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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: website of WorldNetDaily

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: website of the CBC

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: "website of The Globe and Mail"

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: website of The 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: website of the Arizona Republic

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 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.

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: website of the 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: website of The Record, Kitchener Ontario

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: website of The Edmonton Journal

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

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: website of The 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

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

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 geting 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

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: website of KFSN-TV Fresno California (ABC)

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: website of the Toledo Blade

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: website of 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

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

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: website of the Peterborough Examiner

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.

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.

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