short at times when her siblings were given some of her pills. And some of the pills may have been lost when they were split in half, he said.

In July, after a therapist filed a complaint with the state Department of Social Services, social workers met with the family's doctors and other medical professionals and were assured that the medications Rebecca was taking were within medical guidelines.

"There were lots of medical eyes on this case and none of them seemed to say there was an issue of over-medication in this case," said Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence, who has come under fire for the agency's handling of the case.

Still, there were lingering concerns. When social workers tried to make a home visit in November, Carolyn "resisted and evaded," Spence said. Weeks later, workers resolved to make a surprise check, but Rebecca died the very next day, before they could visit.

Rebecca was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom wearing only a pink pull-up diaper and gold-stud earrings, on top of a pile of clothes, magazines and a stuffed brown bear.

Rebecca's uncle, James McGonnell, and his girlfriend, Kelly Williams, who lived with the Rileys, told police that the Rileys would put their kids to bed as early as 5 p.m. Rebecca, they said, often slept through the day and got up only to eat.

When Michael Riley decided the kids were "acting up," he told Carolyn to give them pills, McGonnell and Williams told police.

According to McGonnell and Williams, Rebecca spent the last days of her life wandering around the house, sick and disoriented. But the Rileys told police they were not alarmed. "It was just a cold," Carolyn repeatedly said during police interviews.

The medical examiner said Rebecca died a slow and painful death. She said the overdose of Clonidine caused her organs to shut down, filling her lungs with fluid and causing congestive heart failure.

Williams told police that the night before she died, Rebecca was pale and seemed "out of it." At one point, the little girl knocked weakly on her parents' bedroom door and softly called for her mommy, but Michael Riley opened the door a crack and yelled at her to go back to her room, Williams said.

Later that night, McGonnell told police, he heard someone struggling to breathe and found Rebecca gurgling as if something was stuck in her throat. McGonnell told police he wiped vomit from his niece's face, then kicked in the door to her parents' room and yelled at the Rileys to take Rebecca to the emergency room.

Instead, Carolyn Riley said, she gave her daughter a half-tablet of Clonidine.

Carolyn's mother, Valerie Berio, said that when she visited the kids the night of Dec. 11, Rebecca seemed congested but not seriously ill. In a photograph Berio said she took that night, Rebecca is smiling slightly as her mother holds a new green velvet dress in front of her.

Berio said that shows that her daughter and son-in-law could not have known how sick Rebecca was.

Rebecca's death has inflamed a long-running debate in psychiatry. Some psychiatrists believe bipolar disorder, which was traditionally diagnosed in adolescence or early adulthood, has become a trendy diagnosis in young children.

"As a clinician, I can tell you it's just very difficult to say whether someone is just throwing tantrums or has bipolar disorder," said Dr. Oscar B. Bukstein, a child psychiatrist and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

A study of mentally ill children discharged from community hospitals, published in January in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found the proportion of children diagnosed with bipolar disorders jumped from 2.9 percent in 1990 to 15.1 percent in 2000.

A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002 estimated that about 7 percent of elementary school-age children — or approximately 1.6 million youngsters ages 6 to 11 — have been diagnosed with ADHD.

The annual number of U.S. children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs jumped fivefold between 1995 and 2002, to an estimated 2.5 million, according to a study published last year by researchers at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.

Some child psychiatrists say bipolar disorder may have been under-diagnosed in children for years, partly because several key symptoms are also symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity, distractibility and talkativeness.

Dr. Janet Wozniak, director of the Pediatric Bipolar Disorder Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, said early diagnosis and treatment are critical because the illness can cause social and academic problems, and lead to drug abuse, crime and suicide.

"What's commonly overlooked when considering diagnosing and treating children at such an early age is the risk of not treating and not intervening," Wozniak said.

Source: Yahoo news

Addendum: A comment published in the Boston Globe suggests that the power of the phamacological establishment is so great it is a threat to the career of any of its critics.

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The Boston Globe

Misguided standards of care

By Lawrence Diller | June 19, 2007

AS A doctor, I did the nearly unthinkable at a recent conference on bipoloar disorder in children. I charged another doctor with moral responsibility in the death last December of Rebecca Riley, a 4 -year-old girl from Hull. Naming names in medicine is just not done very often -- and I knew the personal and professional risks I was taking. Yet I felt compelled to name Joseph Biederman, head of the Massachusetts General Hospital's Pediatric Psychopharmacology clinic, as morally culpable in providing the "science" that allowed Rebecca to die.

Rebecca's parents have been jailed and charged in her death. They are accused of intentionally overdosing her with clonidine, an anti hypertensive and sedative drug -- one of three psychiatric medications prescribed by a Tufts-New England Medical Center child psychiatrist. Rebecca had been treated with these medications since the age of 2 1/2 for the purported diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- the new name for manic-depression.

While the psychiatrist involved has withheld comment on the case, both her lawyer and the medical center have defended her actions as "within the standards of care." Biederman and his colleagues at Harvard are the professionals most responsible for developing and promoting those standards of care -- which include diagnosing preschool children as young as 2 with bipolar disorder and treating them with multiple medications.

Biederman shocked the child psychiatric world in 1996 by announcing that nearly a quarter of the children he was treating for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also met his criteria for bipolar disorder. Up until then bipolar disorder was rarely diagnosed in teenagers and unheard of in prepubertal children. Biederman could justify his findings by simply broadening the semantic definitions of a previously more circumscribed condition contained within American psychiatry's bible -- the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders."

Biederman has produced a number of studies and papers purporting to demonstrate the validity of his diagnosis and treatment. His research has always epitomized the best of what the DSM model of psychiatry could expect. But the diagnoses in the manual, in concept, are closely linked to the medical model of biologically based psychiatric disorders and focus exclusively on the individual.

While the manual provides helpful clinical guidance in adults, it begins to unravel with its assumptions about discrete and specific disorders in children and ignores the families and environments in which children live. The ultimate absurdity of this scientific model is diagnosing bipolar disorder in 2 year olds and linking it to the adult disorder with the same name -- in the process saddling young children as chronic mental patients condemned to a lifetime of psychiatric drugs.

Even the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry -- in its recent parameters on the diagnosis in children -- eschews the bipolar diagnosis and its consequent medical treatment in children under 6. Still there are thousands of potential Rebecca Rileys being treated with multiple psychiatric drugs because Biederman has said it's OK and necessary. Supported by millions of dollars of drug industry promotional funding, Biederman and his colleagues circle the globe offering professional medical "education" for their singular point of view.

Finally, it's sad but true -- the field of child psychiatry is afraid of Biederman. One can hear the worries and fears whispered in the academic halls and clinics over where Biederman has taken the profession. Yet to politely challenge Biederman in public is to risk public retribution and ridicule from him and his team. Also academic researchers in child psychiatry risk losing their funding if they criticize this darling of the pharmaceutical industry, which provides most of the money these days for psychiatric research.

The silence was deafening -- and Rebecca's death pushed me over the edge -- because for over a decade I've have been uncomfortable about these practices in young children. I am not against psychiatric drugs for children. I've written prescriptions for children for 30 years in a clinical practice not tied to the drug industry.

I risk personal censure and loss of credibility in an advocacy for a broader concept and treatment for children with behavior problems in naming this doctor. But this time, Dr. Biederman, you have gone far.

Dr. Lawrence Diller practices behavioral/developmental pediatrics in Walnut Creek, Calif., and is the author of "The Last Normal Child: Essays on the Intersection of Kids, Culture and Psychiatric Drugs."

Source: Boston Globe

Addendum: The judicial system has run its course, convicting mother Carolyn Riley, and not even touching the pharmacological establishment that armed the mother with the deadly drugs. The jury was probably not told that once a doctor prescribed medications, failure to administer the drugs was medical neglect, justification for taking custody away from the mother. Charges are still pending against the father, who was court-enjoined from living with his doomed daughter.

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The Boston Globe

Mother convicted in girl’s drug death

Gets life sentence, possibility of parole

By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff / February 10, 2010

A South Shore mother was found guilty yesterday of second-degree murder in the death of her 4-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who went to sleep one night after being given toxic levels of psychotropic drugs and never woke up.

Carolyn Riley, 35, showed no visible emotion when the 12-member jury returned the verdict after 19 hours of deliberations in Plymouth Superior Court. Riley, her upper chest displaying a “Rebecca 12-13-06’’ tattoo that reflected her daughter’s date of death, was handcuffed as soon as the word guilty was uttered by the jury forewoman.

Before sentencing, Judge Charles Hely permitted the reading of a letter from Ashley Davidson, 17, Riley’s first biological daughter, who as a toddler was removed from her mother’s care, placed in a foster home, and eventually adopted. The teenager condemned her mother for the cruel fate she delivered Rebecca, as well as the tormenting memories left for her and Rebecca’s two other siblings, ages 14 and 9, now both in foster homes.

“When I think that you are my biological mother, I sometimes wonder if it is in my blood. Will I grow up to be a mother like you?’’ said the letter, read by her adoptive father, Bob Davidson.

Riley, who has an additional tattoo on her arm with the name Ashley, listened and stared at the floor.

The judge sentenced her to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after 15 years, the mandatory punishment for a second-degree murder conviction. It was one of the lesser offenses that the jury of eight women and four men was allowed to consider in this first-degree murder case.

As officers led Riley out of the courtroom, she looked at her mother, Valerie Berio, a constant presence in the 3 1/2-week trial who was sobbing among the spectators. Riley quietly wept as she was taken our to be transported to MCI-Framingham.

While Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz praised the verdict as “a small measure of justice for Rebecca,’’ the mother’s defense lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, said the decision, which he plans to appeal, reflects the jury’s judgment of “what kind of a mother she was,’’ as opposed to the evidence in the case.

He had argued to jurors that medical evidence showed that Rebecca died of fast-acting pneumonia, not drugs, and that the mother gave medications based on the sometimes-flexible instructions of her child’s psychiatrist.

Riley’s husband - Michael Riley, 37 - will be tried separately on the same charges, and his case is scheduled to go to trial next month unless yesterday’s result leads to a plea bargain.

Rebecca’s case attracted national attention to the expanding use and potential abuse of giving psychotropic drugs to very young children. When Rebecca died, she and her two older siblings, Gerard and Kaitlynne Riley, were each on three potent psychiatric medications for bipolar and hyperactivity disorders. Each of them went on the drugs at age 2.

Prosecutors say Carolyn and Michael Riley, Weymouth High School graduates who had been living briefly in Hull when Rebecca died, deliberately sought the psychiatric drugs for their three children to scam their local Social Security office into approving disability benefits.

But behind the twists of the case is the all-too-familiar tale of a deeply troubled, financially strapped couple whose capacity to harm their children became catastrophically evident - to their many doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, and social workers - only when it was too late.

The prosecutors, Frank J. Middleton Jr. and Heather Bradley, depicted Carolyn Riley as an unusual form of child abuser, a woman who used three sedating medications, including Depakote, Seroquel, and clonidine, to control her energetic toddlers and induce sleep.

Remarkably, prosecutors said, Carolyn Riley managed to obtain the drugs routinely through prescriptions from Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, a Tufts Medical Center psychiatrist who faces a medical malpractice lawsuit in the death and agreed to testify only after being granted immunity from prosecution.

On the night Rebecca received her fatal overdose, her father, who had been prone to violent outbursts, became irate about the child’s pleas to be with her mother. Rebecca had been battling a respiratory illness for days, and that night, according to housemates, Rebecca kept trying to enter her parents’ bedroom, moaning, “Mommy, Mommy.’’

Prosecutors said that the mother, whom they portrayed as routinely putting her husband’s needs above her children’s, went to the pill dispensers in their Hull home. That night, the state said, Carolyn Riley gave the coughing and feverish child as much as twice the girl’s daily dosages of clonidine at once, the equivalent of seven tablets of .1 milligram each.

Rebecca’s lifeless body, clad only in a pull-up diaper with a teddy bear beneath her head, was discovered by her mother around 6 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2006, next to her parents’ bed.

Her defense lawyers, however, portrayed Carolyn Riley as an overwhelmed mother deserving of sympathy, a former foster child who was doing her best to raise a family in which the adults and children all had mental health problems.

If the mother had some lapses, her lawyers said, they had to be viewed in light of the difficult choices of a woman struggling with poverty and a domineering husband.

In the year before Rebecca died, Michael Riley saw the children sporadically. He was barred from living with the family in a Weymouth housing development because he had been charged with trying to sexually assault and show pornographic pictures to Ashley during one of her visits with the family.

The father, who was convicted of only the pornography charge and served a 2 1/2-year prison term that ended this year, remains behind bars awaiting his trial in the death of Rebecca.

The attachment of Carolyn Riley to her husband was a recurring theme in the lengthy trial. As the mother waited over three days for a verdict, sitting on a bench reading a romance novel and playing games on her cellphone, she responded readily to reporters’ questions.

When asked about the prosecutor’s argument that she and her husband wanted only to maximize their disability benefits, the mother, who speaks with a soft, girlish voice, disputed that point. She said that Social Security awards more money in total to a couple who file as unmarried singles.

But, she said that she and Michael, together for more than 15 years, chose to remain true to their status as a wedded couple.

“We would have gotten more money if we weren’t married,’’ she said.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.

Source: Boston Globe

Cole Norris Busted

March 24, 2007

justiceseeker has posted several videos on YouTube of the harassment of Cole Norris by police. An attempt to enroll Cole in school resulted in a call to the police. A later video "Police search for Cole Norris", shows five police cars surrounding the family home.

On the video Cathy Norris says that, when visiting the CAS office the day before, she went out for a cigarette and she and Cole were locked out of the building. Cole did not want to wait to go back in. Cathy describes what happened next with the clear words: "He took off". Twice the policeman misquoted her, claiming she said "We took off".

Addendum: Three more videos were added the next day. In part 1, 15 year old tells cops, the police find out that Tyson missed a year of school and orthodontic treatment on account of CAS intervention. In Part Two. Police harass 15 year old boy. Want to fingerprint, police accuse Tyson of being an impostor, and try to get fingerprints or a DNA sample. In part three after police question passers-by on the street, a Brantford CAS worker confirms Tyson's identity. As of now, Cole has no known roof over his head, and subject to harm by exposure. All in the best interest of the child.

Complaint on Membership List

March 21, 2007

John Dunn, earlier denied the membership list for his local children's aid society, has filed a complaint with the Law Society of Upper Canada. Getting the membership list was an adjunct to an application for membership, also denied. The members elect the board of directors, who operate the society. Whether he succeeds or fails, he has already demonstrated that membership is futile as a means of bringing about reform from within. Claims by CAS proponents that the board of directors is a control over the agency are baseless.

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Ottawa, ON, March 20, 2007: CAS Ottawa committed the offence of violating section 307 (5) of the Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C-38 by not providing a list of the Society's members upon request in accordance with section 307 (1) of the Act..

Complaints have been filed under Rule 2 of the Rules of Professional Conduct with the Law Society of Upper Canada against the following Lawyers in connection with the offence. (documents)

Robert C. Morrow, a Lawyer working with Burke-Robertson Barristers & Solicitors in Ottawa who appears to have acted as retained lawyer by CAS in this matter and particpated in the committing of the offence.

Tracey Engelking, a Lawyer employed by the offending Children's Aid Society of Ottawa who was made aware of the Society's decision to commit the offence.

Rick O'Connor, a Lawyer who acted as the Children's Aid Society's Board of Directors' Vice President who also actively and aggressively participated in the Society's offence.

Source: afterfostercare website, by John Dunn

Monster of the Month

March 21, 2007

In the case below, Marie-Emilie Chartier was convicted of kidnapping for taking her children to Sweden in defiance of a family court order. This makes sense to anyone who believes the legal system is a better guardian of children than mom and dad.

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Mother found guilty of abducting own children

Paula McCooey, The Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday, March 20, 2007

A jury has found a 36-year-old woman guilty of child abduction related to an incident when the mother took her four children on a trip to Sweden in March 2005, contrary to a custody order.

Marie-Emilie Chartier was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant and she sparked international police alerts after boarding an international flight from Montreal to Sweden on March 15, while the children were legally in the care of their grandmother, who lives in Ottawa.

A date for her sentencing hearing was to be set Tuesday afternoon.

Marie-Emilie Chartier was found guilty of child abduction.

CREDIT: Nicki Corrigall, The Ottawa Citizen

Last October, another jury found the woman guilty of four counts of making false statements on a passport application.

They found that on Jan. 28, 2005, Ms. Chartier applied for passports for herself and the children, disregarding the section of the passport application that requires applicants to say whether they are involved in any legal proceedings related to custody or access to children.

Ms. Chartier will be sentenced on April 25 for those offences.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

Addendum: Here is the news of the sentencing:

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April 3, 2007

Child-abduction mom given conditional sentence

By SEAN MCKIBBON, COURT BUREAU

A mother convicted of child abduction and making false statements on a passport application will spend the next 15 months on a conditional sentence.

"Merci," said Marie Chartier, 36, meekly after receiving her sentence from Justice Robert Maranger.

Chartier was convicted last month of child abduction in her third trial relating to an March 2005 incident in which she took her kids to Sweden to seek political asylum in contravention of a custody arrangement.

Maranger ordered Chartier to seek employment, not be in possession of passports or passport applications and to perform 100 hours of community service if she can't hold down work.

Maranger also imposed two years of probation following the conditional sentence.

The sentence doesn't quite put a final chapter on Chartier's odyssey through the courts. She's back in court on April 25 to be sentenced on the passport offences.

Chartier's first trial in April 2006 ended in a mistrial when she fired her lawyer and complained that the jury was not representative of the Canadian population.

A second trial in October 2006 ended with a conviction on all four counts of making a false statement on a passport application.

Source: Ottawa Sun

Addendum: That wasn't enough for caring for your own kids. Here is more sentencing.

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Mother in abduction case sentenced to 6 more months for false passport statements

Paula McCooey, Ottawa Citizen, Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A mother who was handed a 15-month conditional sentence earlier this month on child abduction charges, was given a consecutive six-month sentence Wednesday for making false statements on a passport when she took her four children overseas in contravention of a court order.

Marie-Emilie Chartier, convicted of child abduction in March, was wanted on a Canadawide warrant after boarding a flight from Montreal to Sweden on March 15, 2005.

At the time, her children were legally in their grandmother’s care.

She surrendered to Swedish authorities in early May 2005 and returned with her children to Canada a week later.

Last October, another jury found her guilty on four counts of making false statements on a passport application.

When she applied for passports for herself and her children on Jan. 28, 2005, she disregarded a section in the forms requiring applicants to say whether they are involved in legal proceedings related to custody or access to children.

The Crown suggested four to six months in jail, while the defence asked for a suspended sentence with probation or a conditional sentence.

While Justice Albert Roy did not impose a curfew for Ms. Chartier’s first conditional sentence, he did so Wednesday.

She will be required to stay inside her home from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. for the first three months of her second sentence, which will be followed by one year’s probation. She is also ordered to follow whatever counselling her probation officer suggests to help her understand how to make better choices with regard to her children.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

Addendum: October 2007. The courts finally seem to be through with punishing this mother.

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October 19, 2007

No change in mom's sentence

By MEGAN GILLIS, SUN MEDIA

The province's appeal court has agreed that a judge didn't punish an Ottawa woman who abducted her four kids enough when he gave her a conditional sentence without even a curfew.

But the judges still dismissed an appeal of Marie Emilie Chartier's sentence by the Attorney General of Ontario, arguing justice wouldn't be served by changing the sentence because she's already served much of it.

"There is no doubt that Parliament intended the imposition of a conditional sentence to be more punitive than probation, and to be more restrictive of the offender's liberty," the judges wrote.

"Thus, except in rare cases, a conditional sentence must carry with it some form of punitive terms, such as house arrest and/or a curfew."

The appeal court judges agreed that the judge erred but noted that Chartier had served six weeks in jail before her trial and was sentenced to more punitive terms for lying on an application for her children's passports.

FLED IN 2005

"We are not persuaded that justice would not be served by interfering with the sentence imposed," the justices concluded.

A Canada-wide arrest warrant was issued for Chartier in March of 2005 when she fled with her children, aged 5, 6, 8 and 12, of whom she'd lost custody in November 2004. Her mother was their guardian.

Chartier surrendered after surfacing in Sweden in May of that year and returned to Canada.

A jury convicted Chartier, 36, of four counts of child abduction in March. She was given a 15-month conditional sentence and two years of probation.

She was also later given a six-month sentence and a year of probation for the passport offences, which included a curfew between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. for the first three months.

Source: Ottawa Sun

Mom of the Month

March 21, 2007

Can you tell the brand of dishwasher detergent by taste? One of the foster kids in this story can. Another was confined to a wheel chair so the foster mom could get more pay. It is unusual for foster moms to be as sadistic as Eunice Spry, but common for foster moms to be meaner than the natural moms the children came from. Foster homes do not deserve the moniker "place of safety".

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Sadistic foster mother's 19-year reign of terror

20.03.07

Eunice Spry regularly beat and starved children in her care

A foster mother was found guilty today of subjecting three young children to a "horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment".

Eunice Spry, 62, routinely beat, abused and starved the youngsters in her care over a 19 year period.

The devout Jehovah's Witness forced sticks down their throats and made them eat their own vomit and rat excrement.

As punishment for misbehaving, she would beat them on the soles of their feet and force them to drink washing up liquid and bleach.

Spry, a pillar of her local community in Gloucestershire, staunchly denied all the claims made against her and insisted the only physical punishment she ever used was "a smack on the bottom".

But a jury at Bristol Crown Court convicted of a series of charges.

During the four-week trial the jury heard some harrowing evidence detailing how Spry had subjected the children to a regime of abuse.

The child's hand has been rubbed raw with sandpaper

The three victims, known as Victim A, B and C, all gave evidence describing how their daily routines were punctuated by random acts of bizarre and sadistic violence at the hands of their foster mother.

Kerry Barker, prosecuting, told how Victim A, now aged 21, was imprisoned in a wheelchair by the woman following a car crash.

Spry had tried to stop Victim A from trying to walk again following the crash so she could get more compensation money.

Victim B, also 21, told how her foster mother would pull her hair and shove her face in her pet dog's faeces as punishment.

Victim C, now 18, described how his foster mother held his hand down on a hot electric hob until it was left looking like a "gooey mess".

He said he had been force-fed so much washing up liquid by Spry that he could now differentiate between the brands on taste alone.

The offences took place in two of Spry's homes in Gloucestershire between 1986 and 2005. Mr Barker, had told the jury: "On hearing the indictment the word that probably sticks in your mind is cruelty.

"That is what this case is about. It is a history of cruelty by Eunice Spry who was an adoptive mother over a long period of time."

Face injuries of Victim A

The abuse was finally discovered after another Jehovah's Witness secretly confronted the wheelchair-bound Victim A about marks to her head caused when Spry rubbed sandpaper over her face.

Victim A finally plucked up the courage to report her foster mother to the police who quickly interviewed Victim B and C.

Mr Barker added: "The outcome of the interviews was a horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment.

"Most of the acts were carried out as punishment; others were inexplicable acts of cruelty."

He said the children would be regularly punished for minor acts of misbehaviour.

Mr Barker explained: "They were made to eat lard and drink washing up liquid poured down their throats.

They called it home: Spry's foster children lived in squalor, with little in the way of comforts

"If they were sick (she) would make them eat the vomit and they were made to eat rat excrement."

He said that Spry would regularly beat the children on the soles of the feet with a "variety of sticks".

They would be "punched kicked and strangled", and if they cried the sticks would be forced down their throats.

Mr Barker said Spry used unusual punishments such as making the children lean against the side of a wall.

The bedrooms in which Eunice Spry's foster children slept were strewn with rubbish

If they moved, the soles of their feet would again be beaten with the sticks.

Full cans of food would be thrown directly in their faces and they would have their heads forcibly held under the water while in the bath.

Victim A told how when she was a young girl her foster mother had fixed a sign to the back of one her dress to cause embarrassment in public. The message read: "This child is evil. Do not look at her or talk to her. She wets the bed and is an attention seeker."

Victim A was involved in a serious traffic accident in 2000. Doctors told the girl, who suffered horrific injuries, that she would be confined to a wheelchair for up to six months after the crash.

But medical experts who examined her soon found there was no physical reason why she could not walk.

Spry refused a series of tests to find out what was behind the girl's mysterious condition and deliberately hindered her recuperation in a cynical bid to maximise the compensation payout she could get from insurers.

In 2004, Child A fled from her foster mother and walked on the very same day. She later confessed that Spry had forced her to remain in the wheelchair since 2000.

Mr Barker said on one occasion Spry had forced Child C to place his hand over an electric ring on a cooker causing blistering.

He added that Spry was able to conceal her alleged reign of abuse as the children were home taught and not sent to school.

She has also terrified the children so much with her ritualistic abuse that they were too frightened to alert the authorities.

Spry covered her tracks by forbidding them to be examined on their own by doctors or dentists. She maintained her innocence throughout police interviews and during the subsequent trial.

Source: London Evening Standard

Record CAS Meetings

March 19, 2007

The greatest fear of social services is exposure. They fight tooth and nail to stay out of the press, and they fear video and audio recording of their actions. Today's discussion on Sarnia's Smoking Gun shows just how great is their fear of recordings. Readers with revealing recordings should forward them to Dufferin VOCA or Canada Court Watch for posting to the internet.

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Topic: Brant cas worker complains about "COURTWATCH"

Rob Ferguson wrote:

Late last week I was contacted by two parents with very similar stories. It seems that a CAS worker in Brantford has put up a fight against Canadacourtwatch's teaching of recording court and cas meetings. One parent produced an affidavit suggesting indeed the worker has fears of the practice of recording meetings. I advised both parents to continue the good fight and contact Brant MPP (for now) Dave Levac.

litigator answered:

Maybe the Brant CAS worker would like to complain about Litigator supporting recording of visits and court hearings too. This is for all CAS workers reading this Board.

The public is well aware of the suggestive and leading questions used by you CAS workers when interviewing children. You frequently submit perjured evidence to the court by way of affidavit and are rarely held accountable for your actions. If you people exercised due diligence when conducting your investigations and told the truth, people would not have to record you covertly. Innocent people have nothing to hide and would not care either way about being recorded. Guilty people immediately begin complaining because they know damn well the tapes will incriminate them. So to all you workers out there, you should be interviewing children on video tape as the police do so we the parents can see the methods you use to elicit information from our children

darrensgirl answered:

My worker and supervisor had told me to stay away from Canada Court Watch saying it's giving out false information. I have a meeting sometime this week with the supervisor over the letter I wrote to them about a worker change.

Guess they didn't like the comment that the workers own personal problems are clouding her judgement.

Source: Sarnia's Smoking Gun

Kids Drugged en masse

March 17, 2007

The CTV program W-5 did a story on the drugging of Ontario children, including the role of children's aid societies as enforcers. One ten-year-old boy was arrested by police, taken in handcuffs to a group home and held down by orderlies while being forcibly injected. Social workers troll the schools looking for kids to diagnose based on junk science questionnaires. Mega-bucks change hands while children turn into zombies.

This program should bring the matter again to the attention of the Ontario legislature. It is a good opportunity to call your MPP to remind him to halt routine use of psychotropic drugs on children. A first step would be to enact pending bill 88, to give the Ombudsman authority to look into children's aid societies.

Here are two mms: links to files in .wmv format. You can give them directly to your media player.

part one 12:25
part two 8:47

If you are unable to use these links, expand the article below and click on the Source link, taking you to a CTV page with two links to an embedded viewer.

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A Convenient Diagnosis

Updated Sat. Mar. 17 2007 6:58 PM ET

Sarah Stevens, W-FIVE

When Joshua Lourie was seven, he started acting out in class. His school sent him for a psychological assessment and he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Not unusual, as estimates say that between 3 to 7 per cent of Canada's more than seven million children are diagnosed with ADHD.

Joshua Lourie was diagnosed at age 7 for ADHD, but his family believes the real problem was diabetes.

Janette at first refused to put her son on Ritalin, but that wasn't then end of the issue.

Sandra Fisman says 'There is a fashion around the diagnosis of ADHD.'

Joshua's mother Janette says, "The school had suggested that I put him on Ritalin and this is when he was about the age of six, going on seven. They put a lot of pressure on me to take him to the doctor, get him on Ritalin." She refused, but that was not the end of it.

At 10, Joshua ended up being removed from her care and placed into a juvenile facility where he was given psychiatric medicines, not just ADHD medications but antidepressants, not approved by Health Canada for use in children under 18.

For the next 18 months he was bounced around from foster care to group homes, sometimes on as many as three different drugs at a time.

Joshua's grandfather, George Lourie, believes the reason for Joshua's problem behavior was not ADHD, but diabetes. Joshua's blood sugars were out of whack, and then he was prescribed Wellbutrin, a drug with potentially dangerous side-effects for diabetics and children. Joshua collapsed in a group home while he was on the drug.

Psychiatric diagnoses often lead to the prescription of medications, never tested in or approved for use by children. As children's bodies metabolize medication differently than adults, these off-label prescriptions can leave a child feeling, at best, like a zombie or at worst, lead to suicide.

Using data received from IMS Health Canada, an agency that tracks the use of prescription medications, W-FIVE discovered that in 2006, over one million prescriptions for ADHD medications, drugs like Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta, were written for children under the age of 18. And there were over 300,000 prescriptions filled for anti-depressants (SSRIs). Some people are increasingly worried about the sheer volume of these prescriptions.

Marty McKay, a psychologist who has treated and assessed children for over 30 years, believes that "Ninety per cent of children diagnosed as ADHD are misdiagnosed and drugged for no appropriate reason." She points the finger of misdiagnosis at the school system and the psychiatric industry.

Teachers, she believes, are not qualified to make these diagnoses, but do so regularly. They are in fact being asked to assess children through the use of psychiatric rating scales in which they check off behaviors. Check off too many behaviours and it can lead to a child being diagnosed as ADHD. The next step is to refer a child for psychological assessment, which McKay says, generally just rubber-stamps a teacher's diagnosis.

Ask Joshua Lourie who should take the blame and he will tell you it's the doctors and the psychiatrists who prescribe all that medication.

Dr. Sandra Fisman of the Ontario Psychiatric Association, surprisingly, doesn't disagree with Joshua's point of view. She says, "There is a fashion around the diagnosis of ADHD." In blaming careless diagnosis, Fisman explains, " What we may be looking at is a core group who actually have the disorder and then a halo around that." She believes it is a problem that the "halo", those who do not have the disorder, are diagnosed and in many cases medicated.

Source: CTV

Addendum: For a comic reply, listen to Michael Savage in this YouTube audio-only recording.

Sally Clark R.I.P.

March 17, 2007

The following paragraphs are from the Sally Clark home page, where you can read the whole story.

Sally Clark 1965-2007

Sally Clark - victim of a miscarriage of justice

Sally Clark - Friday 16th March 2007

It is with the very greatest sadness that Sally Clark's family announces that Sally was found dead at her home this morning, having passed away during the night.

The matter is in the hands of the coroner and it is too early to provide any further information. Sally's family very much hopes that the media will refrain from making any enquiries or attempts to contact them at this painful time.

Sally, aged 42, was released in 2003 having been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 3 years, falsely accused of the murder of her two sons. Sadly, she never fully recovered from the effects of this appalling miscarriage of justice.

Sally, a qualified solicitor, was a loving and talented wife, mother, daughter and friend. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

Girl Battered in Foster Home

March 17, 2007

A Tehachapi California toddler, Savannah, had an accident at home and went to a foster home for "protection". There she was really abused. When the girl was returned to grandmother Cynthia Miller, mother Heather Yeck got to see the damage. In the story Toddler Physically Abused watch the video — it may disappear from the web in a few days.

Bargain Hunters:
Buy two babies, get 25% off!

March 17, 2007

Here is another case of babies sold for cash, with published prices, this time Samoans sold to Americans.

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Saturday, 17 Mar 2007

Samoa rocked by adoption scandal

The tiny Pacific nation of Samoa has been embroiled in an adoption scandal, with families in the United States paying thousands of dollars to adopt children who were not orphans.

Five people are being prosecuted by US authorities and two others are being sought for their part in a scandal that saw 81 children given to families in America without the full understanding of their biological parents.

It is alleged the adoption agency Focus on Children knowingly brought children into the US under false premises between March 2002 and June 2005.

Melodie Rydalch from the US Attorney in Utah said Focus on Children allegedly had American parents pay $US13,000 ($NZ19,000) to adopt a Samoan child, although there was a discount for adopting two children, which cost $US20,000. She said parents of the children in Samoa and the United States were both victims of the alleged con.

"The Samoan families (allegedly) thought that their children were being put into a programme, that they would receive letters, they would receive visits, they would stay in touch with the children and that when the children reached 18, that they would return to Samoa having had a good education and would then be able to take good care of the Samoan parents.

"On the other side, the American families thought they were orphans or that they had been relinquished by their parents and that it was a permanent adoption. Both sets of parents are victims, it is alleged," Rydalch said.

"Some of them were newborn and some of them were teenagers," she said.

The managers of the scheme, Scott and Karen Banks, as well as three other people Karalee Thornock, Coleen Bartlett and Dan Wakefield have been freed on conditions in the United States but are facing penalties as high as 20 years in jail and a $US500,000 fine.

Two other people involved who are in Samoa, Tagaloa Ieti and Julie Tuiletufuga, are being sought by US authorities.

Rydalch said no matter what the outcome of the prosecutions, the fate of the 81 children living in the United States would be determined by civil actions, which could take years.

"We have been encouraging communication between the two families," she said.

The prime minister of Samoa in a media statement said US officials had met with his government.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi's office said the country would be conducting its own investigation into the adoption scheme.

"To date, Samoa has not received any written request from the United States of America for the extradition of the two Samoa citizens who have been charged in the state of Utah. If such a request is received, Samoa will consider what assistance, if any, it can provide," he said.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was unable to immediately say whether any Australian families also had attempted to adopt children through the scheme.

A trial date for the hearing into those allegedly involved in the scheme is expected to be set early April.

Source: Fairfax Media, New Zealand

Norris Returns to Internet

March 16, 2007

An advertisement in the Kingston Whig-Standard has alerted us that Cathy Norris is back on the internet with a new site, this time with real names for all parties. The ad, already gone from the web, is:

NEW - MISSING CHILD 13 year old Cole Norris Please contact these two web sites for more information
casinternment2.com
cas911.ifrance.com

- 3/12/2007 - ID 9562015 / 10569566

International Child Abuse

March 16, 2007

In case you think Canadian child protection could not get any worse, it can. Check out this thirteen minute video titled if Americans knew. Five women — Palestinian, American, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish — tell stories of humiliation and harassment by Israeli border guards and airport security officials.

Foster Care on CHUO

March 16, 2007

John Dunn and Jessie McVicar appear on this CHUO (Ottawa) program (mp3). Both discuss their frustration in efforts to reform CAS, and John Dunn recounts his efforts to get the records of his own years in care. He also tried unsuccessfully to become a member of Ottawa CAS, and to get a list of existing members. Interspersed through the program are words and songs reminiscing Mother Jones, an American socialist of a century ago.

Boys Escape CAS

March 15, 2007

Here is another Hamilton CAS story that doesn't add up. Two boys have been missing for three months, yet there have been no police alerts, and no news other than this solitary item. No one seems serious about looking for them. Maybe they agree with us, that the boys are safer outside of CAS control.

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CCAS looking for missing boys

Mar, 15 2007 - 11:40 AM

HAMILTON (AM900 CHML) - Hamilton Police and the Catholic Children's Aid Society are looking for help finding a pair of missing boys.

14-year-old Mark Gartner and Steven Walker, also 14, were last seen in mid December.

The 2 don't know each other but officials say they disappeared at about the same time.

Gartner, who is dark skinned, 5'9", 150 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes, had been at a foster home in Hamilton for the last year.

Walker, is white, 5'2", 145 pounds with short curly brown hair and blue eyes and had only been at a foster home in Grimsby for less than a week when he vanished.

— Jay McQueen

Source: CHML
pointed out by a Dufferin VOCA reader

Addendum: The Hamilton Spectator printed pictures of the missing boys on March 16, with wording suggesting one or both were crown wards. Also below, CHML reports one of the boys was found in a place the cops did not suspect for three months — with his mom and dad. In a move out of Alice in Wonderland he can now be saved from his parents.

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Missing boy turns up

Mar, 16 2007 - 11:10 AM

HAMILTON (AM900 CHML) - One of 2 boys in the care of the Catholic Children's Aid Society who have been missing since December has been found.

14-year-old Steven Walker was found at the home of his biological parents on St. Matthews Drive yesterday afternoon.

Walker had been in a new foster home in Grimsby for less than week when he vanished in mid December.

Police say his biological father was arrested yesterday afternoon on another matter.

— Jay McQueen

Source: CHML

Erroneous Expert Can Be Sued

March 15, 2007

Dr Charles Smith, previously excused from civil liability by a court decision, can be sued for his erroneous evidence leading the incarceration of a mother accused of killing her own child.

Louise Reynolds spent two years in jail and lost a child to adoption on account of Smith's evidence. Children's aid societies currently employ expert witnesses known to favor CAS over families in almost all cases. Full permission to sue for false testimony in child protection cases could curb many of these abuses.

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Top Ontario court grants wrongly accused woman right to sue pathologist

Tobi Cohen, The Canadian Press, Wednesday, March 14, 2007

CREDIT: Global National
Louise Reynolds

TORONTO -- The Ontario Court of Appeal has paved the way for a woman who was wrongly jailed for her daughter’s death to sue the pathologist whose allegedly shoddy work sent her to jail.

Former Kingston, Ont., resident Louise Reynolds appeared before the province’s highest court last month to seek the right to sue Dr. Charles Smith.

A forensic pathologist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children at the time, Smith initially determined Reynolds’s seven-year-old daughter Sharon died of multiple stab wounds in 1997, but a later autopsy concluded the girl had been mauled by a pit bull.

A lower court denied Reynolds the right to sue Smith because he was protected by witness immunity, but a three-judge Ontario Court of Appeal panel decided that decision should be up to a trial judge.

“Essentially they decided that Dr. Smith, the claim for witness immunity that he wanted to make, couldn’t be brought at this stage,” said Peter Wardle, a lawyer for Reynolds.

“He would have to wait until there was a trial in which the judge would have all the facts and would be albe to make a decision based on those facts.”

The high court also agreed with the defence’s claim that the problems pertained more to what they called Smith’s “negligent” and “deeply flawed” role as pathologist than to his testimony as a Crown witness at her preliminary hearing.

“The claim that Louise was making was one that was not about his testimony, but was about his role in investigating a suspicious death which we think is a pretty key conclusion,” Wardle said.

“We think it’s going to make it very difficult for him again to make this argument in a lawsuit.”

Wardle said the decision could open the door “a little wider” for others who have been wrongly accused and want to hold pathologists and other experts accountable before the courts.

“Certainly the Court of Appeal was very encouraging in terms of how they dealt with our theory and our causes of action against Dr. Smith,” he said.

Some 44 of Smith’s cases, some dating back to the early 1990s, are currently under review by Ontario’s chief coroner to determine if his conclusions can be supported.

Source: canada.com

More Drugged Kids on TV

March 15, 2007

We have received a report (not on the CTV website) that the TV program W-five will air a piece on the drugging of children on Saturday March 17 at 7pm.

Foster Boy Speaks

March 14, 2007

Today we feature two video interviews, one of a foster child, the other of his mother. The videos come from the moderated website liveleak.com. The parties are only named as child Justin, mother Theresa and foster family the Greens. The protection agency is the Safe Children Coalition, operating in Florida, and the second interview mentions last year's video at the Pinellas County Courthouse by Greg Pound. We believe Mr Pound is the interviewer here as well.

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11-yr-old Child Gives Details of Abuse By Foster Parents

WARNING! GRAPHIC PICTURES OF CHILD ABUSE!

Eleven year old boy burned with cigarettes by DCF foster parents, beaten unmercifully by other kids in the foster home, all because he would not break into a person's house and steal for the foster parents. Child is tortured by being stabbed with pencils and burnt with a lighter while handcuffed. DCF Case managers were notified, but ignored the child's pleas for help. Child had a black eye, numerous injuries, was completely emaciated with his rib cage showing, yet DCF does nothing to the foster parents. The Foster mother was taking pills, smoking dope and usually passed out while the child was being abused, all for three long years with no intervention by DCF. The Mother of the abused child lost her 3 daughters and son because her husband died and she was vunerable to the DCF and the "Safe Children Coalition", as she had no funds to fight back. The "Safe Children Coalition" said her home wasn't big enough, even though she had a 5 bedroom home available. No charges were ever brought against her, but they took her kids anyway. The "Safe Children Coalition" takes children from Christian families and puts them in unsafe locations so that they can continue to be funded by your tax dollars. The "Safe Children Coalition" only takes children from poor people, as they do not have the money to fight back against the system.

link to Justin's interview

11-yr-old Child Gives Details of Abuse By Foster Parents (part 2)

Part Two - Interview with Justin's Mother: Eleven year old boy burned with cigarettes by DCF foster parents, beaten unmercifully by other kids in the foster home, all because he would not break into a person's house and steal for the foster parents. Child is tortured by being stabbed with pencils and burnt with a lighter while handcuffed. DCF Case managers were notified, but ignored the child's pleas for help. Child had a black eye, numerous injuries, was completely emaciated with his rib cage showing, yet DCF does nothing to the foster parents. The Foster mother was taking pills, smoking dope and usually passed out while the child was being abused, all for three long years with no intervention by DCF. The Mother of the abused child lost her 3 daughters and son because her husband died and she was vunerable to the DCF and the "Safe Children Coalition", as she had no funds to fight back. The "Safe Children Coalition" said her home wasn't big enough, even though she had a 5 bedroom home available. No charges were ever brought against her, but they took her kids anyway. The "Safe Children Coalition" takes children from Christian families and puts them in unsafe locations so that they can continue to be funded by your tax dollars. The "Safe Children Coalition" only takes children from poor people, as they do not have the money to fight back against the system.

link to Theresa's interview

Dubious Story

March 14, 2007

We usually ignore planted stories glorifying children aid workers, but this one does not add up. A mother was arrested for trying to kill her child. Mothers have been known to harm their own children, but how many do it with hostile witnesses in the room? Could it be that the CAS workers exaggerated the actions for effect? After all, the article says the child was not seriously hurt. We will never know, because there are no names in the story, making it impossible to verify the facts. Another day, another deceit.

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CTV.ca, March 13, 2007

The apartment building in Hamilton, Ont. where the stabbing occurred.

Hamilton mother tried to stab toddler: police

toronto.ctv.ca

A Hamilton, Ont. mother is facing attempted murder charges after she tried to stab her eight-month-old baby girl, police say.

Emergency officials were called to an apartment building on Sandford Avenue North late Tuesday morning after receiving a 911 call from Children's Aid Workers who witnessed the alleged attempting stabbing.

"They found a child in distress; the child appeared to be suffering from stab wounds," Sgt. Michael Webber told reporters.

The toddler was rushed to hospital in serious condition, but police later said she suffered only superficial wounds.

Police guard the crime scene on Tuesday.

'They found a child in distress; the child appeared to be suffering from stab wounds,' Sgt. Michael Webber told reporters.

Police said the infant is doing well, but will be kept overnight as a precautionary measure.

Another child in the household was taken into the care of the Children's Aid Society.

A 28-year-old mother was arrested and charged at the scene. Her name is not being released because the case involves the CAS.

News of the attack shocked neighbours.

"I heard about the baby and it's ignorant," said one man. "I don't know what else to say. It's just disgusting."

Residents were relieved to hear the toddler was not seriously hurt in the incident.

The Hamilton police child abuse unit is continuing to investigate.

Webber said the involvement of the aid workers is also being reviewed.

With a report from CTV's Jim Junkin and files from The Canadian Press

Source: CTV

Addendum: An investigator checked the hospital (McMaster) that takes care of injured children in Hamilton. They had no admissions on March 13. The same investigator found that the police filed no charges similar to those in the story. Below is another story from the National Post. It mentions that the mother is a deaf mute, and that she was questioned by the police. There is no mention of the technology used in the questioning.

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Mom arrested in alleged baby stabbing

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

HAMILTON - A 28-year-old Hamilton woman was charged Tuesday with the attempted murder of her infant daughter during a visit supervised by a worker from the Children's Aid Society of Hamilton.

Police were called after reports the eight-month-old girl had been stabbed by her mother, who is a deaf mute.

The infant's injuries aren't life-threatening and she's expected to be released from hospital today.

Hamilton police Staff Sgt. Dave Beech said the injury is a "cut" from a "sharp object."

Although the child's injuries aren't severe, police laid the attempted murder charge after questioning the woman.

"You have to be able to show there was intent (to kill) to lay an attempted murder charge," Beach said. "We believe there was in this case."

Police won't say why the girl and her three-year-old brother, who was also at the supervised visit, were taken by Children's Aid before Tuesday's visit.

Police declined to identify the infant or her mother, who is expected to appear in court today.

Source: National Post

Addendum: A follow-up nearly eight months later that is probably the same incident. This time they make it look like the misbehavior is the result of the mother's experiences herself in the care of CAS as a child. The press, and apparently the prosecutor, have backed off the contention that there was an attempted killing. Still no names, so we have to believe their story.

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Deaf woman sentenced to time served and a day

Assault on infant daughter blamed on dysfunctional upbringing

Barbara Brown, The Hamilton Spectator, (Nov 3, 2007)

A deaf woman was so overwhelmed and anxious about getting her children back from the Hamilton Children's Aid Society that she did the unthinkable.

While a child-protection worker and sign language interpreter sat in the next room, the 28-year-old mother carried her eight-month-old daughter into the kitchen, picked up a knife and made a small incision in the baby's chest.

The cut drew an alarming amount of blood and brought the screaming child's visit with her mother to a sudden, screeching halt.

The woman was charged with attempted murder but ultimately pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of aggravated assault.

Ontario Court Justice Marjoh Agro sentenced her yesterday to time served plus one day in jail and placed the woman on probation for the maximum three-year period.

Agro gave the woman enhanced credit for eight months of pretrial custody because her hearing loss had prevented her from taking part in rehabilitation programs.

Liza Ban, a mental health counsellor with the Canadian Hearing Society, put together a release plan for the convicted woman and found her a place to live in a second-level lodging home.

Defence lawyer Andrew Confente shed some light on what had driven his client to commit such a strange, violent act against her helpless child.

He said the woman never knew her biological father and was physically and emotionally abused as a child by a mother, who suffered with schizophrenia compounded by alcoholism.

His client had a brother but was the only deaf person in her family.

"She felt very lonely growing up because there was no effort on the part of any other family member to learn sign language," said Confente.

"She was a victim of abuse by her mother and brother and by the men brought home by her mother."

Confente said his client was, herself, apprehended by the CAS at the age of 12 and lived in a series of foster homes from 1979 to 1998. During this time, she was exposed to drugs and started smoking marijuana.

While a ward of the society, she achieved a Grade 11 education at E.C. Drury School for the Deaf in Milton.

At 19, she was living on the street and using crack cocaine. During this time in her life she resorted to prostitution to support her drug habit.

Confente said his client was married briefly and had two children from that relationship.

But dysfunctional upbringing had left an indelible mark on her psyche. In 2004, she was diagnosed with a mood disorder with features of depression and schizophrenia.

At the time of the knife incident, her four-year-old son had been in CAS care for more than a year and his younger sister from her birth.

The mother struggled to pull her life together and improve herself. She found an apartment, took parenting courses and was slowly working with CAS social workers toward a goal of gaining custody of children.

Still, at the time she harmed her child, the mother had not been taking her mood disorder medication for about six months.

Confente said his client loved her children, but worried about her ability to measure up to the standards of parenting expected by the society.

"Her response was that she felt overwhelmed by the CAS's expectations and the standard of care that would be required of her."

"She made it clear she had no intention of killing the child. And it was in fact a superficial injury."

Assistant Crown attorney Kevin McKenna urged the judge to impose a further eight months in jail in addition to time already served.

He argued there would be days ahead when the woman would feel anxious and overwhelmed and it had to be brought home to her that violence was not an acceptable recourse.

bbrown@thespec.com, 905-526-3494

Source: Hamilton Spectator