CAS Shill

December 2, 2007

The only stories favorable to children's aid come from insiders, or persons never having had personal contact. The story below seems to be an uplifting story of a man helped by children's aid, but really comes from an insider. We have still never heard a non-employee tell of a favorable personal experience with children's aid.

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CAS SUPPORTER Phil Grimes credits the CAS with helping turn his life around.

CAS helped Grimes turn his world around

By Tim Whitnell, Special to the Beaver, Nov 30, 2007

Phil Grimes says he's the exception to the rule when it comes to success stories about children removed from their home due to parental neglect or abuse and placed into a group home setting.

He's been the victim of ill treatment at his own home as a youngster, bounced around various foster and group homes, lived on his own as a teenager and heard similar stories from others over the years, but he hit a breaking point when a recent story went public that put the Halton Children's Aid Society (CAS) in a bad light.

The 34-year-old Burlington resident, at one time a ward of the Halton CAS for 14 consecutive years, feels the organization has been maligned once too often.

He decided to go public with his own haunting history and eventual redemption, with the help of the CAS, after sensing the organization was under fire.

He says he had heard enough criticism after seeing a story in The Oakville Beaver about CAS client files -- loaded with sensitive information about clients -- being inadvertently left at a private home by a visiting CAS worker.

The family in possession of the confidential files took the faux pas public and the CAS felt some heat from the fallout.

"It always brings out the ugly face of the community," Grimes said of such situations involving the CAS.

The Halton CAS currently has a clientele of about 220, newborns to age 21, some deemed temporary wards who are still at home with their parents with CAS oversight and others who are full Crown wards and placed in either foster or group homes.

"I could give you 30-40 success stories," said Grimes.

His own at times harrowing story is one of them.

"I have three siblings and when I was six we were placed in CAS care," in north Halton. "At that time they didn't take four in one (foster) family so we went separate ways. I was with my younger brother for a while, but he had different needs," Grimes said, explaining that they too ended up in separate homes not long after.

"My dad would come home drunk (occasionally) and think he was the Incredible Hulk and throw me and him (younger brother) around the room. Dad would pick me up by the ears and hold me against the wall. The house was very dirty and we had scabies," a skin disease caused by mites, he recalled.

"At six years old I would have Coke and cereal for dinner. My dad would be passed out and we'd go get groceries."

He admits they stole items from stores on occasion.

"It was always a survival tactic," he said.

As for his mother, Grimes said she was basically absent during the confrontations.

"I think a lot of times she just left the house because she couldn't handle it, or didn't want to.... I had an alcoholic father and my mom had four kids by the age of 21. There was a 15-year age difference between them."

Possibly the worst family incident was one that Grimes said was never reported to the CAS.

He recalled a time when his parents got into separate vehicles and drove at each other on purpose. One of Grimes' older sisters tried to stand between them and was hit and hurt.

"If CAS didn't step in, I think one of us would have been killed."

Grimes kicked around several foster homes in Halton.

He swears he was a good kid who encountered unfortunate luck such as a few of his foster families eventually having their own babies and not being able or willing to continue looking after him.

"I was not a bad kid. I always had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). I still just go, go, but I'm not on (medication). I was always fiddling in school; I was just an energetic kind of kid," he said.

By the age of 14 Grimes had been in at least half a dozen foster homes and said he told CAS officials he wanted to try a group home.

It was a mistake, in hindsight.

"I'm telling you, you don't want to live in a group home. It's just a bunch of crazies. I was in a group home in Oakville with six kids between 12-16. You get a lot of manipulation. We had cops there every week because someone had stolen a bike or run away."

He said the group home staff did the best they could, but he decided he needed out of there.

"You're lucky if two out of 10 who come out of there are well adjusted. Fostering is the (better) way to go. I've kept in contact with some of the guys and they're doing well, too. Some have gone on to jail. I've seen a few guys in downtown Hamilton." He said he's not sure if they were okay, homeless or jobless.

Unable to endure group home life anymore, Grimes said he made the unusual request to CAS to let him live on his own. He said he eventually rented a unit on his own on Kerr Street in Oakville at the age of 15. He was supported by minimal provincial government assistance payments.

"When you move out on your own you find out who your friends are," he said.

From there, things have mostly worked out well for Grimes.

He graduated from Sheridan College after studying law and security; he also attended McMaster University.

Grimes was under the care of the CAS until age 21.

He said young adults can continue to remain with a CAS under a special extended care and maintenance agreement if they attend college or university.

While the CAS continues to monitor your personal progress, the provincial government will give you monthly funding.

Grimes now runs his own financial planning business, has been on the Halton CAS volunteer board of directors for eight years and is past president of the Halton CAS Foundation.

He's been married for 10 years to Denise, an Oakville native whom he met at a summer camp for CAS kids where both of them were camp counsellors. They have two children, Abigail, 1, and Maddi, 4.

Denise marvels at how far her husband has come since his troubled youth.

"We are from totally different backgrounds," she said, noting she grew up in a stable home. She has three sisters and has parents who have been married 40 years.

"He came from an abusive background, a family torn apart. Most kids in that situation wouldn't do well."

Said Phil, "I'd give everything up to go back to what she had," he said of his wife's childhood. "There were times at Christmas with no presents. A lot of my drive (to succeed) has come from when I was in the gutter a few times," he said.

"He made the right choices and had an amazing support worker," Denise observed.

The saving grace for Grimes for much of his turbulent adolescence and young adult life was Halton CAS employee Cynthia Thomas.

"Cynthia is like my mom. I was with her from age 9-21. She was my case worker."

Speaking of his mother, Diane, Grimes said she is 55 and living in Kentucky. His father, Richard, died last year.

"She's remarried, but I don't have any contact with her," he said of his biological mom, even though he says she comes up here occasionally to see one of her daughters; Grimes' brother has gone to the U.S. to visit her.

The last time he talked to his mother was more than three years ago, on the phone. The last time they saw each other was at Grimes' wedding about 10 years ago.

"We've tried," he said of connecting with his mom. "She's very emotional. We would call on her birthday and she wouldn't call on mine. In the last 20 years I've seen her three times. It isn't that I blame her. I've said, 'Let the past be the past and move on.'"

Grimes noted all his siblings, older sisters Kathleen and Christine and younger brother Chris, have turned out well. One older sister lives in Georgetown and has three kids.

The other sister lives in Nova Scotia and has two children. His brother works fulltime and has a girlfriend.

They all keep in contact.

The executive director of the Halton CAS Foundation, the fundraising arm of the organization, has nothing but praise for the way Grimes handled his tumultuous upbringing and the things he's doing now to help others going through similar struggles.

"I've known Phil for a long, long time and he truly is a success story, showing such determination in getting his life on track and with his business," said Tina Blatchford.

"He's an ambassador for us. He talks the talk and walks the walk and volunteers with our youth group. He's a real mentor and a real hero to the kids."

Source: Niagara this Week

Move to Empower Ombudsman

December 2, 2007

The part of the article that matters is at the end. The NDP plans to call for creation of a health-care ombudsman. Maybe they can attach it to their proposal in the last parliament to let the provincial ombudsman look into child protection cases.

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Hospital death-rate report triggers calls for action

SIMON HAYTER/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Death rates for Humber River Regional Hospital were not in a recent study due to a flaw in the method of data collection, a hospital spokesperson said.

Publicizing rankings `revolutionary': Minister

December 01, 2007, Kerry Gillespie, Tanya Talaga, Robert Cribb, Staff Reporters

Calling the public release of Ontario hospital death rates "revolutionary," Health Minister George Smitherman said the province is contacting hospitals with poor scores to see what can be done to better protect patients.

"Those hospitals that have not been seen to perform well will feel under the most intense pressure to take remedial action," Smitherman said. "The pressure will come from transparency."

For the first time, Ontarians can know death rates in their local acute care hospitals thanks to the release of a breakthrough study Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

"It's not out there to be a consumer tool, it is more out there to help hospitals," said CIHI's Christina Lawand. "What are the factors making it higher or lower?"

It's easy to tell which Ontario hospitals will be the target of ministry interest.

The numbers point out which hospitals have above-average patient death rates. The death rate figures – referred to as hospital standardized mortality ratios (HSMR) – compare actual deaths in a hospital with the national average after adjusting for differences in types of patients the hospital cares for.

A score below 100 is better than average while anything above is worse than average. Three Ontario hospitals top the list of worst performers in Canada. The Scarborough Hospital's General site scored 134, while the Niagara Health System's St. Catharines General site scored 135. Kitchener's Grand River Hospital K.W. Health Centre scored 142. "Our first point will be to say: `Are there things we can do to be more helpful as you work to address this?'" Smitherman said in an interview yesterday.

The disclosure of hospital death rates follows a year-long Star investigation into medical secrecy that raised questions about a lack of public reporting in Canada. As part of the series "Medical Secrets," the Star urged CIHI to reveal hospital names with reportable data.

The University Health Network, a large urban teaching hospital, has put measures in place to save lives and as a result the group of hospitals had the lowest death rate score in Toronto (at 87), said Dr. Alan Hudson, a neurosurgeon leading the drive to bring wait times down in five key areas.

"The boards will now pay attention because it is publicly reported," said Hudson. "This is a spotlight shone on them publicly."

But one Toronto-area hospital that has avoided the spotlight so far is Humber River Regional Hospital. The hospital's numbers are not reported in the CIHI study, the result of a discrepancy in data-collection methods, said Gerrard Power, a spokesperson for the hospital.

"We didn't withhold our data," he said. "The way we code end of life patients somehow ... became coded as unexpected deaths. (CIHI) said (they'll) go back and look at it."

If a hospital didn't report its numbers, the Ontario health ministry won't assume it's hiding bad scores. But Toronto resident Joe Pingitore is angry Humber River Regional Hospital didn't release its numbers.

"It really struck a chord," said Pingitore, who is unhappy with the care his 89-year-old mother received at the hospital following her stroke. "If they aren't reporting, there is a reason why."

Many people living in Humber River's catchment area are low-income earners. "The community deserves to know their numbers – there is no excuse for not releasing them," said Paul Ferreira, a consultant who was the former MPP for York South-Weston. "This is one of the neediest areas in the city. Folks need to know they are getting first-class health care. Hiding numbers doesn't tell them that."

In the Toronto area, the best death rate scores belong to the University Health Network – made up of Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western. Brampton's Peel Memorial Hospital, part of William Osler Health Centre, also did well with a score of 81.

The publication of hospital death rates in Ontario is already prompting moves toward greater oversight of patient safety.

The provincial New Democrats are calling on the government to create an ombudsman's office.

"It's one thing to put out the statistics, but bringing in an ombudsman who has the mandate to follow through ... would be a good way to make sure hospitals that rate poorly take it really seriously and do something about it," said NDP MPP and health critic France Gélinas (Nickel Belt).

"(The statistics) are close to terrible ... but I have all the faith in the world that our system is going to be able to react and the next time those statistics are measured we will do better," she said.

But an ombudsman with the power to investigate individual cases and systemic issues would speed that up, Gélinas said.

The NDP will be reintroducing their private member's bill calling for a health-care ombudsman in the coming weeks, she said.

Source: Toronto Star

Save the Earth!

December 2, 2007

Here is a new reason to avoid divorce — it harms the earth. While voluntary divorce may be difficult to curb, shotgun divorce imposed by social services against the will of both parents could be ended with a simple policy change. Come on, policy makers! Do your share to save the earth!

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From The Sunday Times, December 2, 2007

Planet feels heat of divorce

Roger Waite

UNHAPPY couples used to stick together for the sake of the kids. Now they can make the best of a bad marriage in the name of being environmentally friendly.

Scientists have quantified for the first time the extent to which divorce damages the environment. The researchers found that the combined use of electricity across the two new households created rose 53% while water use was up by 42%.

Across America – one of 12 countries studied – divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2005 that could have been saved if the families had not split up. That is equivalent to about a fifth of Britain’s consumption.

Broken couples also increase demand for housebuilding and infrastructure such as new roads. “The global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, has taken up more space and has gobbled up more energy and water,” said Jianguo Liu of Michigan University, who carried out the latest research.

The study, to be published tomorrow in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the average number of rooms per household was between 33% and 95% higher for divorced couples than for married ones.

Liu also calculated that America now has an extra 38.5m rooms in houses and apartments built to meet the demand for more accommodation generated by divorce over the past three decades.

The growth of single-person households is also damaging the environment. Research published in the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability found that:

• One-person households are the biggest consumers of energy, land and household goods, such as washing machines, refrigerators, TVs and stereos, per capita
• They consume 38% more products, 42% more packaging, 55% more electricity and 61% more gas per capita than four-person households
• People living alone create 1½ tons of waste annually compared with a ton by those in households of four or more

Source: Sunday Times (UK)

Social Workers Want More Firepower

December 1, 2007

From the follow-up story of an attack on a social worker by a mother guarding her child, it appears that more security will be coming to Ontario social workers. It is only a matter of time until they emulate the police in Ohio. In an incident we think of as Kentucy Fried Baby, on November 18 police in Trotwood Ohio zapped a seven-month pregnant mother with a taser. We are not sure whether the cop thought the enlarged woman was a threat to his life, or whether he was inspired by Igor to bring the fetus to life with a jolt from his electrodes. 50,000 volts is about what it takes to separate a mother from her child.

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Security concerns at Children's Aid

Date: 2007-11-30, By Lauren Gilchrist

In light of recent assault at Chemong Road office, frontline worker speaks out about lax security within the organization

Everybody has their breaking point.

One frontline worker at the Kawartha Haliburton Children's Aid Society (CAS) has finally reached hers and is speaking out.

Recently, one of her co-workers was allegedly assaulted at the Chemong Road office by a 34-year-old woman armed with a pair of barber scissors. The accused was arrested and charged with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and assault with a weapon. The victim was treated at the hospital for her injuries.

The frontline worker was baffled when she read executive director Hugh Nicholson's comments in Peterborough This Week shortly after the incident.

“What really smacked me between the eyes was when he said the security systems work fine,” she explains.

“We are almost more dysfunctional than our own clients. We know he [Mr. Nicholson] is going to the board and saying everything is fine and it's not.”

The worker, who has asked to remain anonymous, has now come forward to say the security system at the Children’s Aid Society on Chemong Road is anything but fine.

But Mr. Nicholson says he can understand her concerns.

“That’s understandable given the situation. Everyone is a little nervous after that [the alleged assault].”

But he doesn’t agree with her claim that he is going along telling the board everything is fine.

“No. I’m not saying that. I don’t understand why someone would say that to be quite honest,” he explains.

“Situations like this are upsetting. Unfortunately it sounds like one or some staff may feel like we don’t do something about it, but we are very concerned with it [safety].”

The worker says she was in the office the day the most recent assault happened, but she didn’t witness the event. What she does know is that the receptionist tried to press the panic button but it didn’t work.

“She had the presence of mind to get on the switchboard and call for help,” explains the worker.

She is not only concerned for the staff, but also for the parents and children who come into the facility.

She says to the best of her knowledge there are two panic buttons in the building that trigger the alarm.

“I should bloody well know where all the buttons are, but I don't,” she explains.

She says the only real safety training they have is the two fire drills a year.

“I think maybe the receptionist has been show where it [the button] is. We get tons of training all the time, but not on security in the office.”

Mr. Nicholson confirms there are two panic buttons in the high risk areas. They were installed two years ago in response to another assault that occurred in the back area of the building. When asked whether staff are trained on the use of the buttons he says “yes and no.”

“The staff that are in those areas are trained on the panic buttons,” he explains.

He says there is also a sign posted above the panic buttons listing what workers should do in a crisis. He admits the sign above the button could probably be bigger.

Once the panic button is pressed it triggers an internal alarm with flashing strobe lights.

“That alerts internal staff and they would go to the area where the situation is,” he explains.

Mr. Nicholson says what happened in the most recent case is that the receptionist tried to reach the panic button but for whatever reason couldn’t reach it. She decided it would be quicker to post an alert over the intercom.

Mr. Nicholson says an e-mail went out to staff when the buttons were installed two years ago describing what to do in that sort of emergency.

“We did survey the staff in the building and most seemed to be aware of what to do,” he states.

“We assumed teams would do the training and that always isn’t the case.”

Mr. Nicholson says all staff have enough information to know what to do with the panic buttons.

”We generally have a pretty good response to it.”

The most recent incident has caused not only one frontline worker to speak out, but also for the organization to re-examine their safety protocol.

Mr. Nicholson says what staff are saying now is that they need regular training on the use of the panic buttons. The first training session is already planned for Dec. 10.

“We are also reviewing our system of codes at that time too so people know what they’re going to.”

He says their current policy on emergency codes is vague, and they are reviewing it as well, and clarifying it.

The worker says along with training around the panic buttons, there is the issue of the meeting rooms at the front of the building.

In her opinion this area has no security whatsoever.

“That's an unprotected area where not only staff are vulnerable,” she says.

She says if the most recent alleged assault had happened in one of those meeting rooms and not in the lobby, they could have been in trouble.

Mr. Nicholson confirms there are no panic buttons in those rooms.

“We know who's going in and out of those meetings. That area is always supervised that they're in,” he says.

“They (staff) have raised concerns. We are concerned about what to do in those rooms, and we weren’t aware of (staff's concerns).”

Mr. Nicholson says they need to improve their system of flagging possibly high risk clients who are in the building and have the appropriate people there at that time.

In the back of the building, called the access centre, there are more meeting rooms. But the worker says even in that supposedly secure area, that's where the attack that happened two years ago took place.

“We still have to use those rooms in the front because we get so many parents,” she explains.

During the summer the worker says they had a bomb threat at the office. According to her, it took them a week to inform staff about the incident.

Mr. Nicholson confirms they did have a bomb threat. According to him they got the threat on a Friday afternoon and told workers on the following Tuesday. At that time he felt it would have caused more anxiety to tell the workers about it right away.

“I think right now we have a much better process in place,” he notes.

It's not only safety inside the building that the worker is concerned about. There is also a question about the safety of the workers when they visit client's homes.

The worker says they work closely with the police and have a good working relationship with them.

She says police can't believe workers will go into some these locations on their own.

“The police say they will not go in on their own, they wait for back-up at these locations. I think the courts and management need to take more notice when staff are saying clients are escalating,” she explains.

Mr. Nicholson says workers quite often go into client’s homes alone. But he says if there is a risk a police officer will go with them and, if the client is very high risk, they will ask the client to come into the office instead.

“The workers and the supervisor assess that then determine the most appropriate response,” he explains.

“That’s their job. So they are skilled at handling those situations and making sure when they do go in [to a client’s home] there’s an exit and assessing the situation before they go into the home.”

Mr. Nicholson says they have established a safety task force that will come back at the end of December with recommendations. He says the health and safety committee is also doing an assessment and will also put forward recommendations.

“By the end of January we are going to implement them,” he says.

He notes that along with looking into training around the panic buttons, the newly established task force will also look into the safety of home visits.

“We can always do better,” he admits.

Source: Metroland Media Group

Foster Hell Hole

December 1, 2007

A teenaged girl, promised a nice home by a social worker instead got a home where she was assaulted and robbed, and watched fellow children use drugs and attempt suicide. The lawyer appointed to protect her interests refused to speak to her.

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CAS workers promise teen a safe home but teen testifies that she was given anything but. She says she was afraid and terrified while in CAS care!

(December 1, 2007) Court Watch conducted a videotaped interview with a 14-year-old girl today who testified on videotape that she was tricked and misled by CAS workers to go into care with the agency. She was promised that she would be staying in a nice home with other great kids. CAS workers made it sound like paradise. The teen reported that she was taken out of a perfectly safe home because she argued with her parents about money and chores and that CAS workers told her that she did not have to put up with that crap from her parents. While in care at a CAS facility the girl was shocked and frightened to see other kids attempt suicide by cutting their wrists which CAS workers tried to conceal while she was there. It seems that CAS does not want some of these stories getting out into the public domain so it keeps these horror stories hidden.

The teen also reported being assaulted and robbed while CAS workers supposedly were supervising the teens. The girl reported that the CAS workers did nothing while she was being assaulted right in the CAS facility. The teen says she was taken from a good home and placed in an environment of fear and intimidation at the CAS facility. She said the other kids hated it there and at least one other teen reported that she had been fooled by the same CAS worker to leave her home as well and that the other girl was now angry and frustrated at the system. Some kids were on drugs while living in the CAS facility.

What this teen also reported which some readers may find interesting is that the police told her that the laying of assault charges against another female while in the care of the CAS were at the discretion of the victim of the crime. In other words, the victim could get to choose if police would lay charges of assault. Yet, when it comes to females complaining about being assaulted by males, females are routinely told by police that they have no discretion and that they must lay charges against males. Court Watch has received a number of calls from women who have confirmed this with the same police force which spoke to this girl. It seems that police have a double standard between males and females when it comes to the laying of assault charges which may explain why some of the domestic violence statistics are cooked to make males look like the main perpetrators of assault.

The girl said she had never been in the presence of so many violent teens in her life and that she was afraid for her physical safety at the CAS facility. She sometimes could not sleep good at night out of fear that someone might come into her room while she slept. She said that nobody with the CAS and the Children's Lawyer seemed interested in listening to her at all. Her children's lawyer did not even return her phone calls. The girl said that she just wanted to go home with her family where she felt safe.

It's no wonder why more and more children and their families are getting fed up with CAS and its tactics which needlessly destroy families. The actions of unaccountable and in most cases unlicensed CAS workers is only going to expose these agencies for multiple lawsuits as these kids come forth in the future to sue agencies and workers alike.

If readers know of other children who wish to speak about their experience with CAS, police or the children's lawyer, please have them contact Canada Court Watch at info@canadacourtwatch.com

Source: Canada Court Watch

Phony Stats

December 1, 2007

The Globe and Mail reports on a conflict of interest for Ontario's Deputy Chief Coroner Jim Cairns. The company selling the Taser paid his travel expenses. That makes it less likely that Ontario death certificates will list the taser as a cause of death.

Historically, some institutions, such as prisons, have been less than candid in official reports of deaths of their wards. For example, read the book Other Losses by James Bacque. Bias in the coroner's office could be one reason the reported deaths in Ontario foster care are anomalously low. We can have no confidence in the veracity of Ontario death statistics as long as conflicts of interest exist in the coroner's office.

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Taser firms picked up coroner's lecture tab

CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND JESSICA LEEDER AND OMAR EL AKKAD

From Friday's Globe and Mail, November 30, 2007 at 4:22 AM EST

TORONTO; LAS VEGAS — Taser International and another company closely linked to the manufacturer have paid the way for Ontario's deputy chief coroner to lecture at their conferences on the phenomenon of "excited delirium," a medically unrecognized term that the company often cites as a reason people die after being tasered.

James Cairns, one of the country's most high-profile coroners, who publicly advocates the use of the stun gun, has become one of the top Canadian experts Taser officials turn to for help shoring up public support for their products in times of crisis. Since the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, at Vancouver International Airport last month, Taser has repeatedly urged journalists to contact Dr. Cairns for his pro-taser views.

Dr. Cairns has recently given seminars at two conferences hosted by Taser International - one in July in Chicago and another last year in Las Vegas.

He has also spoken at a Las Vegas conference for the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, a small private company with ties to Taser. It is headed by John Peters, a communications specialist who often acts as a course instructor for Taser International. Its only other director is Michael Brave, a Taser legal executive.

Clay Winn of Taser International demonstrates one of the company's stun guns in a 2002 file photo. (Joe Cavaretta/Associated Press)

Dr. Cairns was slated to deliver a talk yesterday, titled "Excited Delirium Deaths: Public Inquiry Process; ED Training for Ontario Provincial Police Officer and its Impact on the Coroner's Office" at the institute's 2007 conference. He dropped out because he was testifying at an inquiry in Ontario, where he admitted to shielding disgraced pathologist Charles Smith.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail yesterday, Dr. Cairns said he doesn't believe his participation at the conferences is a conflict of interest. He said he attends the conferences on vacation time and paid his own way to attend the first one.

However, he allowed Taser and the institute to pay his hotel and travel expenses for subsequent conferences.

Bonita Porter, Ontario's chief coroner, said it is not uncommon for members of her staff to have expenses paid by conference hosts.

"If he's going to share our experiences and it might improve public safety anywhere, I don't see how that could be considered to be a conflict," she said.

But Dr. Cairns's attendance raises questions about the appearance of bias when probing the issue of whether tasers can kill. While he has not presided over any taser-related inquests, his expert opinion on the role of tasers in certain in-custody deaths has often been solicited. At a 2005 inquest, he testified that an Ontario man, who was tasered three times by police and died less than an hour later in hospital, was not killed by the taser because of the time lapse between the shocks and his death.

The year before, Dr. Cairns urged the Toronto Police Services Board to expand the use of tasers, saying: "I am absolutely convinced tasers will save lives instead of taking lives. And I hope some day, if I am in the position, please taser me before you shoot me."

Dr. Cairns defended his attendance at various Taser conferences. He said he doesn't accept a fee for speaking to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

"I am not an agent for Taser or anything else. I do not own Taser shares. I wanted there to be no conflict of interest," he said, adding: "I have been invited to many other conferences across the world to talk about things. In those situations, it's always the same."

Taser International did not return phone calls.

According to Mr. Peters's write-up of the 2006 Taser conference in Las Vegas, Dr. Cairns gave a talk in which he "graphically emphasized ... that none of the numerous in-custody death cases which he has been intimately involved with were caused by the deployment of Taser devices."

On the subject of hosting a seminar on excited delirium at the Taser conferences, Dr. Cairns said: "I think the more that we understand about all these issues, the better."

Source: Globe and Mail

CAS Employee Finds Corruption

November 30, 2007

A temporary employee of CAS has found corruption within the agency, and does not know what to do with his information. He does not want to communicate with anyone that has their own agenda, making it unlikely that anybody will listen. No one in the CAS chain of command, right up to the Minister of Children and Youth Services, will do anything but kill the messenger. The Ontario press is neutered, and will ignore the matter. Only the internet offers a medium for exposing scandals. Broadening his audience to those with an agenda would allow him to talk to Hamilton East MPP Andrea Horwath, Canada Court Watch or Dufferin VOCA.

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screen name: Shocked&Disillusioned

Re: Children's Aid Society Corruption

Nov 26, 2007 7:56 AM

Ok, first off I would like to say I have NO children and no personal dealings with any of the social workers at CAS.

I always assumed that the CAS was a great organization and thanked God that they were out there saving children and families, I felt that they had right on their side.

After working at one of their offices, I was disgusted. (No, I am not a disgruntled employee, I was given an end date before I started, left on good terms and have a letter of recommendation).

After having intimate knowledge of their data base, employee records and finances, I discovered some shocking information. I feel guilt ridden, but I am bound by confidentiality agreements. I don't know where to turn.

The information I have in no way reflects upon any individual case or child but believe me, it's corruption all the same.

Is there anyone in a position of authority that I may contact anonymously? I have never been in this position before and with all due respect, I DON'T feel comfortable in contacting anyone that has their own agenda, righteous or not, I cannot confirm or deny any other allegations on this board.

I hope all find justified resolution to their crisis.

Source: A&E website
There is no way to ascertain the identity of the informant, or verify his authenticity.

Girl Escapes CAS

November 30, 2007

A mother and father have escaped from CAS with their own child, five year old Alana Livas. Police want help from the public. So far, there are no pictures. Any time you see a mom and dad caring for their little girl, call the police immediately.

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The Toronto Star

Police seek public's assistance in search for child

November 29, 2007, Sarah Boesveld, Staff Reporter

Toronto police are seeking the public's help finding a 5-year-old girl who was allegedly abducted by her parents this afternoon.

The girl, Alana Livas, was last seen at the Children's Aid Society building on Kennedy Rd. in Scarborough around 1 p.m. today. She is described as female, white with a dark complexion and long straight brown hair.

She was brought to the Children's Aid building by her aunt, who has custody of her.

The child and her parents, Vivene and Peter Livas, were last seen driving on Kennedy Rd., possibly in a 1993 brown Acura Integra with the licence plate BCCL-451.

Anyone with information is asked to call 41 Division at 416-808-4100 or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS.

Source: Toronto Star

Addendum: Here are pictures of the girl and her family. Look at them and decide whether this is a girl who needs protection from her parents, or a family that needs protection from the Children's Aid Society.

Alana Livas

Source: Toronto Police Service (pdf)

Vivene and Peter Livas, with Alana

Source: Toronto Police Service (pdf)

Editorial on Smith et al

November 29, 2007

Following the retirement of Gary Putman, the Orangeville press is more inclined to deal with the failures of child protection. The editorial below suggests reviewing 200 examinations of child deaths, not just by Dr Charles Smith, but by all pathologists connected to his team at what now appears to be Toronto's Sick Hospital for Children.

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Orangeville Citizen

Editorial, November 29, 2007

Why 'junk science' has no place in our courtrooms

LET'S HOPE the recommendation gets the attention it deserves from Justice Stephen Goudge, who is currently conducting a public inquiry into the role played by Dr. Charles Smith in securing criminal convictions based on his erroneous autopsy findings.

Although the Goudge commission's mandate deals with only about 20 cases where Dr. Smith's now-discredited testimony led to criminal charges against caregivers (usually parents) whose infants died mysteriously, two forensic pathology experts recommended last week that Ontario thoroughly re-examine up to 200 autopsies on dead children.

Under the proposal, the review would concentrate on convictions based on the findings of others than Dr. Smith, particularly by those on his team of pathologists at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children who shared his "think dirty" philosophy, which saw criminal activity behind unexplained phenomena that had been labelled Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

Ironically, such a review would include another "Smith" case - the manslaughter conviction of Jeffrey Smith, a teen-aged father of twin girls, one of whom died mysteriously on March 22, 1994, just four months after the twins were born three months prematurely, and after both had been rush to hospital many times with a variety of ills, none of which suggested they had been abused.

In that case, the only reason Jeffrey Smith was charged, apart from the pathologists' testimony, was that he was the only one home at the time Katie Smith died. In the jury trial, where he faced a charge of second-degree murder, there wasn't a scintilla of evidence that he had ever become angry at the twins, much less struck them.

Based on what we now know, Katie's death was almost certainly from natural causes related to the prematurity of her birth. The fact that the jury rejected the Crown's bid for a murder conviction, finding only manslaughter, is surely small comfort to Mr. Smith, who now is still labelled a child killer in the eyes of the law.

(The jury verdict was upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal which, in the interests of "finality," refused to order a new trial at which a British expert, unavailable to the defence during the 10-week trial, would explain her finding that the death was from natural causes.)

The call for review of the other autopsies came from Dr. John Butt, one of three renowned forensic pathologists who conducted a detailed review last year of 43 autopsies Dr. Smith performed between 1991 and 2004. It followed two weeks of revelations at the inquiry about substandard practices and a discredited "think dirty" philosophy that prevailed in the Office of the Chief Coroner during the 1990s, a philosophy which we think could be traced to the Sick Kids team.

Northern Ireland's top pathologist, Jack Crane, agreed that reviewing every criminally suspicious case may be essential to repair public confidence and ensure that no one has been wrongly convicted of killing a child.

"It might be quite an undertaking and require very considerable resources to do it," Dr. Crane said. "But if there are concerns ... to enhance confidence in pediatric pathology, it might be necessary."

James Lockyer, a lawyer for eight people who say they have been wrongly convicted of killing their children in cases involving Dr. Smith, has signalled that he will urge Justice Goudge to recommend a full autopsy review.

On the same day, Mr. Lockyer asked Dr. Butt, Dr. Crane, and a third reviewer, Dr. Christopher Milroy, why defence lawyers, prosecutors and Dr. Smith's fellow pathologists could not bring themselves to blow the whistle on his shortcomings or failed to notice them.

Dr. Butt said that doctors are notoriously unwilling to testify against their brethren. "I don't know how to overcome it," he said. "It is an issue of culture. It is an issue of intimidation. There is a certain revering of figures that starts in medical school."

He said pathologists are also accorded so much respect within the court system that they become comfortable testifying about medical matters that go far beyond their knowledge and training.

"The more the doctor is encouraged to answer questions that he may not know the answer to - and gets away with it - the more the cult of personality grows."

Nor is the problem of "experts" securing convictions based on "junk science" limited to pathologists or criminal courts in Ontario.

Last week, the CBS program 60 Minutes dealt with the fact that for years the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had been securing convictions based on a now-discredited theory that bullets used in murders could be traced to a single box.

The "bullet lead analysis" was used by the FBI for 40 years in thousands of cases, and some of the people it helped put in jail are likely innocent. One such is Lee Wayne Hunt, now 22 years into a life sentence for murder in North Carolina.

Mr. Hunt was convicted in 1986 of murdering two people based on the testimony of two questionable witnesses and what turned out to be erroneous ballistics testimony from the FBI lab. For years, the FBI believed that lead in bullets had unique chemical signatures, and that by breaking them down and analyzing them, it was possible to match bullets, not only to a single batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but to a single box of bullets. And that is what the FBI did in the Hunt case.

"I think everybody in the courtroom assumed that this was valid evidence," Mr. Hunt's lawyer said. Clearly, such evidence has no place in any courtroom.

Source: Orangville Citizen

Messy Home

November 28, 2007

Did CAS take your kids because your home was messy? Here is the office of their former expert witness, Dr Charles Smith. When the mess was finally cleaned up, it revealed exculpatory evidence that led to the exoneration of William Mullins-Johnson after twelve years in jail.

Source: Blog by Harold Levy November 28, 2007

CAS Spy

November 26, 2007

This is not the first case of close-up spying we have heard, but the first that can be published.

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November 25

A little story of harassment

A little history. As my house arrest was coming to an end. I was not allowed out before 8 am.

I started to notice this fat little piglet jogging by at 7:45 AM every day with her dog.

She was jogging on a path that goes by my home. There is a green belt behind the house. No one is ever back there I can see everything from my window.

At 7:59 AM I was about to let my dog out and I saw that fat little bitch spying on my home from behind a tree. I looked at my watch. Bingo 8 AM I open the door and start chasing the fat piglet through the woods till we come to the home in the picture above. Scared her real good. The next day I'm parked down the street and follow the piglet to work. Guess where? The local Children's Aid Society of Ontario.

My point, always watch your back and its fun to chase a fat lesbian through the woods screaming like a nut.

I never saw that fat pig ever again.

Peter Tarbat, tarspot@msn.com

Source: personal MSN blog

Greg Pound Terminated

November 25, 2007

High-profile opponent of Florida DCF Greg Pound has had his parental rights terminated. The state of Florida has taken four of his children, his wife has fled with their infant son. Last year we covered the case, including a link to his website. There are many copies of his videos on the internet. Here are more videos by Greg Pound.

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tampabay.com

Father of five loses battle for parental rights

He says he plans to appeal the judge's order. His battle started in 2004.

By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer, Published November 24, 2007

Gregory Pound has battled the foster care system for years, ever since a purported "wolf dog" bit his 2-week-old baby in 2004 and child welfare workers took away his children.

He fought back in court, and has become increasingly visible by founding a Web site (www.rescuemykids.com) and staging regular protests outside Pinellas County's criminal courthouse. He even demonstrated outside a St. Petersburg church because a judge in his case worships there.

Now he has lost in court.

This month a judge terminated his parental rights - meaning he no longer has a legal right to raise his five children, ages 2 to 7.

"They called me today and told me that I have no more visits with my children," Pound, 51, said recently.

His wife's parental rights were severed earlier in the battle, he said. Melissa Pound disappeared last year, along with the couple's youngest child.

Gregory Pound said he plans to appeal.

"Love never gets up," he said, adding: "Me and Melissa both love our children, despite what they say."

The Pounds' four oldest children live in Seminole with Melissa's parents, Linda and Stephen Steenberge.

The Steenberges said they assumed at first the Pounds would complete a list of tasks known as a "case plan" to get their children back. But now that the Pounds' parental rights have been taken away, they said they intend to adopt the children.

"It's a tragic situation in the sense that it could have pretty much been avoided," said Stephen Steenberge, 64.

Tampa Bay news media covered the dog bite case in 2004, widely reporting that the Pounds' 2-week-old baby was bitten in the face by a "wolf hybrid." The dog was destroyed.

Since then, Pound has said that the dog belonged to his sister, who denied it was a wolf hybrid.

Soon after the bite, child welfare authorities removed the Pounds' four children from their home. The exact reasons are not clear because the records are not public.

Pound said child welfare officials claimed Melissa was suffering from depression, but he denied that. Pound also said he was asked to take a domestic violence class as part of a case plan in order to get his children back.

The Pounds completed parts of their case plans, but also fought unsuccessfully in court to prove the children should never have been taken away.

When Melissa gave birth to their fifth child last year, they named him Moses, after another baby whose mother sent him on a journey. Shortly after his 2006 birth, Melissa and the infant disappeared.

Pound was jailed for contempt of court for a month last year for failing to reveal her whereabouts, although he insisted he did not know where to find her.

Now, factions of the family are cut off from each other. Greg and Melissa Pound do not have a legal right to visit their four oldest children, who are living with the Steenberges.

Linda Steenberge, meanwhile, said she has not heard from her daughter Melissa and has not laid eyes on her grandchild, Moses.

"That would make me happy, just a phone call from her," Linda Steenberge said.

On the Web site, Pound claims that foster care workers remove children from families for money.

But Pinellas County sheriff's Capt. George Steffen said child abuse investigators work hard to find alternatives to removing children from their homes. "It's the absolute last resort," Steffen said.

When children are removed, foster care workers try to help moms and dads complete their case plans and bring their children home, said April Putzulu, a spokeswoman for the local foster care agency called the Safe Children Coalition.

"We are totally invested in returning children home to safe environments," she said.

Source: St. Petersburg Times

Fran Lyon Flees Britain

November 24, 2007

Fran Lyon, the British expectant mother threatened with child removal at birth, has fled Britain after seeing the final plans by social services for her baby.

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24/11/07 - Femail section

I've fled the country to stop social workers taking my baby

By ELIZABETH SANDERSON

She is, on first impressions, just like any other first-time mother. The cot and the pram are on order, she has bought more cuddly toys than she will ever need and she has even given her little girl a name — Molly.

With less than six weeks to go before the birth, the baby is kicking and it brings Fran Lyon an undeniable thrill of pleasure. At least, it does now she finally feels safe to enjoy it.

For all the innocent joys of impending motherhood have been denied Fran since social workers warned her four months ago that Molly would be taken away ten minutes after birth and placed with foster parents.

Fran, a third-year student doing a neuro-science degree at Edinburgh University, is, to everyone who knows her, a sociable, kind and intelligent woman. But to her local authority she is a danger to herself and her baby.

Pregnant Fran Lyon has run away to Europe to stop social workers taking her baby away from her

Seven years ago Fran had an eating and selfharming disorder and spent 13 months in a psychiatric hospital followed by nine successful months of counselling.

Now 22, and with her emotional troubles behind her, Fran is outraged that she should be judged a risk to herself and her child despite a fistful of medical reports that dispute this.

Last week, fearing the worst, Fran moved from her home in Hexham in Northumberland to Birmingham, where she hoped a different authority would treat her more sympathetically.

But with the birth so close, she felt she couldn't take any risks with bureaucracy and on Wednesday, Fran took an even more drastic step. She got on a flight bound for Europe — and went into hiding. Wary of revealing her whereabouts, Fran agreed to talk about her nightmare in a lengthy telephone call to The Mail on Sunday.

Practical Fran has already had an appointment with a midwife, booked a place at the local hospital and made contact with English-speaking mother-and-baby groups

She will also be seen in an exclusive report tomorrow evening on Tonight With Trevor McDonald. She said: "I wouldn't have done it unless I absolutely had to. Every time there was a twinge, I was absolutely petrified. I just kept thinking, 'Please don't go into labour, please, not yet.' It was terrifying.

"It's a lot better now that I'm away. Lots of people suggested I should leave but I always thought it was too extreme. Then when I went to Birmingham things weren't going to happen quicklyenough. Northumberland's plan stood until Birmingham made their own and I didn't have vast amounts of time.

Now it's such a relief not to be constantly looking over my shoulder. It has been so fraught with other people's interventions. For the first time this will be just us: me and Molly. I just want to enjoy it. I could never do that before.

"For months I've been reading a book called Molly The Hungry Caterpillar and feeling her kicking about. It's lovely, but all the time the fear has been in the back of my mind that these might be the closest moments I will ever have with her."

Fran is in good health apart from suffering a rare condition, angiodoema. It is possible her throat might swell and she has been given tracheotomy equipment in case of an incident.

For such a young woman, Fran seems practical and level headed. In just a few days, she has organised a lease on an apartment, had an appointment with a midwife, booked a place at the local hospital and made contact with Englishspeaking mother-and-baby groups.

It is a considerable testimony to her ability to cope — given what social services had thrown at her. So why did Hexham Children's Services feel it necessary to take such draconian — some might say menacing — steps against a young woman who has battled to put her life in order?

As with almost all cases involving county council children's services, it is extremely difficult to discover why or how a decision has been reached. As a result, it is nigh on impossible for people to challenge what they see as a dubious outcome.

Fran's story began last April when she became pregnant. Although the baby was unexpected, she was delighted. She says: "I was shocked because I'd had the contraceptive injection. But I remember waking up the first morning after I knew and feeling secretly thrilled.

"I didn't have a clue how I was going to make it work with university and my job [for two mental health charities] but I was determined that I was having her."

The first problem began when she and Molly's father fell out. She had become unhappy about something he was doing and reported him to the police. She ended the relationship immediately and he is now the subject of an investigation by police — who alerted social services.

She told them her story — that she was brought up in Northampton in a middleclass household where her parents were teachers, and how at 14 she was raped by an acquaintance.

Traumatised, she became clinically depressed and spent the next three years, on and off, in residential psychiatric hospitals after being diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder characterised by self-harming instability and suicidal tendencies.

For the final 13 months, Fran had individual psychotherapy sessions and group analysis before being discharged into outpatient care. By the age of 18 she had fully recovered and the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder was removed. Despite it all, Fran earned nine A-grade GCSEs, four A-grade A-levels and her place at university.

When she became pregnant, Fran accepted that social services might take an interest in her and went out of her way to cooperate. "I was very up-front with the mental health staff," she said.

"I told them my history and gave them the names of my doctors as I assumed they would want to pursue it further. I thought I might need to see the health visitor a bit more often."

Instead, Fran received a letter informing her that a "child protection case conference" would be held on August 16. Social services contacted a number of experts. One of them, Dr Stella Newith, the psychiatrist who treated Fran as a teenager, had no doubts when called on to give her opinion about her former patient.

In a letter to Northumberland County Council, Dr Newith said: "I consider the risk of harm to a child to be so unlikely as to be negligible.

"There has never been any clinical evidence to suggest that Fran would put herself or others at risk, and certainly no evidence to suggest that she would put a child at risk."

It was a view backed up by Dr Rex Haigh, a psychiatrist who worked with Fran in the charity sector and acted as a character witness. He advised: "I have no doubt that her diligence and capacity, particularly in dealing with complex emotional situations, will stand her in good stead for the rigours of parenthood. Your efforts to protect children would be better directed elsewhere."

Yet the social workers decided, instead, to give more weight to the views of consultant paediatrician Dr Martin Ward Platt — even though he made it clear he had never met Fran.

In a letter, Dr Ward Platt said: "If the professionals were concerned from the evidence available that [this woman] probably does fabricate or induce illness, there would be no option but to put the baby into foster care at birth pending a post-natal forensic psychological assessment."

Fran says she was told by social services that she was in danger of suffering from Munchausen's by Proxy, a controversial and unproven condition in which a parent — usually the mother — invents an illness in her child to draw attention to herself.

Apart from Dr Ward Platt's letter, there has been no other evidence presented to Fran suggesting that she was at such risk. The syndrome was first identified by Sir Roy Meadow, the now-discredited doctor responsible for evidence that led to the wrongful convictions of Angela Canning and Sally Clark for murdering their children.

Dr Ward Platt also recommended that Fran be assessed by professionals. Social services drew up their "birth plan" without doing any of these assessments. In October, Fran was told the plan would mean that Molly would be immediately removed into care, minutes after she was born. Fran was also told she could not be trusted to breast-feed her, for fear that she might try to take strychnine as a way of poisoning her own child.

Fran says: "I was just horrified. It was horrific to sit in this room with these people and realise that they could not only conceive of such a bizarre, terrible thing, but think that I was actually capable of it.

"In some ways I think the whole thing was compounded by a lack of understanding. There is no evidence that Munchausen's by Proxy exists. I was being asked to prove that I wouldn't do something. But how can I do that? They were asking me to do the impossible."

Fran engaged the help of Bill Bache, the lawyer who overturned Angela Canning's conviction, and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of the pressure group Justice For Families. And yet all the time, she tried to find a compromise with the social workers.

She says: "I asked to go to a mother and baby unit so we would be under 24-hour supervision. I thought it would show I was willing to cooperate and there could be no argument about Molly's safety, but there was a lot of resistance to the idea."

In one last attempt to find a middleway through the nightmare, Fran agreed to yet another assessment. The assessor was to be appointed by the social workers but would be officially independent. They chose Professor Douglas Turkington, a psychiatrist based at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

In his report, he said that Fran should not be separated from Molly but should instead be "supervised during the immediate postnatal period in her bonding with Molly and be allowed to breast feed".

It is the breakthrough Fran has been hoping for — but she says she can't risk waiting to see if social services view it in the same light. On November 9, the birth plan from Northumberland Social Services arrived in the post. Fran was expecting it but nothing could have prepared her for its conclusions.

"I just fell apart," she says. "It's only when you see it in writing that it becomes real. It said I would get ten minutes with Molly until the umbilical cord had been cut."

Fran and her baby would then be parted and the baby would be taken to another room in the hospital. Fran feared that the conditions of the birth plan would mean that even her mother, who she said she was very close to, would not be able to see the child.

She added: "They said if I didn't consent they would get a police protection order as soon as she was born. This effectively meant that there would be a policeman stood outside the delivery suite.

"She would be only a few minutes old and by herself. That was the one thing that tore me up inside . . . the thought of Molly lying in some horrible hospital baby cot with no one that loves her.

"I'm not an impulsive or dramatic person. I want to sit down and work things out. But this was agonising. I knew I had to do something."

She didn't know, then, that something would mean fleeing abroad. Despite the drastic upset, Fran is not bitter. "I suppose I feel very disappointed. It didn't seem possible for anyone to backtrack just a little bit, to say there was another way. That's what I found so hard. That and the fact there was no compassion. They said it was about Molly but it certainly never felt like that."

But perhaps most worrying of all is the fact that Fran's case, while undoubtedly extreme, is also indicative of a disturbing trend. Two thousand babies less than a year old were taken from their parents last year by social services — three times the number of ten years ago.

Fran's story already has echoes of Nicky and Mark Webster, formerly known as the Hardinghams, whose case was highlighted in this newspaper. They, too, fled the country in order to stop social services taking away their newborn baby, a boy called Brandon, after their first three children were adopted over abuse allegations.

The Websters have since returned to England and have won a landmark case to keep their fourth child. And what does the future hold for Fran Lyon, a young mother who was dealt a rough hand as a teenager and fought to get a normal life and now just wants to do what's best for her daughter?

Perhaps social workers know something Fran is not revealing. Last night a spokeswoman for Northumberland County Council said: "We are unable to comment on individual cases, and we do not believe that it is in the best interests of any mother or child to discuss personal details through the media, but unfortunately it does mean only one side is being heard.

"Safeguarding arrangements in Northumberland were rated as good in a recent rigorous Government inspection. Ms Lyon and her legal adviser have attended all of her case conferences and have been fully informed of the concerns of the professionals involved in her case.

"Where a child or unborn baby is subject to a child-protection plan and they move to reside in another authority or country, responsibility would normally pass to the new authority or relevant authority in another country. Northumberland County Council would make sure the new authority has all the relevant information it needs to make informed decisions."

Mr Hemming said: "I think it's appalling and very disturbing and, sadly, Fran's case is not unique.

"Of course there are situations where you've got to intervene but the system all too often fails to intervene where it should and then intervenes where it shouldn't. It's a steamroller of a system and it steamrollers mothers and children."

Only one thing remains certain. If Fran proves herself to be a good and loving mother, Northumberland's carefully worked-out "birth plan" can only ever be seen as an act of almost unimaginable cruelty by the State.

Fran's story is told on Tonight With Trevor McDonald, tomorrow at 8pm on ITV1.

Source: Daily Mail (UK)

Georgia Senator Takes On Child Protectors

November 24, 2007

Nancy Schaefer was elected to the Georgia senate in 2004 representing district 50 in the northeast corner of the state. Today the homepage of her website consists of a document criticizing Georgia DFCS, Department of Family and Children's Services. It reads like a document prepared by a critical website, such as this one. It includes all of the common abuses: children taken on grounds of poverty, parents harassed with endless classes, fraud by caseworkers, shotgun divorce and failure to remove children from truly dangerous situations.

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From the legislative desk of Senator Nancy Schaefer 50th District of Georgia

November 16, 2007

THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES

BY: Nancy Schaefer
     Senator, 50th District

My introduction into child protective service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children. Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.

The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents were told wrongly that they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parent’s children that the foster parents had, at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with the caseworker.

In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed. Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them.

After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father, who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast. The father was in “adult entertainment”. His girlfriend worked as an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him.

Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother’s door and took the girls kicking and screaming to California.

The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster parents and soon moved back to the southeast, and the foster parents began driving to the father’s residence and picking up the little girls for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother on two different occasions that the foster father molested her.

To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative grandmother does not even have visitation privileges with the children. The little girls are in my opinion permanently traumatized and the young mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the girls were first removed from her that she has not recovered.

Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn. I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.

In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.

The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection. This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and DFCS who do does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment and abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B)

In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and cried. Some did not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I had witnessed the “Gestapo” at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off of school buses, and out of homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the DFCS department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse.

Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS office were fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same practices that they had before the light was shown on their deeds.

Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system.

I have come to the conclusion:

• that poor parents often times are targeted to lose their children because they do not have the where-with-all to hire lawyers and fight the system. Being poor does not mean you are not a good parent or that you do not love your child, or that your child should be removed and placed with strangers;
• that all parents are capable of making mistakes and that making a mistake does not mean your children are always to be removed from the home. Even if the home is not perfect, it is home; and that’s where a child is the safest and where he or she wants to be, with family;
• that parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling referrals, therapy classes and on and on are demanded of parents with no compassion by the system even while they are at work and while their children are separated from them. This can take months or even years and it emotionally devastates both children and parents. Parents are victimized by “the system” that makes a profit for holding children longer and “bonuses” for not returning children;
• that caseworkers and social workers are oftentimes guilty of fraud. They withhold evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights. However, when charges are made against them, the charges are ignored;
• that the separation of families is growing as a business because local governments have grown accustomed to having taxpayer dollars to balance their ever-expanding budgets;
• that Child Protective Service and Juvenile Court can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There should be open records and “court watches”! Look who is being paid! There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that social workers are the glue that holds “the system” together that funds the court, the child’s attorney, and the multiple other jobs including DFCS’s attorney.
• that The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing;
• that there is double dipping. The funding continues as long as the child is out of the home. When a child in foster care is placed with a new family then “adoption bonus funds” are available. When a child is placed in a mental health facility and is on 16 drugs per day, like two children of a constituent of mine, more funds are involved;
• that there are no financial resources and no real drive to unite a family and help keep them together;
• that the incentive for social workers to return children to their parents quickly after taking them has disappeared and who in protective services will step up to the plate and say, “This must end! No one, because they are all in the system together and a system with no leader and no clear policies will always fail the children. Look at the waste in government that is forced upon the tax payer;
• that the “Policy Manuel” is considered “the last word” for DFCS. However, it is too long, too confusing, poorly written and does not take the law into consideration;
• that if the lives of children were improved by removing them from their homes, there might be a greater need for protective services, but today all children are not always safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care and the head of a Foster Parents Association in my District was recently arrested because of child molestation;
• that some parents are even told if they want to see their children or grandchildren, they must divorce their spouse. Many, who are under privileged, feeling they have no option, will divorce and then just continue to live together. This is an anti-family policy, but parents will do anything to get their children home with them.
• fathers, (non-custodial parents) I must add, are oftentimes treated as criminals without access to their own children and have child support payments strangling the very life out of them;
• that the Foster Parents Bill of Rights does not bring out that a foster parent is there only to care for a child until the child can be returned home. Many Foster Parents today use the Foster Parent Bill of Rights to hire a lawyer and seek to adopt the child from the real parents, who are desperately trying to get their child home and out of the system;
• that tax dollars are being used to keep this gigantic system afloat, yet the victims, parents, grandparents, guardians and especially the children, are charged for the system’s services.
• that grandparents have called from all over the State of Georgia trying to get custody of their grandchildren. DFCS claims relatives are contacted, but there are cases that prove differently. Grandparents who lose their grandchildren to strangers have lost their own flesh and blood. The children lose their family heritage and grandparents, and parents too, lose all connections to their heirs.
• that The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official “safety”, these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in the general population.
• That according to the California Little Hoover Commission Report in 2003, 30% to 70% of the children in California group homes do not belong there and should not have been removed from their homes.

Please continue:
(See Final Remarks below)

FINAL REMARKS

On my desk are scores of cases of exhausted families and troubled children. It has been beyond me to turn my back on these suffering, crying, and sometimes beaten down individuals. We are mistreating the most innocent. Child Protective Services have become adult centered to the detriment of children. No longer is judgment based on what the child needs or who the child wants to be with or what is really best for the whole family; it is some adult or bureaucrat who makes the decisions, based often on just hearsay, without ever consulting a family member, or just what is convenient, profitable, or less troublesome for a director of DFCS.

Children deserve better. Families deserve better. It’s time to pull back the curtain and set our children and families free.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy” Proverbs 31:8-9

Please continue to read:
Recommendations
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Call for an independent audit of the Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS) to expose corruption and fraud.
2. Activate immediate change. Every day that passes means more families and children are subject to being held hostage.
3. End the financial incentives that separate families.
4. Grant to parents their rights in writing.
5. Mandate a search for family members to be given the opportunity to adopt their own relatives.
6. Mandate a jury trial where every piece of evidence is presented before removing a child from his or her parents.
7. Require a warrant or a positive emergency circumstance before removing children from their parents. (Judge Arthur G. Christean, Utah Bar Journal, January, 1997 reported that “except in emergency circumstances, including the need for immediate medical care, require warrants upon affidavits of probable cause before entry upon private property is permitted for the forcible removal of children from their parents.”)
8. Uphold the laws when someone fabricates or presents false evidence. If a parent alleges fraud, hold a hearing with the right to discovery of all evidence.

Continue to Exhibit A

EXHIBIT A

December 5, 2006

Jeremy’s Story

( Some names withheld due to future hearings)

As told to Senator Nancy Schaefer by Sandra (XXXX), a foster parent of Jeremy for 2 ½ years.

My husband and I received Jeremy when he was 2 weeks old and we have been the only parents he has really ever known. He lived with us for 27 months. (XXXX) is the grandfather of Jeremy, and he is known for molesting his own children, for molesting Jeremy and has been court ordered not to be around Jeremy. (XXXX) is the mother of Jeremy, who has been diagnosed to be mentally ill, and also is known to have molested Jeremy. (XXXX) and Jeremy’s uncle is a registered sex offender and (XXXX) is the biological father, who is a drug addict and alcoholic and who continues to be in and out of jail. Having just described Jeremy’s world, all of these adults are not to be any part of Jeremy’s life, yet for years DFCS has known that they are. DFCS had to test (XXXX) (the grandfather) and his son (XXXX) (the uncle) and (XXXX) to determine the real father. (XXXX) is the biological father although any of them might have been. In court, it appeared from the case study, that everyone involved knew that this little boy had been molested by family members, even by his own mother, (XXXX). In court, (XXX), the mother of Jeremy, admitted to having had sex with (XXXX) (the grandfather) and (XXXX) (her own brother) that morning. Judge (XXXX) and DFCS gave Jeremy to his grandmother that same day. (XXXX), the grandmother, is over 300 lbs., is unable to drive, and is unable to take care of Jeremy due to physical problems. She also has been in a mental hospital several times due to her behavior.

Even though it was ordered by the court that the grandfather (XXXX), the uncle (XXXX) (a convicted sex offender), (XXXX) his mother who molested him and (XXXX) his biological father, a convicted drug addict, were not to have anything to do with the child, they all continue to come and go as they please at (XXXX address), where Jeremy has been “sentenced to live” for years. This residence has no bathroom and little heat. The front door and the windows are boarded. (See pictures) This home should have been condemned years ago. I have been in this home. No child should ever have to live like this or with such people.

Jeremy was taken from us at age 2 ½ years after (XXXX) obtained attorney (XXXX), who was the same attorney who represented him in a large settlement from an auto accident. I am told, that attorney (XXXX), as grandfather’s attorney, is known to have repeatedly gotten (XXXX) off of several criminal charges in White County. This is a matter of record and is

known by many in White County. I have copies of some records. (XXXX grandfather), through (XXXX attorney’s) work, got (XXXX), the grandmother of Jeremy, legal custody of Jeremy. (XXXX grandfather) who cannot read or write also got his daughter (XXXX) and son (XXXX) diagnosed by government agencies as mentally ill. (XXXX grandfather), through legal channels, has taken upon himself all control of the family and is able to take possession of any government funding coming to these people.

It was during this time that Jeremy was to have a six-month transitional period between (XXXX grandmother) and my family as we were to give him up. The court ordered agreement was to have been 4 days at our house and 3 days at (XXXX grandmother). DFCS stopped the visits within 2 weeks. The reason given by DFCS was the child was too traumatized going back and forth. In truth, Jeremy begged us and screamed never to be taken back to (XXXX his grandmother) house, which we have on video. We, as a family, have seen Jeremy in stores time to time with (XXXX grandmother) and the very people he is not to be around. At each meeting Jeremy continues to run to us wherever he sees us and it is clear he is suffering. This child is in a desperate situation and this is why I am writing, and begging you Senator Schaefer, to do something in this child’s behalf. Jeremy can clearly describe in detail his sexual molestation by every member of this family and this sexual abuse continues to this day.

When Jeremy was 5 years of age I took him to Dr. (XXXX) of Habersham County who did indeed agree that Jeremy’s rectum was black and blue and the physical damage to the child was clearly a case of sexual molestation .

Early in Jeremy’s life, when he was in such bad physical condition, we took him to Egleston Children Hospital where at two months of age therapy was to begin three times a week. DFCS decided that the (XXXX grandparent family) should participate in his therapy. However, the therapist complained over and over that the (XXXX grandparent family) would not even wash their hands and would cause Jeremy to cry during these sessions. (XXXX the grandmother), after receiving custody no longer allowed the therapy because it was an inconvenience. The therapist reported that this would be a terrible thing to do to this child. Therapy was stopped and it was detrimental to the health of Jeremy.

During (XXXX grandmother) custody, (XXXX uncle) has shot Jeremy with a BB gun and there is a report at (XXXX) County Sheriff’s office. There are several amber alerts at Cornelia Wal-Mart, Commerce Wal-Mart, and a 911 report from (XXXX) County Sheriff’s Department when Jeremy was lost. (XXXX grandmother), to teach Jeremy a lesson, took thorn bush limbs and beat the bottoms of his feet. Jeremy’s feet got infected and his feet had to be lanced by Dr. (XXXX). Then Judy called me to pick him up after about 4 days to take back him to the doctor because of intense pain. I took Jeremy to Dr. (XXXX) in Gainesville. Dr. (XXXX) said surgery was needed immediately and a cast was added. After returning home, (XXXX), his grandfather and (XXXX), his uncle, took him into the hog lot and allowed him to walk in the filth.

Jeremy’s feet became so infected for a 2nd time that he was again taken back to Dr. (XXXX) and the hospital. No one in the hospital could believe this child’s living conditions.

Jeremy is threatened to keep quiet and not say anything to anyone. I have videos, reports, arrest records and almost anything you might need to help Jeremy.

Please call my husband, Wendell, or me at any time.

Sandra and (XXXX) husband (XXXX)

Continue - Exhibit B

EXHIBIT B

Failure of DFCS

to remove six desperate children

A brief report regarding six children that Habersham County DFCS director failed to remove as disclosed to Senator Nancy Schaefer by Sheriff Deray Fincher of Habersham County.

Sheriff Deray Fincher, Chief of Police Don Ford and Chief Investigator Lt. Greg Bowen Chief called me to meet with them immediately, which I did on Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Sheriff Fincher, after contacting the Director of Habersham County DFCS several times to remove six children from being horribly abused, finally had to get a court order to remove the children himself with the help of two police officers.

The children, four boys and two girls, were not just being abused; they were being tortured by a monster father.

The six children and a live in girl friend were terrified of this man, the abuser. The children never slept in a bed, but always on the floor. The place where they lived was unfit for human habitation.

The father on one occasion hit one of the boys across his head with a bat and cut the boy’s head open. The father then proceeded to hold the boy down and sew up the child’s head with a needle and red thread. However, even with beatings and burnings, this is only a fraction of what the father did to these children and to the live-in girlfriend.

Sheriff Fincher has pictures of the abuse and condition of one of the boys and at the writing of this report, he has the father in jail in Habersham County.

It should be noted that when the DFCS director found out that Sheriff Fincher was going to remove the children, she called the father and warned him to flee.

This is not the only time this DFCS director failed to remove a child when she needed to do so. (See Exhibit A)

The egregious acts and abhorrent behavior of officials who are supposed to protect children can no longer be tolerated.

Senator Nancy Schaefer
50th District of Georgia

Senator Nancy Schaefer 302 B Coverdell Office Building 18 Capitol Square, SW Atlanta, Georgia 30334 Phone: 404-463-1367 Fax: 404-657-3217

Senator Nancy Schaefer District Office P O Box 294 Turnerville, Georgia 30580 Phone: 706-754-1998 Fax: 706-754-1803

email: senatornancyschaefer@alltel.net
Please forward to anyone interested

Source: Senator Nancy Schaefer

Bereaved Mother Torches Home

November 23, 2007

Shirley Hart lost her children to CPS in North Carolina, then set fire to her home. Police sent her to a psychiatrist. Instead of her children, she will get a few bottles of pills.

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Woman Arrested In Morning Apartment Fire

Thursday, Nov 22, 2007 - 06:00 PM Updated: 08:00 PM

Photo By: NBC17

By Carolyn Costello, NBC17 Weekend Anchor, Reporter, WNCN-TV

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Police said a woman in Raleigh set her duplex on fire Thursday morning to retaliate against child protective services for taking her children.

Just after 7:30 this morning fire broke out at an apartment complex on Baker's Grove Way. Police took Shirley Heart into custody and said she is getting psychiatric help.

The fire damaged her neighbor's adjoining duplex as well leaving that woman without a home on Thanksgiving Day.

Tammie Goodson woke up this Thanksgiving morning to a roaring fire. Police said her neighbor, Shirley Heart, torched her own duplex, destroying it and damaging Goodson's.

"Everybody in there was asleep. If the neighbors across the street had not banged on that door and let us know we'd have burned up in there," Goodson said.

Goodson said she had complained about Heart before. She called Child Protective Services who then came and took Heart's children.

Neighbors told police heart had threatened to burn down her home and other homes in the area if authorities took her kids. Police said it appears that's just what she did.

Police took Heart into custody Thursday morning and no charges have been filed.

"She's being evaluated at this point in a medical facility. Charges will depend on the outcome of the medical evaluation and in consulting with the DA's office," said Captain Mike Reynolds of the Raleigh Police Department.

Goodson said her neighbor hasn't been right lately. She said Heart has been up in the middle of the night, waking her kids by yelling and praying.

"She had them up at 3:00 in the morning just praising the Lord," Goodson said.

"Between the landlord and me calling the police no one seemed to listen to me and do anything. What are we left to do now?" Good said.

Source: WNCN - NBC17

Ottawa CAS Back to Court

November 23, 2007

John Dunn and the Ottawa CAS will be back to court on January 24 in his effort to get the CAS criminally charged for failure to supply a membership list. The press release follows. In an earlier posting we incorrectly said that the case was over, based on the letter from John Dunn to crown prosecutor Yvonne Goebel.

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NEWS RELEASE
John Dunn
Executive Director
The Foster Care Council of Canada
613-228-2178
johndunn@afterfostercare.ca
12-1160 Meadowlands Drive East
Ottawa, ON K2E 6J2
http://www.afterfostercare.ca

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Former foster child and child welfare reform advocate John Dunn has laid charges against the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa. Dunn, in his efforts advocate for children and youth in foster care to become voting members of the Society in accordance with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has had his efforts blocked by the Society who is now in court over the matter.

According to Dunn, the Society is required by section 307 (1) of the Corporations Act, to furnish a list of the members of the Society to any person who requests it in accordance with the legislation so that they can advocate for changes related to the Society through the members. If the Society refuses to furnish the list of its members when required to do so, Dunn says that section 307 (5) of the Act makes it a Offence and that this is where the charge originated.

On the heels of the Ontario Auditor General's Report which focused on inappropriate spending of Tax Payers money within Children's Aid Societies, the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa, within a week of receiving the request for a list of their members retained the services of an outside lawyer, Robert C. Morrow of Burke-Robertson, to assist them in refusing the furnish the list as required by law.

Dunn and the Society will appear again in court to set a trial date on January 24, 2008.

--30--

Source: email from John Dunn

---

November 22, 2007

Today I went into court expecting to hear a plead from the Society. However, in the back of my mind, I knew something was probably going to surface. What did happen however surprised me. An expectation I had several months ago began to transpire.

I arrived at the court and was contacted by the Provincial Prosecutor at the Court house who informed me that Counsel for the defendants (their Exec. Dir) was concerned that I had not filed the information (the charge) within the legal six months from the time the Offence was committed.

I was, at first taken-aback but soon realized that I had already covered this issue from the beginning by ensuring that the charge was laid within legal limit of six months from the date the actual Offence was committed.

The request was filed with the Society on February 05, 2007. They had ten days to comply with the request before they would be in a position of having committed the Offence of contravening section 307 (5) of the Corporations Act. (Failing to provide the list of members of the Society as required by section 307 (1))

This means that they had to provide the list any time up to and including Thursday, February 15th, 2007 or, in other words prior to Friday, February 16th, 2007 in order to prevent themselves from committing the Offence.

Instead they intentionally retained a lawyer in order to assist them in committing the Offence by having Counsel write a letter to me dated February 14th, 2007 stating that they will not provide the list to me. (therefore demonstrating that they were going to commit the Offence). This letter was written just two days short of the date the Offence would officially have been deemed to have been committed. (Feb. 16th, 2007)

In this letter, three assumptions were made as "reasons" for not furnishing the list to me stating that I was not going to use the list for legal purposes and that they could not provide the list to me due to provisions of the Federal Privacy legislation (PIPEDA) which actually does only applies to commercial businesses or undertakings not exclusively legislated, non-profit organizations -- which is what the Society is.

I have since obtained a letter from the Federal Privacy Commission stating that the Act does not apply to the Society.

So anyhow, this is a strict liability Offence which only affords them the defences of Due Diligence and Mistake of Fact. Neither of which apply in this case. Therefore there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and a public interest in this prosecution since the lives of children in foster care in Ontario are affected by decisions made by the Society and they are blocking the membership from being informed of important issues of interest to the members which will only be brought to their attention via concerned members of the community who have attempted to become a member but who have had their membership applications denied by the Board due to what can only be assumed to be political reasons.

Source: letter from John Dunn to crown prosecutor Yvonne Goebel

Assault on CAS Worker (maybe)

November 23, 2007

In the following story the perpetrator and victim are both unnamed, so we cannot tell whether it is a fake planted by children's aid to draw sympathy or the story of a mother acting on the animal instinct to guard her children from harm through force if necessary.

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Everyone a little more aware at Children's Aid Society

Date: 2007-11-23, By Lauren Gilchrist

They get threats. There are assaults.

Hugh Nicholson, executive director of the Kawartha Haliburton Children's Aid Society (CAS), says at times the organization's work is dangerous.

That is no more evident than following a recent assault on a CAS worker.

A 34-year-old woman, armed with a pair of barber scissors, is charged after allegedly grabbing a Children's Aid Society worker by the hair.

According to City police, on Wednesday (Nov. 21) at approximately 12:15 p.m. the accused went to the Children's Aid Society offices on Chemong Road. When there, she asked to speak to a worker concerning her child's child care issues. She asked to speak to the victim, a Children's Aid Society worker. The victim, a 42-year-old female, was paged to come to the lobby. When the victim asked the accused how she could help her, the accused allegedly grabbed the victim by the hair with her left hand while armed with a pair of barber scissors in her right hand. While the victim struggled to get free, the accused allegedly grabbed the victim's right arm and left index finger. Several staff members came to the aid of the victim and were able to wrestle the scissors away from the accused and separate the two women.

A day after the incident, Mr. Nicholson says the staff are still on edge.

“A little nervous and concerned about the person that was assaulted. She is home today [Thursday] taking a bit of a break before she comes back in,” he says.

“It makes everyone here more aware of the dangers involved in child protection. It just reminds us all we need to be very careful about it.”

Mr. Nicholson says a staff member was seriously assaulted roughly a year ago.

“It was an assault on one of our staff who came out to supervise a visit between a mother and her child,” he explains.

Mr. Nicholson says every time an incident like this happens they learn something.

“We have pretty good security measures and they worked well in this instance,” he says, referring to Wednesday's alleged assault.

He notes one measure is the panic buttons located in areas where clients are in contact with staff.

“The area itself is pretty secure,” he explains, noting there is also a protocol in place once the panic button is pressed.

“Although this incident was unfortunate, it was terminated very quickly. But there are improvements I think we can make to it.”

He says there is an emergency health and safety meeting scheduled for Monday (Nov. 26) where staff can put forward suggestions.

The accused was arrested and charge with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and assault with a weapon. The victim was treated at the hospital for her injuries. The name of the accused will not be released in order to protect her child's identity.

Source: mykawartha.com, Metroland Media Group

Falsely Convicted Mother

November 22, 2007

Harold Levy has been closely following the Gouge Inquiry into pathologist Dr Charles Smith. Here is his report on the case of Sherry Sherret.

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Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Goudge Inquiry: Joshua's Case: Part Three; Aftermath Of A Flawed Opinion;

"SOME CASES COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM"
- LAWYER BRUCE HILLIER.

On January 4, 1999, something happened that should never happen in Canada's criminal justice system.

Sherry Sherret pleaded guilty to a crime she did not commit.

Dr. Charles Smith's opinion was at the heart of the Agreed Statement of Facts read into the court record;

The Agreed Statement reads:

"Dr. Charles Smith performed an autopsy on the baby at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children.

He determined the cause of death to be asphyxia.

He ruled out mould or disease as a cause of death.

Pinpoint hemorrhages in the tissue of the eyelids, sometimes present in non-accidental asphyxia were not found in the case.

Dr. Smith was highly suspicion that the death as non-accidental, but there were no overt signs of violence upon which to make a conclusive finding."

"A microscopic skull fracture was discovered months after the original post mortem," the Agreed Statement of Facts continued.

"It was not initially visible to the pathologist."

Dr. Smith testified at the preliminary hearing that this skull fracture could have been caused on either an accidental or non-accidental basis and was not the cause of death.'

One can only imagine what Sherret felt when she heard Justice Byers utter the fallowing words before sentencing her to one year in jail followed by two years probation.

"To this day, I do not understand why she did it," he began.

"There is no doubt that looking after Joshua was very stressful for her; and it would seem that there were warning signs that were there to be seen

But at the end of the day only she knows what she did, and shy she did it.

And she is not telling." denies her guilt and shows no remorse," Byers continued.

"Her support system in the community - her family, her friends - reinforce that position.

Joshua did not die because his mother was suffering from some sort of post-partem depression.

His death, perhaps, is connected the fact that Sherry suffers from what the doctors have called a mixed personality disorder.

Or perhaps not.

No doubt, though, her attitude towards this tragedy is connected to that diagnosis."

We are now aware that Dr. Smith's opinion was terribly flawed.

There was no ashphyxia.

There was no skull fracture.

There was just an innocent grieving mother who had lost her son due to a natural but unexplained death; (One possibility is that Joshua accidentally suffocated during his sleep.)

I sometimes wonder how judges feel on learning that they have passed sentence on an innocent person - and the words they have said on passing sentence are seen in a different light.

In fairness, the judge usually has no information on the case except that which is provided by the parties at the particular time.

The one year prison term - sentencing was left in the hands of the judge - was not the only punishment meted on Ms. Sherret in the aftermath of Dr. Charles Randal Smith's flawed opinion.

Byers also placed her on probation for two years, saying:

"You are not to be in a parental position towards infant children; and,

"If you get pregnant, you must immediately report that to a probation officer."

We learn from an Overview Report on the case prepared by Commission staff that Sherret had a third child in September, 2005 - and that on the basis of her conviction for infanticide the local Children's Aid Society applied for an order removing her from the family home in order to prevent her from living with her new child.

The Report includes a letter "To whom it may concern" drafted by Bruce Hillier, Sherret's lawyer, to assist her with the family court proceedings;

"Faced with the prospect of a conviction and all that flows from that, I vigorously represented Ms. Sherret and at the 11th hour, the Crown's office, no doubt for good reasons, elected to resolve the matter by way of a plea for the rarely used charge of infanticide, the basis at the time, Sherry was suffering from post-partem depression," Hillier wrote;

"The compromise between the Crown and the defence was seen as a way out for both sides - the Crown fearing they couldn't get a conviction of any kind and the defence fearing that a conviction for murder, while not justified, would result in a lengthy period of incarceration."

Sherret then turned to the Association In Defence of the Wrongly Accused for assistance.

Lawyer James Lockyer wrote former Chief Coroner Dr. Barry McLellan, that a review by his office of Joshua's death "acquires huge importance" because Sherret, having lost one child to adoption, now faced loss of her daughter.

"Ms. Sherret has two other children," Lockyer wrote.

"Her first born...was taken away from her at the age of eighteen months after her arrest in March 1996 for Josh's murder.

(He) was subsequently put up for adoption, and now lives with his adoptive parents in Cobourg;

Ms. Sherret has written contact with him every year at Christmas and his birthday,

(He) is now 12 years old.

Her third born...is now five-months old.

Ms. Sherret, (the child's father) and (the child) herself live together at their home in Belleville.

By Court order, Ms. Sherret has not been allowed to be alone at any time with her daughter since her birth;"

Lockyer stressed that a review was imperative because, "if Joshua died of natural causes, as AIDWYC believes he likely did, (and the Chief Coroner's review confirmed: HL) Ms. Sherret may be about to become the victim of a third miscarriage of justice."

"(Her daughter) will become one too."

Finally, on April 5, 2007, the Children's Aid Society applied in Court for an order terminating the existing supervision order.

A child protection worked candidly noted in an affidavit filed with the Court that, "Following the completion of the parenting Capacity Assessment, it was noted that (Sherry's) denial of any wrongdoing was concerning and further, made it impossible to treat her."

"However, it is now believed that (Sherry) may not have done anything wrong.

AIDWYC is now pursuing quashing of the infanticide conviction and an acquittal for Ms. Sherret in the Ontario Court of Appeal;

Lawyer Hillier cogently summed up this case in his letter "to whom it may concern" referred to above.

"Some cases come back to haunt you and this is one of them," he said.

Harold Levy

Posted by harold levy at 2:45 PM

Source: Harold Levy's blog

Motherhood Criminalized

November 22, 2007

Another mother is facing criminal charges for caring for her own child. This time the mother was arrested so quickly that it was not necessary for police to release her name.

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The Toronto Star

Woman abducts own child

November 20, 2007, Justin Piercy, Staff Reporter

A woman who allegedly abducted her own child from a Children's Aid office today has been charged.

Police arrested a woman near Dufferin and Bloor Sts. after she left the office with her child around noon, said Det. Cst. Dawe of the Toronto police Youth Bureau.

Dawe said the woman was arrested "very shortly" after leaving the office with her child.

Police would not comment on how long the child has been in the care of Children's Aid.

The unidentified woman has been charged with abduction and the investigation is continuing.

Source: Toronto Star

Smokers to Lose Kids

November 22, 2007

Wolfville Nova Scotia has outlawed smoking in a car with child passengers. The CBC news item omits an important fact. In other areas when police stop a car with a safety violation endangering a child, such a child without a seatbelt, they notify the child protectors. Assuming Nova Scotia is the same, smoking parents will now lose their children in Wolfville. We can expect this law to spread to the rest of Canada in a few years.

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N.S. town bans smoking in cars carrying children

Last Updated: Monday, November 19, 2007 | 10:30 PM AT, CBC News

A small Nova Scotia town on Monday became the first Canadian municipality to ban smoking in vehicles when a child is present.

All seven councillors in Wolfville, a town of 3,600 located about 70 kilometres northwest of Halifax, voted in favour of the measure.

The law, expected to come into effect next June, would prohibit exposing children under the age of 18 to second-hand smoke in a vehicle.

Wolfville Mayor Bob Stead said the RCMP is on side and will issue first-time offenders a warning, while subsequent offences would likely result in a $50 fine.

Stead said there was widespread support for the ban at a public meeting held Nov. 5. The mayor said council members felt it was important to protect children under 18 from health risks posed by the smoke.

Critics have argued the bylaw is intrusive, restricting what people can do inside their own vehicles.

Stead said if people really want to light up while transporting children, there's nothing to stop them from leaving town.

"They can probably do that by driving a couple of kilometres."

With files from the Canadian Press

Source: CBC

John Dunn in Court

November 21, 2007

John Dunn invites interested persons to attend a court hearing tomorrow in his criminal case against Ottawa Children's Aid.

If you are able to attend a very short hearing to determine a court date for trial between John Dunn and the Ottawa CAS please visit afterfostercare.ca for details

Next Court Date & Location:
Thursday November 22nd, 2007, @ 1:30pm, in court room 102 at 100 Constellation Crescent in Ottawa, Ontario

(Traffic Ticket Provincial Court near Algonquin College/Baseline Station)

Source: email from John Dunn

Tasers for Mom and Dad

November 21, 2007

Those deadly tasers are not just for armed robbers, murderers and people who get stuck in airports. The family is one of their main targets.

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November 19, 2007

Tasers often used by RCMP to quell family disputes, reports show

By Sue Bailey And Jim Bronskill, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - When family disputes turn nasty and the RCMP show up at the door, a Taser stun frequently becomes part of the volatile mix.

Reports filed by the Mounties show officers fired their electronic guns 72 times over a three-year period after being called to a domestic disturbance.

It's a statistical window into how police respond to explosive spousal and child-custody fights that play out in the kitchens and living rooms across the country.

It was just before 11 p.m. when seven officers turned up to quell a spousal dispute in The Pas, Man., in April 2004.

An unarmed man was zapped with a Taser three times, resisting police until he was eventually handcuffed.

It was just one of 563 times the RCMP resorted to stunning suspects with a Taser between March 2002 and March 2005, according to an analysis by The Canadian Press.

The heavily censored reports, obtained under the Access to Information Act, say the RCMP fired Tasers during two other domestic fights in Manitoba during the period, 21 in British Columbia, 18 in Saskatchewan and 12 in Alberta.

RCMP used Tasers in eight domestic incidents in Newfoundland, six in Nunavut, and one each in New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories.

Electronic guns have come under heavy scrutiny since Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, died at the Vancouver airport last month after being hit twice with a Taser and subdued by the RCMP.

In three-quarters of incidents examined by The Canadian Press in which RCMP fired a Taser, the suspects were unarmed.

But for domestic disputes it was a different story: in more than 60 per cent of cases, at least one of the family members had a weapon.

A Taser was fired in Cole Harbour, N.S., in the wee hours of May 22, 2004, in a bid to defuse a household dispute in which one party had picked up a knife and large piece of wood in addition to tossing furniture around.

Domestic arguments are among the most difficult scenarios for police, said Eileen Morrow, co-ordinator of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses.

"It's one of the most dangerous calls a police officer makes," Morrow said.

"There's potential for very dangerous behaviour, and unless you know what's going on, you have to assume the person could be lethal."

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has ordered the RCMP to review its policy on Taser use.

But he played down the notion the Mounties frequently use the stun guns as a convenient means to make unarmed people - including prisoners and drunks - obey officers.

"Of some three million people in a year that are stopped by RCMP, the vast majority of them, of course, would not be armed," he said Monday.

"So it's not surprising that the majority of people who would encounter an incident like this would in fact not be armed."

Opposition critics urged the government to take tougher action.

NDP Leader Jack Layton called for holstering of the stun guns during the RCMP review "because clearly we don't have a uniform standard across the country for how and when Tasers are to be used."

Liberal public safety critic Ujjal Dosanjh said Day should order a comprehensive, national, independent and public review of Taser use.

Dosanjh, attorney general of British Columbia when the electronic guns were being introduced across Canada, suggested Tasers are not being used the way they were originally intended.

"I was always told that Tasers are an alternative to the use of lethal force," he said.

"Therefore I would have assumed that they would be used where otherwise a gun would have been necessary.

And I think that's the question we need to ask in (the Dziekanski) case and in other cases."

In the Commons, Prime Minister Stephen Harper described Dziekanski's death, captured on video by a fellow traveller at the airport, as "deeply disturbing" and noted inquiries are underway.

"We will be following those inquiries and also looking at what other options and what other actions may be necessary in this case."

Source: canoe.com

Dr Smith Got CAS to Snatch Child

November 21, 2007

The surviving child of Lianne Thibeault was taken into CAS custody on a fallacious opinion by Dr Charles Smith following the accidental death of another child, Nicholas. The name Thibeault was published two years ago, but is suppressed by the Star in conformance with gag orders from the inquiry. Is the purpose of the inquiry to bring out the facts, or to suppress material previously known?

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The Toronto Star

Smith went too far, Irish expert says

November 20, 2007, Theresa Boyle, Staff Reporter

A top British pathologist says Dr. Charles Smith went too far in concluding that an 11-month-old Sudbury boy died because of deliberately inflicted injuries.

Testifying this morning at the Public Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario, Dr. Jack Crane, State Pathologist for Northern Ireland, said Smith was wrong to conclude that the child known only as Nicholas died in 1995 as a result of suffering a "non-accidental" blunt force injury to his head.

"It's a leap too far," Crane said.

"It's beyond the bounds of credibility," he added.

Nicholas' mother had said her son hit his head on the underside of a sewing machine, but Smith said her explanation wasn't consistent with the medical evidence.

She subsequently had a second child removed from her care for a period of time by local child welfare authorities.

The province called the inquiry after questions were raised about 20 child-death investigations on which Smith worked. In 12 of these cases, parents and caregivers were convicted of crimes. In one case an individual was found not criminally responsible. And in seven cases, people were suspected or charged with crimes but not convicted.

Nicholas' mother Lianne falls into the latter category.

An initial autopsy on Nicholas had revealed he had died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

But Smith was brought in to give a second opinion after the case was sent to the Pediatric Review Committee. This required the exhumation of the boy's body.

Crane has been called in by the chief coroner's office to review a number of Smith's cases.

"I am of the view, that Dr. Smith's opinions, as given in this case, were seriously flawed," Crane wrote.

The Irish doctor also called into question an affidavit to the Sudbury child welfare authorities by Ontario's deputy coroner Dr. Jim Cairns, in which he fully backed Smith's work on the case.

"This caused me some concern... It seemed to me the coroner being an independent judicial officer really shouldn't be commenting in this way," Crane said of Cairns.

Crane said Cairns was weighing into the field of pathology, which he had no business doing.

"With the greatest respect to Dr. Cairns, he's not a pathologist.... It's wholly inappropriate for a coroner to comment specifically on a pathological finding," Crane said, noting that the deputy coroner's opinion can carry significant weight.

Meantime, Commissioner Stephen Goudge has rejected a motion by Smith to allow the doctor's lawyers to lead him through his testimony.

Smith's motion had argued that it would be fair and appropriate for him to be examined by his counsel because of the risks to his reputation.

But Goudge ruled that having commission counsel lead Smith through his testimony shouldn't add any risks to Smith's reputation.

As well, Goudge noted that the commission counsel are required to act in the public interest and ensure that all relevant facts are placed before the commission in a fair and impartial way.

Source: Toronto Star

Congressman's Grandchildren Abducted

November 20, 2007

The three children of Brian Miller have been abducted by their mother, who has withheld visitation from their father and grandfather. There is absolutely nothing unusual about this situation, repeated thousands of times, except that the bereft grandfather is Gary Miller, a US Congressman. We don't know yet whether the senior Mr Miller will use his influence to clean up family law for all families, or just his own. Later news reports indicate that an Amber alert has been issued in the case.

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Whittier, CA, 11/21/2007

Miller spokesman says congressman concerned

Police are still searching for Miller's grandchildren

By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer

The missing grandchildren of U.S. Rep Gary Miller, R-Brea have been identified as Brian, Evan and Christian Miller, officials said Tuesday.

DIAMOND BAR -- A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, said Tuesday the congressman and his wife are concerned about their missing grandchildren.

"This is a very private matter," said the spokesman Kevin McKee. "An investigation is underway and they are very concerned about what's happening to their grandkids. They are not going to get in the middle of this while their grandkids are unaccounted."

Meanwhile, the father of a woman suspected of abducting the the three children said Tuesday he has not spoken to his daughter for two days.

Jude Lopez, of Diamond Bar, said his daughter, Jennifer DeJongh, 30, is embroiled in a custody dispute with the congressman's son, Brian, and the congressman.

Jennifer and George DeJongh has been reported missing on Monday along with the three grandchildren of the congressman Gary Miller.

Lopez said his daughter, a former Miss Diamond Bar, is not likely to return anytime soon.

He said he has no idea where she has gone.

Lopez believes DeJongh's husband George is with her and the three children. Lopez identified the children as Brian, 8, and twins, Evan and Christian, 6. The children were reported missing at about 1:30 p.m Monday from their Diamond Bar residence in the 22000 block of Cello Drive, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said.

Lopez said the three children are students at Maple Hill Elementary School in Diamond Bar. Lopez produced court documents that seemed to indicate the congressman and his wife were awarded a 90-day visitation with the children that was set to begin on Sunday and last through February.

Previously, DeJongh, had sole custody of the children, and the congressman's son was allowed supervised visitation, Lopez said.

Lopez also said that Brian Miller had been convicted in 2000 in a domestic abuse case involving Jennifer DeJongh.

Published reports indicated that Jennifer DeJongh was driving this Lincoln Aviator, but the car was seen parked at a home in Whittier Tuesday morning. The car belongs to Jennifer DeJongh's mother-in-law, relatives said. (Staff Photo by by Jennifer McLain)

McKee could not confirm the allegation.

A Lincoln Aviator, reportedly belonging to DeJongh, which was wrongly cited by some news sources as being the subject of an amber alert, is currently parked in front of a Whittier home, according to DeJongh's relatives.

Gary Miller represents the 42nd Congressional District, which includes Diamond Bar, Brea, Chino and Chino Hills.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the boys is asked to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department at (909) 595-2264.

Source: Whittier Daily News

Jim Cairns Advocated Child Snatching

November 20, 2007

In this article on Dr Charles Smith, the part we care about is at the end. Ontario's deputy chief coroner Dr. Jim Cairns prodded a children's aid society to remove a child from his parents.

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Pathologist's work 'bordered on the bizarre': inquiry

Tom Blackwell, National Post

Monday, November 19, 2007

TORONTO -- Dr. Charles Smith's work verged on the bizarre, was sometimes hard to comprehend and showed signs of a "Sherlock Holmes" approach to his scientific discipline, a public inquiry heard Monday.

The discredited Ontario pathologist's record underwent a blunt post-mortem itself as a team of international experts began to dissect his flawed investigations in a series of child deaths.

Many of the pathologist's errors were not subtle miscues, but complete misinterpretations of evidence, the forensic pathologists from Britain and Alberta testified. That included the skull fracture Smith unexpectedly diagnosed from microscopic examination of tissue -- after issuing an autopsy report that said there was no such injury.

"To me, it's almost bordering on the bizarre that, on a chance finding looking down your microscope, you would find a skull fracture," said Dr. Jack Crane, head pathologist for Northern Ireland. "It's just incredible that this would happen."

Crane said he looked at the same tissue sample from the four-month-old baby known at the inquiry as Joshua, and concluded it was a "suture," one of the natural gaps in babies' skulls before the bone fuses together.

In the same case, Smith was quoted in notes by a police officer as saying that autopsy evidence suggested a right-handed person had pushed down on the infant's throat.

There was no science to justify such speculation, which seemed akin to "making it up," said Crane.

"That's sometimes referred to as the Sherlock Holmes approach to pathology," added Dr. Christopher Milroy, chief forensic pathologist with Britain's Forensic Science Service.

Smith had concluded Joshua died from asphyxia, possibly as a result of intentional suffocation. His mother, Sherry Sherret, was charged with first-degree murder, though she was later convicted of infanticide.

The pathologists agreed the cause of death should have been listed as undetermined. Sherret is now trying to get the conviction overturned.

At one point in the same case, Smith said he could not be sure about the cause of death but offered his opinion after saying "If I was a betting man, I would bet that it was ..."

Crane was frank in his assessment of such testimony. "This is not a day at the races," he said. "This was a totally inappropriate phrase to use."

Milroy lambasted the Ontario pathologist for his work in the case of Jenna, a 21-month-old girl whose mother, Brenda Waudby, was also charged with murder. Her charges were eventually dropped, and last year the girl's 14-year-old male babysitter pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Smith incorrectly estimated the time the fatal injuries occurred, diverting attention away from the teenage boy, he said. He also failed to turn over to police a key piece of evidence: a pubic hair found in the toddler's vagina, which turned up in the pathologist's office four years later.

"The situation that arose here, I just find it impossible to imagine it occurring in our system," said Milroy. "There is no way the hair would not have been seized ... There is no way it would have ended up in a pathologist's desk drawer."

The criticism was not isolated to one former pathologist. In the case of Nicholas, Smith said the 11-month-old Sudbury, Ont., boy died of a blunt-force injury that was probably intentional. Though his parents were not charged by police, the Children's Aid Society tried to take away a child born later. The outside experts say there was no basis for the finding, and the cause of death should have been listed as undetermined.

Crane blasted Dr. Jim Cairns, Ontario's deputy chief coroner, for writing a letter in support of the Children's Aid Society application to seize the other child, saying it was "quite inappropriate" for an independent judicial official to intervene on one side of a child-welfare case.

Source: National Post

hush hush

November 19, 2007

The Edmonton woman who cannot be name charged with killing the child that cannot be named is facing a hearing that cannot be reported. In view of these conditions, we will henceforth refer to this as the Alberta Kafka case.

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Hearing underway for foster mother charged with murder

Edmonton Journal, Monday, November 19, 2007

EDMONTON - The preliminary hearing has started for an Edmonton foster mother charged with with second-degree murder in the death of a three-year-old boy.

The name of the the 32-year-old woman and the boy cannot be released. There is also a publication ban on reporting on the preliminary hearing that is scheduled for five days.

According to previously published reports, the boy died from severe head injuries shortly before midnight on Jan. 27, after being taken off life support.

His foster mother is charged with second-degree murder, assault causing bodily harm, aggravated assault, failure to provide the necessities of life and child abandonment.

Source: Edmonton Journal

Adoption for Dollars

November 19, 2007

The Windsor Star, a medium sized newspaper, published a letter severely critical of children's aid. How long will it be until the Toronto Star does the same?

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Agencies benefit from adoptions -- not kids

Letter

The Windsor Star, Published: Saturday, November 17, 2007

Children in the care of the province are being marketed like commodities. Does the public not realize that each child has a $10,000 provincial adoption bonus on his/her head, payable to the local child welfare agency?

A Star article shows that the province will accept just about anyone who is not on social welfare themselves as prospective parents. It even says it will consider people with previous criminal records, provided the crime is not too heinous.

Seventeen-year-olds are practically adults. Are they really suitable material for adoption? Should impressionable children be sent into homes with alternative lifestyles?

Increased numbers of Crown wards represent increased agency wealth and more service sector jobs.

The "best interests" of children is not the creation of huge social welfare agencies nested in luxurious quarters built at the expense of poor parents and innocent children.

DOLORES SICHERI

Lakeshore

Source: Windsor Star

Mom on a Roll

November 15, 2007

In March we mentioned the case of California mother Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick who won a jury verdict of $4.9 million against Orange County for taking her two daughters without cause. Now the courts have awarded her an additional $1.6 million to cover the costs of her litigation.

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Orange County Judge Orders Social Services to Pay Mom $1.6 Million in Attorney's Fees

On October 31, 2007 Orange County Superior Court Judge, Ronald Bauer (Dept. CX-103) awarded Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick over $1.6 million in attorney's fees to help defray the cost of litigation against Orange County Social Services. The fee award arises from Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick's recent court victory against the Orange County Social Services and two of its social workers, Marcia Vreeken and Helen Dwojak, earlier this year.

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) November 8, 2007 --

RE: Fogarty-Hardwick v. County of Orange, et al.
Superior Court of California, County of Orange
Case No. 01CC02379 (Trial before Hon. Ronald L. Bauer, Dept. CX103)

On October 31, 2007 Orange County Superior Court Judge, Ronald Bauer (Dept. CX-103) awarded Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick over $1.6 million in attorney's fees to help defray the cost of litigation against Orange County Social Services. The fee award arises from Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick's recent court victory against the Orange County Social Services and two of its social workers, Marcia Vreeken and Helen Dwojak, earlier this year.

The case was brought by Deanna Fogarty against the County of Orange, Marcia Vreeken, Elaine Wilkins, and their supervisor Helen Dwojak to recover damages arising from these defendants' alleged falsification of evidence, perjury, and suppression of exculpatory evidence during a juvenile dependency action back in February of 2000. On March 23, 2007 after over six years of litigation and a seven week trial, an Orange County Jury found against Orange County, social worker Marcia Vreeken, and social worker supervisor Helen Dwojak and awarded monetary damages of $4.9 million. Elaine Wilkins was found not liable.

In addition to seeking damages, Ms. Fogarty-Hardwick also sought to enjoin the Orange County Social Services Agency from continuing its allegedly unlawful practice of making allegations of wrong doing against parents in dependency proceedings without supporting evidence. On May 14, 2007 Orange County Superior Court Judge, Ronald Bauer (Dept. CX-103) issued an injunction against the Orange County Social Services Agency requiring the agency to obtain "reasonable and articulable evidence" prior to initiating dependency proceedings alleging abuse, neglect, or abandonment of a child.

San Diego Lawyer Shawn A. McMillan, of the Law Offices of Shawn A. McMillan, was lead trial counsel in the case.

For additional information, contact:

Shawn A. McMillan, Esq.
The Law Offices of Shawn A. McMillan, A.P.C.
4955 Via Lapiz
San Diego, California 92122
Telephone: (858) 646-0069
Facsimile: (206) 600-4582
Website: www.mcmillan-law.com

Source: press release by Shawn A McMillan

More on Rogue Expert Dr Charles Smith

November 15, 2007

The Goudge inquiry has revealed details of ten new cases in which pathologist Dr Charles Smith acted as an expert. Dr Smith was inclined to find parental wrongdoing in every case. Sadly, psychiatrists with the same inclination are still working as experts in child protection cases.

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Smith inquiry reveals details of 10 new cases

Justice Stephen Goudge, left, and inquiry lawyer Linda Rothstein.

Discredited pathologist Dr. Charles Smith made questionable findings

Nov 14, 2007 04:30 AM, Theresa Boyle, staff reporter

Extensive details of 10 new cases in which discredited child pathologist Dr. Charles Smith made questionable findings were unveiled at a public inquiry yesterday.

Justice Stephen Goudge, who is heading the Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario, issued a publication ban on the names of some of the victims while others were replaced by pseudonyms.

Lawyers for individuals covered by the ban said the move was necessary to protect their clients from further hardship.

But the case files, some more than 100 pages long, reveal the details of the deaths of the 10 children – most of them infants; one almost 4-years-old.

In all of the cases yesterday, criminal charges were laid against one or both of the parents based on Smith's findings after autopsies on the victims.

The inquiry has chosen to deal with 18 of the 20 cases in which there were found to be problems. The 18 case histories released yesterday – including the 10 previously undisclosed – filled two large binders.

During testimony yesterday, the inquiry heard that senior officials in the province's chief coroner's office decided four years ago that the brakes had to be put on Smith.

"Decision by all present – he can't continue medical-legal post-mortems or committee work," state notes taken by Al O'Marra, then chief legal counsel to the office of the coroner.

He was referring to Smith, who was present at that October 2003 meeting along with then-chief coroner Jim Young, deputy coroner Jim Cairns, and acting chief coroner Barry McLellan.

The committee work referred to in O'Marra's notes were the Pediatric Death Review and Death Under Two committees. Smith sat on both.

O'Marra's notes were tabled yesterday as exhibits.

The province called for the inquiry after it was revealed that problems had been found in 20 child-death investigations in which Smith performed autopsies or rendered opinions. In 12 of those cases, individuals were convicted of crimes; in one, an individual was found not criminally responsible; and in seven, people were suspected or charged with crimes but not convicted.

O'Marra's notes from the high-level meeting indicate that Smith did not want to take responsibility for the problems.

"No insights into problems – deflects all criticism to failings of others," read the notes.

McLellan, who testified yesterday, revealed that there was some disagreement in the chief coroner's office on what to do about Smith. McLellan favoured a hard-line approach, but his boss at the time, Young, disagreed.

"We did not agree. ... Dr. Young was aware of my position. I certainly respected his position as chief coroner," McLellan said.

But when McLellan was promoted to the job of chief coroner in April 2004, he took immediate steps to remove Smith from the position of head of the Ontario Pediatric Forensic Unit, located at the Hospital for Sick Children.

"I met with Dr. Smith and I indicated that I felt he should not be continuing in that role," McLellan said.

The inquiry heard how Young had publicly stated that an internal review was necessary, after murder charges were dropped in the case of Louise Reynolds, who spent two years in jail for the death of her 7-year-old daughter. Smith had concluded the child was stabbed to death but a review by other pathologists determined she was mauled by a pit bull.

Commission counsel Linda Rothstein said evidence will be produced in the coming days showing that despite Young's call for an internal review at that time, the coroner "later determined that a review would not go ahead because of legal advice."

Smith himself had even asked his superiors to intervene after charges were withdrawn in the Reynolds case and in the case of a woman who had been charged with killing her 3-year-old stepson. Other pathologists had determined the boy died after a fall.

In a January 2001 letter to Young, Smith asked to be excused from the performance of medical-legal autopsies and that an external review be done of his work.

Concerns about Smith persisted as the number of questionable cases continued to mount, the inquiry heard.

"I personally had concerns about Dr. Smith's ongoing involvement with committees, with conducting autopsies and with being the director of the unit in the context of ongoing concerns about his work," said McLellan, who also noted that Smith had an ongoing problem with tardiness.

He said that in 2003, Cairns responded to the concerns by removing Smith from the committees that investigate child deaths.

"He was still at this time conducting autopsies on non-homicide and non-criminally suspicious cases and he was still director of the unit," McLellan noted, referring to the Hospital for Sick Children's forensic unit.

Smith's performance was eventually addressed by a forensic services advisory committee, which is expected to be further examined by the inquiry today.

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The new cases

1. Baby F

Date: Born and died Nov. 28, 1996.

Case facts: Baby F’s mother, a teenager, told police she had felt sick after coming home from school. After sitting on the toilet for 30 minutes, she saw a great deal of blood. Under hypnosis, she recalled seeing a baby in the toilet covered in blood and water. She put the baby, wrapped in a towel, in a plastic bag in her closet. On July 6, 1998, she pleaded guilty to infanticide and was given a two-month “conditional sentence, to be served at home,” three years’ probation and 150 hours of community service. A psychiatric assessment indicated that Baby F’s mother had been “consistent in denying that she knew about the pregnancy” and was suffering from “acute stress disorder.”

Smith’s finding: The baby girl appeared to be full-term and survived “for a period of time” following delivery. Death was caused by asphyxia, attributed to infanticide.

Outcome: Baby F’s mother was granted a pardon on Oct. 24 last year.

2. Tamara

Date: Born Jan. 18, 1998; died Feb. 8, 1999.

Case facts: Tamara had no contact with her father until September 1998, after which her mother testified he came over three or four times a week and helped look after Tamara and her two sisters. The Children’s Aid Society was notified after Tamara was treated at Sick Kids’ hospital on Jan. 20, 1999, for a broken thigh. Tamara and one of her sisters were left in the care of Tamara’s father the morning of Feb. 8, her mother said. She called several times but he didn’t answer. He told police she was in her playpen with a bottle and he fell asleep. Tamara’s mother testified that when she came home, Tamara was lying on her back with a scrape on her forehead and a bruise on her cheek and not breathing. A radiology report found “multiple fractures in various stages of healing ... highly suspicious for nonaccidental trauma.” The father was charged with second-degree murder.

Smith’s finding: Cause of death was given as “asphyxia associated with multiple traumatic injuries.”

Outcome: Tamara’s father pleaded guilty to manslaughter Aug. 30, 2001; he was sentenced to 15 months time served and 361/2 years prison.

3. Katharina

Date: Born March 20, 1992; found dead Sept. 15, 1995.

Case facts: Katharina’s father, Lawrence Babineau, and mother, Gabriela Chaparro-Najar, married in 1993 when the baby was 11 months old. The family lived in Oshawa until June 1994, when the parents split up and the mother moved with Katharina to her sister’s home in Toronto. A custody battle began with Chaparro-Najar alleging that Babineau had abused the child and Babineau claiming she had threatened to kill Katharina rather than let him have custody. Babineau told police he feared she would flee with the child to her native Colombia. Police forced entry into the apartment. They found Katharina’s body in the bedroom and Chaparro-Najar climbing over the balcony. She was charged with murder.

Smith’s finding: Death was caused by “asphyxia in a pattern of neck or chest compression,” consistent with having been suffocated with a pillow. The exact time of death, he said, was uncertain.

Outcome: On Nov. 3, 1997, Katharina’s mother was found not criminally responsible. She was detained at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health until April 2001. She received an absolute discharge on Dec. 13, 2001.

4 .Taylor

Date: Born April 16, 1996, in Thunder Bay; found dead July 31, 1996.

Case facts: Taylor’s parents, Lanny and Laura, were charged with second-degree murder, criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide necessities of life. The couple had had an argument, after Taylor had been put to bed, and Laura left the apartment carrying her son from a previous relationship. Lanny followed her and the couple were seen arguing and crying before the three returned home. Lanny reported he fell asleep on the couch and was woken by Laura’s screams. An autopsy revealed several broken ribs and a brain injury. Cause of death was given as acute head injury. There was information that Larry had abused a child he had with another woman.

Smith’s finding: Noting that the original radiologist’s report observed two or three fractures, Smith said a review of evidence indicated a total of 14 fractures and other possible injuries. He said the cause of death was consistent with “blunt trauma,” not shaking.

Outcome: Lanny and Laura were discharged on all counts because “there was no evidence of motive, intent or exclusive opportunity to cause the injury that resulted in Taylor’s death.”

5. Tyrell

Date: Born Feb. 1, 1994; died Jan. 23, 1998.

Case facts: Tyrell’s father, Garth, was in jail for manslaughter and the whereabouts of his mother, Janette, unknown. He lived with Garth’s former partner, Maureen, and her two children. Medical reports said Maureen said Tyrell had been running around, jumped off a couch and fell, hitting his head. He was taken to hospital Jan. 19, 1998, after she couldn’t wake him. He was transferred to the Hospital for Sick Children, where he died. Cause of death was recorded as “herniation of brain stem ..... consistent with a severe shaking episode.” Maureen’s son told police she hit Tyrell “a lot.” Maureen was charged with second-degree murder.

Smith’s finding: Smith reportedly told police that the head injury was caused “by flat object — impact.” He testified that Tyrell did not show signs of “classic shaking” but couldn’t rule out the possibility. Smith noted a contusion or discolouration to the brain that was noted by another examiner, who disagreed with his opinion that “a household fall can result in death only when there is epidural hemorrhaging.”

Outcome: The charge against Maureen was withdrawn Jan. 22, 2001.

6. Dustin

Date: Born Sept. 9, 1992; died Nov. 18, 1992.

Case facts: Dustin lived in Belleville with his parents Mary and Richard. After an argument, Mary spent the night at a friend’s home, leaving Dustin with Richard. When she returned, there was another violent quarrel and Richard left, taking Dustin and Mary’s daughter, who was not his biological child. Richard was later seen pushing a baby carriage. Dustin was in it, a witness said, “with foam (coming) out of his nose. He was white and his eyelids were blue.” The witness told police Richard shook Dustin, but not violently. A hospital radiologist reported injuries “strongly suggestive of a shaken baby.” Cause of death was given as respiratory failure and a traumatic brain injury.

Smith’s finding: Smith commented in his report that “In the absence of a credible explanation, this injury must be regarded as non-accidental in nature.” In testimony, he said, “Though I would prefer the explanation that it was a shaking-type injury, I cannot rule out the possibility that, in fact, he was stuck by some blunt object.”

Outcome: On April 21, 1995, Richard pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was jailed six months.

7. Gaurov

Date: Born Feb. 11, 1992; died March 20, 1992.

Case facts: On March 18, the mother of a 5-week-old boy called 911 and said he had
stopped breathing. According to the father, he had been fed at 12:30 a.m. A half-hour later the father heard the baby cry and picked him up. He took several breaths, gasped, turned blue and went limp. The father tried to resuscitate him. Emergency services and Gaurov’s aunt and uncle arrived. The aunt shook him a couple of times to try to revive him. He was rushed to hospital with no heartbeat and not breathing. He was intubated and his heartbeat restored. After tests, he was transferred to the Hospital for Sick Children. A CT scan found brain hemorrhaging consistent with shaken baby syndrome. On March 20 baby Gaurov died.

Smith’s finding: Smith listed cause of death as “head injury.” In his autopsy report he stated the baby had acute epidural hemorrhaging of the spinal cord and acute subdural hemorrhaging.

Outcome: Gaurov’s father was charged with second-degree murder on July 1, 1992. On Dec. 3, 1992, he pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death and was sentenced to 90 days.

8. Delaney

Date: Born Dec. 20, 1992; died May 23, 1993.

Case facts: Five-month-old Delaney lived with his mother, Olga Policarpo, in Woodstock, Ont. On the day before his death his mother had invited her relatives to her house to pray for help for her 2-year-old niece, who had liver and heart problems. Relatives later said they communicated with the Virgin Mary. Delaney was found dead the next day. Policarpo was arrested and taken to hospital, where doctors assessed her as being in a psychotic state.

Smith’s finding: The cause of death was listed as “asphyxia.” Smith told police the baby’s death was caused by compression or blunt trauma injury and there was evidence of hemorrhaging in the upper chest and lower neck. In a request for a skeletal survey of Delaney, he wrote: “Sudden death of baby while family was involved in cult-like activities.”

Outcome: Policarpo was charged with second-degree murder. While in hospital she told Susan Garton, a nurse at London Psychiatric Hospital, that the Lady of Guadeloupe “made me kill my baby.” She was found not guilty of second-degree murder but was convicted of infanticide.

9. Amber

Date: Born March 13, 1987; died July 30, 1988.

Case facts: Amber was born in Timmins, Ont. Her parents, Francis and Richard, left her in the care of S.M., a 12-year-old babysitter, on July 28, 1988. During the day the toddler fell down five stairs, the sitter said. Paramedics found the baby with no visible injuries and breathing irregularly. On July 30, 1988, she was pronounced brain dead. The cause of death was listed by the coroner as “cerebral edema due to head injury after an accidental fall.” An autopsy was requested due to “a high level of suspicion of foul play.”

Smith’s finding: Smith testified he believed Amber had been shaken to death. He told police there was no way the fall could have killed her. The final autopsy report was signed on Nov. 28, 1988, but Smith only cited a “head injury.”

Outcome: S.M. was charged with manslaughter on Dec. 15, 1988. She was acquitted on July 25, 1991. Smith testified Amber’s injuries “don’t fit those from a fall down stairs.” The judge ruled shaking wasn’t established to his satisfaction. S.M.’s father laid a complaint against Smith at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which ruled Smith’s approach was acceptable.

10. Kenneth

Date: Born May 18, 1991; died Oct. 12, 1993.

Case facts: At the time of his death, the almost 2-1/2-year-old lived with his mother and stepfather, Rick, in Oshawa, Ont. Kenneth’s mother was still in high school in Scarborough when the baby was born. She came from “an abusive and dysfunctional family” and had problems with alcohol abuse and parenting. Kenneth had been in Children’s Aid Society care four times. He had repeated trips to the hospital for seizures, asthma, bumps, bruises and a broken leg. On Oct. 9, after an afternoon nap, Kenneth’s mother woke to find him twisted in his sheets and blankets and unable to breathe. She got him out and called 911. Paramedics found Kenneth without any vital signs. On Oct. 11 he was termed clinically dead.

Smith’s finding: In his post-mortem report Smith said the cause of death was asphyxia. He testified his findings from the autopsy were consistent with suffocation with a soft object or a plastic bag.

Outcome: Kenneth’s mother was convicted of second-degree murder in October 1995 and sentenced to life. While awaiting trial she gave birth to a son, which the CAS took away.

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The known cases

Lianne Thibeault: Smith suggested Thibeault was responsible for the death of her 11-month-old son before another pathologist concluded the cause was undetermined.

Brenda Waudby: Because of Smith’s findings, that Waudby’s 21-month-old baby died of abdominal trauma that occurred hours, even days, before her death, Waudby was wrongfully charged. A babysitter later admitted beating the baby shortly before she died.

Anisa and Marco Trotta: After Smith’s pathology reports on the death of their baby were deemed unreliable, the couple, who already spent time in jail, were granted a new trial by the Supreme Court.

Louise Reynolds: After Smith concluded that her 7-year-old daughter’s injuries were consistent with stab wounds, Reynolds was charged with the death. It was later determined that her daughter was killed by a dog.

William Mullins-Johnson: Smith consulted on the case of Mullins-Johnson’s 4-year-old niece, determining she was strangled. After Mullins-Johnson spent 12 years in jail, Smith’s testimony was reviewed and he was acquitted last month.

Angela Veno and Anthony Kporwodu: Smith was criticized for “inexplicable tardiness” in filing reports after the couple was charged with killing their baby — charges later thrown out. Smith was cited for unwillingness to provide crucial evidence in other cases as well.

Sherry Sherrett: Based on Smith’s findings, Sherrett spent six months in jail for the death of her 4-month-old. Another pathologist later determined the baby died of natural causes.

Source: Toronto Star

Addendum Those interested in the Smith case can refer to the website of the Goudge Inquiry. There is a new blog dealing with the case of Dr Charles Randal Smith. The introduction by the author reads:

harold levy

• Industry: Communications or Media
• Occupation: journalist and lawyer: public eye!
• Location: toronto : ontario : Canada

About Me

I recently retired from the Toronto Star where I have been reporting on Dr. Charles Randal Smith - a former pediatric forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children - for the past six years. I intend, through this blog, to periodically report developments relating to Dr. Smith in the context of the on-going public inquiry, the on-going independent probe of cases he worked on between 1981 and 1991, and cases which have been launched, or will be launched in the civil courts. (Postings to begin early in October, 2007) if not earlier. I am currently researching a book on Dr. Smith and would appreciate hearing from anyone who can provide me with useful information.

Below is a letter posted to the blog on October 31, 2007.

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From Maurice Gagnon to Chief Coroner Dr. James Young, October 5, 1999:

Dear Sir/Madam.

I wish to register a complaint against one Dr. Charles Randal Smith for conduct unbecoming a civilized human being, let alone a member of the medical profession.

Dr. Smith is the Director of the Ontario Pediatric Pathology Unit located at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

He is also a member of the Pediatric Review Committee of the Office of the Chief Coroner.

My grandson, Nicholas Gagnon, my daughter's only child, died suddenly on November 30, 1995,

On the recommendation of Dr. Smith, and under an order signed by the Attorney General of Ontario, Nicholas was disinterred on June 25, 1997.

We had been assured that the disinterment would occur at daybreak, between 5.30 and 6.30 a.m., to avoid curiosity seekers and to minimize the impact on the family.

However, to accommodate Dr. Smith, the disinterment took place at high noon, in the presence of on-lookers and the child's grieving mother.

Had protocol been followed, my daughter would have been spared this devastation.

In what I can only assume to be unprecedented in the annals of civility, Dr. Smith brought his young son to the grave site to witness the exhumation, no doubt for the boy's entertainment.

Not only did Dr. Smith, the man responsible for the disinterment, trivialize the desecration of our baby's grave, he contemptuously mocked my daughter and the memory of her son, by flaunting his "live" son while cavalierly digging up her "dead" son.

What manner of a man can be so callous, so cruel, so oblivious to the consequences of his actions?

At the very least, my daughter, this family, are deserving of an apology for such an insensitive display by this member of the medical profession... Thank you for your consideration...

Source: Harold Levy blog

See Inside Family Court

November 14, 2007

An investigative report by a Kentucky television station includes rare video of the proceedings inside a family court. They don't look anything the courts that hear evidence from both sides before reaching a decision. On the video you can see a mother lose three children in a 17 minute hearing. There is no evidence, just an opinion by a social worker, without cross examination or opportunity for rebuttal. In other cases there is biased evidence, long-distance visitation and a caseworker with criminal charges. Social workers show routine disdain for fathers. Even without an audit, there is reason to believe that social services removes children for financial rewards. A legally required hearing is not held. A mother loses her kids for spanking, for leaving younger kids with a 16-year-old and for leaving three kids in a pool while searching for a fourth kid who got lost. While transferring a case from one court to another, damaging evidence was preserved but exculpatory evidence was lost. A social worker had a conflict of interest, a friendship with an adverse party. A family saw a neighbor's child they wanted, and successfully asked child protectors to seize it and give it to them for adoption. When a mother sued the child protection agency, her lawyer's children were taken.

• July 6, 2006 part one
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• July 6, 2006 part two
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• November 13, 2007 part one
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• November 13, 2007 part two
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For the links above marked "stream" you will have to right-click your mouse and copy the link to the clipboard, then place it in a media player. The embedded pages require Windows Media Player. The first two sometimes require reloading.

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Target 32: Kentucky's Child Protection System Investigated

UPDATED: 10:38 pm EDT July 6, 2006

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Target 32 investigation took a closer look at the state child protection system one year after NewsChannel 32 first raised serious questions about an agency that saw a dramatic rise in the numbers of children it removed from homes.

WLKY had to go to court just to air its initial reports after an attempt by the state to stop it from showing what's currently going on.

While everyone's story can't be told, Target 32 can provide an in-depth look at one case that exemplifies the things represented in hundreds of complaints it's received: allegations of quick trigger child removal with no proof of parental wrongdoing, and then retaliation against those who fight back.

Vanessa Shanks of Hardin County provided WLKY with video of a confidential hearing held to remove her children from her custody.

"They took them right after court, so I didn't get to say goodbye," said Shanks. "They just went straight to my house and removed the kids for one and a half missed days of school."

While it may take weeks, months or years to take someone's freedom away in a circuit courtroom, on May 16, 2005, it took 17 minutes to take three of Shanks' children away in a family courtroom.

The videotaped hearing consisted of a judge, a state-appointed attorney to represent the children, a cabinet for a Health and Family Services attorney, and a witness: state social worker Carlonda Fields.

"Truancy was the original allegation, but then they came to the house and said the home was unsafe because I just got done doing laundry and there was a bleach bottle with the cap off on the floor," said Shanks. "So they said my home was unsafe for children."

The only proof offered of educational neglect is testimony from the social worker that one of the three children they removed had a kindergarten reading level even though he was 11 years old. As for the number of school days missed, no school records were offered -- just an opinion from the case worker.

"The truancy was because she was unable to get up and get them to school," said Fields.

On the allegation of medical neglect, no evidence of that is offered during the preceedings for two of the three children. Fields testified that the other child, who has spina bifida, had missed some doctor's appointments.

According to the video, the judge said he's heard enough about 17 minutes into the hearing.

"I think all the essential requirements have been established, and I find the requirements of the statute have been satisfied and that order of detention be issued for each of the three children," said the judge.

"I didn't see my children for 11 months. It is the hardest thing you can go through," said Shanks. "It's like someone close to you just dies, like you don't have a part of you anymore."

When she fought back -- appealing the ruling -- Shanks said they took her other three children away and then briefly removed 14 children from her extended family.

Target 32 tried to check out this allegation but CPS would not comment about individual cases.

Attorney Bob Bishop said he couldn't believe what he saw when he took Shanks' case and reviewed the hearing that he said contained no proof of wrongdoing.

"There has to be something, some evidence of wrongdoing that has placed a child in danger or has hurt the child, and a pattern of conduct not due to poverty alone," said Bishop.

"He would come home and say 'You wouldn't believe this. I just can't believe these stories I'm hearing.'" said Bishop's wife, Jennifer Bishop. "Then it happened to us."

According to the Bishops, social workers removed their adopted daughter from their home, too.

"They said if you don't cooperate with us, we're going to take all of your children away, and we're going to charge you with emotional abuse," said Jennifer Bishop.

Fortunately for Shanks, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled that the judge made a mistake in allowing her three children to be removed, and she is going to get them back.

The court unanimously ruled the state acted in haste and offered no proof of abuse or neglect.

While endings like this are rare, records show terminations of parental rights have been upheld in the majority of such cases before the court over the past 10 years.

The man in charge of CPS, Social Services Commissioner Tom Emberton Jr., said he would not discuss individual cases like Shanks', but he did comment on the issue of retaliation -- the most common theme of the hundreds of complaints WLKY has received..

"I have not seen any signs of retaliation and will not tolerate retaliation," said Emberton. "We deal with a tremendous number of families. Isolated cases are going to surface, and we will address these issues very quickly and appropriately when they do."

Emberton announced that an independent group has been named to come in and review the way parental rights are terminated in Kentucky.

That adoption task force comes in addition to an investigation of CPS under way by the state inspector general.

To submit a complaint, please call Robert Benvenuti at the Office of the Inspector General, at 502-564-2888.

Source: WLKY TV

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Target 32 Investigates: Child Protective Services

UPDATED: 10:50 am EST November 14, 2007

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Chief Supreme Court Justice of Kentucky is surveying judges across the state to see if he should suggest opening up child protection courts.

Kentucky is one of 21 states that still close child protection proceedings. But there is a growing movement to open them after the Inspector General of Kentucky documented widespread abuses within the child protection system.

After three years of controversy, problems linger. A Target 32 investigation found that social workers are troubled by what they call suspicious conduct by their colleagues already under fire in the Inspector General’s report.

Linda Roberts, a single mother who had her four children taken away after her ex-husband sexually assaulted one of them, turned over a tape of her child custody proceeding.

“All of a sudden she called in and said ‘remove those kids,’” Roberts said. “It was a very heart-wrenching thing to do after I’d worked so hard to get them back, then for no good reason to take them away again. It was very difficult.”

The next time her children were taken, she didn’t get a hearing to defend herself within 72 hours, as required by law.

“They were just in shock to come home and pick up a few things and go away,” Roberts said.

Now she’s in family court defending herself from an allegation that she spanked her daughter with a belt.

The school system never saw any marks on the children, so the CPS social worker ruled the physical abuse allegation unsubstantiated. Then, Roberts was also accused of neglect due to allegations that she left the children alone.

The Louisville CPS workers also determined the neglect allegation was unsubstantiated, in large part due to a note from a supervisor giving the single working mom permission to leave the children with their 16-year-old sibling for short periods of time, in emergencies, which she did.

The Louisville-based social workers took Roberts’ side, as a success story.

“Ms. Roberts appears to me to go above and beyond with her kids because she puts them in child enrichment programs and takes them to school, she picks them up after school,” a CPS social worker said. “We have letters from supervisors, directors, neighbors, co-workers, all stating that whenever they see Ms. Roberts, they see her kids. Neighbors say they never see kids home alone.”

But judge Shan Embry ruled differently because of a previous court order reading “The children may only be left with their older adult siblings when not in the care of their mother.” Roberts was found in contempt because, according to the court, “younger siblings were left with the 16-year-old on four to five occasions.”

The judge also found that the children “were all physically disciplined by Linda Roberts with a belt and switch on numerous occasions.”

And the final reason cited by the judge for taking Roberts’ children: “Leaving three of her children alone in the Lizard Bay pool at Disney World for at least 30 minutes” while she was looking for another child who got lost.

“They go by what they want to do regardless of the law,” Roberts said.

While that ruling outraged Roberts, something else that happened in the case was disturbing, even to social workers. A supervisor in the Louisville office detailed what she called suspicious conduct in the Meade County CPS office where the case against Roberts originated.

“The case file was not there and we don’t know where the case file went,” the supervisor said. “Once we started requesting the records, the phone calls stopped. We didn’t get any phone calls back.”

The case file that contained records supporting Linda Roberts disappeared, while the information against her was forwarded to Louisville when the case transferred.

Then, Louisville investigators learned the “Meade County investigator who executed the initial affidavit alleging contempt is the best friend of the temporary custodian’s mother-in-law.”

“They can pull strings and do things and files can disappear, reports can be made and children can be snatched out of a home without even a hearing,” Roberts said. “In many ways they make their own decisions, not based on legal grounds, and nobody's doing anything about it."

Source: WLKY TV

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Social Workers Allege Child Protection Service Abuses

UPDATED: 3:21 pm EST November 14, 2007

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Social workers are alleging abuses in Kentucky's Child Protective Services.

In a follow-up to a 3-year investigation of CPS, NewsChannel 32 interviewed a group of Kentucky social workers who alleged families are harassed and workers are pressured in efforts to boost adoption numbers.

Pat Moore said she was a state social worker until she was fired for not ignoring half a dozen allegations of abuse in a foster home.

"I did what I felt like I had to do," Moore said. "It was the right thing to do and I stand by the complaint."

When Moore found that two foster parents had criminal records, a son living with them had multiple felonies, and a convicted sex offender visited and, sometimes, cared for the children, she refused to arrange an adoption.

Her supervisors responded to her complaint with a memo suggesting the adoption proceed quickly.

"Our theory is that the basis for this is the tie to the federal money," Moore's attorney, Tom Beiting said. "That every time a child is not placed in the home comma the state of Kentucky through its Cabinet is losing money"

After she was fired, Moore filed suit and last month, the Commonwealth paid $380,000 to settle it.

The high-adoption trend apparently began in 2004, when adoptions in Kentucky ballooned to 724 while the federal bonus money more than doubled from $452,000 the previous year to more than $1 million.

"The Cabinet puts pressure on stats because federal and state money come from statistics," said another social worker who wants her identity concealed for fear of retaliation against her family. "You get praised. The Cabinet praises you for terminating rights and adopting kids out immediately."

She said the concerted effort to take children away and put them up for adoption was so brazen, she actually saw someone successfully place an order for children.

"Someone could not have a child and wanted a child so within the community," the social worker said. "This person saw a family in distress, having a hard time, relayed to workers that they would like those children, and that's exactly what has happened."

And a former CPS supervisor, who also wants anonymity for fear of retaliation, said if an order for a child was delayed or denied, her supervisors would overturn local decisions.

"This one family was promised a child, and when it happened that this child was going to be reunified with the parent, they called our regional office, and our regional office came in our county and they harassed the birth parents and that kind of thing because they didn't agree with our decision," the former supervisor said.

Vanessa Shanks had her kids taken away and, when she fought back, her relatives had their children taken away. Then, after she won in court, her attorney's child was taken away.

The former CPS workers said that kind of retaliatory power is common and, in the secretive, one-sided system, they can take anyone's kids away on a moment's notice - and get away with it.

According to data just released, there's a huge disparity between counties on adoption rates. Some counties reunify 100 percent of children taken with their families. Other counties adopted out as many as 82 percent of children taken from their homes.

Source: WLKY TV

Serial Rape

November 13, 2007

An unnamed Oklahoma girl was raped in her home and became pregnant at age 11. The story does not give her relationship to the man, Tommy James Isbell, but stepfather is a good guess. Social services placed the girl in foster care, where she was raped by her foster father, Timothy Joe Mountford, and became pregnant at age 14. All in the best interest of the child.

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Foster parent arrested on charges of raping 14-year-old

— JAY, Okla. — A Grove man, accused of raping and impregnating his 14-year-old foster daughter, is free on $150,000 bail, court officials said Tuesday.

Timothy Joe Mountford, 49, is charged in Delaware County District Court in Jay with second-degree rape and child sexual abuse, both felonies. He was arrested on Friday.

According to an affidavit warrant signed Sgt. Mark Sheridan, Grove Police Department detective the victim had a seizure at school and was taken to Integris Grove General Hospital.

During the course of the examination, the victim and her foster mother were told the victim was about 11 weeks pregnant, the affidavit states.

When the victim returned home, she confessed to her foster mother Mountford assaulted her before the current school year began the affidavit states.

Mountford also confessed to the victim’s foster mother that “he had sex with … one time at their house in their bedroom on their bed,” the affidavit states.

Nick Lelecas, assistant district attorney declined to comment on the case citing the victim is a juvenile, when asked if the victim had been removed the foster home.

The victim was placed in foster care after she was raped and impregnated when she was 11 years old.

In that case, Tommy James Isbell, 35, of Jay pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree rape and 12 counts of forcible sodomy and was sentenced to life, court records show.

Isbell confessed to having sex with the child since she was 9, but stated the sexual activity was consensual, according to a Jay Police Department investigative report.

Source: Joplin Globe

Adoptions Remain Secret

November 13, 2007

The Ontario government has decided not to try to save the Adoption Information Disclosure Act from the decision of the courts, so it is dead. COAR holds out hope for a watered down version from the next session of the legislature.

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COAR Bulletin

November 13, 2007

Today COAR learned that the Ontario government has decided not to appeal Judge Belobaba’s decision. The Minister of Community and Social Services phoned COAR this afternoon to give us the news.

The government plans to amend the Adoption Information Disclosure Act and add a disclosure veto. They plan to do so very quickly.

COAR has already shared with the government the additions we consider necessary to make AIDA a better and workable law.

Please write as soon as possible to the Minister and ask her to amend AIDA to include:

• a comprehensive health history form for individuals who choose to file a disclosure veto
• an active registry open to birth relatives, adult adoptees and their descendants
• the release of comprehensive non-identifying information to birth relatives and adopted adults in a timely fashion
• an improved medical search system that allows adoptees and birth relatives to take preventative action

Please send your letter to Minister Madeleine Meilleur at mmeilleur.mpp@liberal.ola.org . Write also to your MPP to ensure that the government includes as many of your rights as possible when it amends AIDA. To find your MPP's address, click here:

In a few years, AIDA will come up for review. We are hopeful that we can seek further changes at that time. We will continue to fight for those few adoptees and birth parents who are blocked from obtaining information by the disclosure veto.

While we are saddened and disappointed that the government has chosen not to appeal Judge Belobaba’s decision, we see this as an opportunity to improve AIDA and create a law that works. COAR is continuing to fight on behalf of adoptees and birth parents in Ontario.

In solidarity,

Michael Grand, mgrand@uoguelph.ca

Karen Lynn, ccnm@rogers.com

Wendy Rowney, wrowney@rogers.com

Source: email from COAR

CAS Dupes TSE

November 13, 2007

The Toronto Stock Exchange joins the large list of corporations and individuals who have been hoodwinked by children's aid. The Children's Aid Foundation will be allowed to signal the opening of the trading day on November 15. Link here to the original press release.

Boyfriend Gouged

November 12, 2007

From the just when we thought it couldn't get any worse department. Norwegian foster parents have found a new way to profit from their foster kids. A teenaged foster daughter had a love affair. From the article, it is clearly a genuine love affair, not a child rape. The affair seems to be actionable in Norway because the boy is four years older than the girl. The foster parents have twice gouged the boy for compensation of 10,000 Norwegian Krone over the girl's objections.

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Updated: 08. november 2007 kl.12:42

Girl refuses sex compensation

A nearly 15-year-old girl has refused to accept damages awarded for sex with an older boy in a court case she has opposed from the start.

A four year older man was convicted of having sex with a minor by a Romsdal court, and ordered to pay NOK 10,000 (USD 1880) in compensation, but the girl has opposed the process, newspaper VG reports.

The girl argued that she was not a victim, that she had contacted the man and that she had had sex with him willingly.

The girl's foster parents registered a complaint with child care authorities and filed charges with police, and demanded damages for the girl.

"As long as the girl is a minor and the guardian demanded damages, I had to submit a claim for damages. But I informed the court that she did not wish any form of compensation," the girl's lawyer, Johan Teiseth, told VG.

The court insisted that, legally, the girl could not renounce damages.

The convicted man has had a long and close relationship with the girl, and has one former conviction on similar charges towards the girl, and then too was ordered to pay NOK 10,000 in damages.

Source: website Aftenposten English

Pregnant Woman Flees

November 12, 2007

Fran Lyon, menaced with baby removal on the expected birth of her child next January, has fled her locality to a different part of Britain. British social services plan to have social workers and police attending the birth, to remove the baby as soon as the cord is cut. If this was fiction, a publisher would reject the story as implausible. We will see whether Fran's move will save her baby. With the hullabaloo about informing pregnant women of baby removal, it is possible British social services will shift to the American model: assure the mother there is no plan to take the baby, then snatch it from the helpless mother in the delivery room, sometimes even before the afterbirth. We had earlier stories on Fran on October 18 and November 3.

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Mum-to-be flees North to keep tot

Nov 11 2007, by Phil Doherty, Sunday Sun

A PREGNANT woman claims she has been hounded from her home by social workers who plan to take her baby as soon as the cord is cut.

Fran Lyon, 22, has been told by Northumberland County Council her unborn daughter will be taken from her because she may suffer from Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy in the future and harm her child.

She has left her Hexham home, alleging the birth plan drawn up by social services is abusive to her unborn child, Molly.

She has moved to the Midlands to be closer to her family for the birth.

She said: “They won’t even let me breast-feed her because they allege I might poison her.

“This is just an extreme over-reaction and complete nonsense. “I’m hoping the acrimony and difficulty between Northumberland County Council and myself will not be repeated with the new social services team.”

Fran, whose baby is due in eight weeks, has told social services of her move and her legal team are due to met the representatives of the new social services team that will now take on her case.

According to the birth plan — which has been seen by the Sunday Sun — two midwives must be present. It details how the baby will be taken from Ms Lyon as soon as the cord is cut, that the child is removed to foster care as soon as possible and that the police will be called if she doesn’t co-operate.

Source: Sunday Sun (UK)

Foster Graduation

November 11, 2007

We used to wonder where children's aid found all those workers with the extraordinary personality traits allowing them to shamelessly take children from mom and dad. Now we know. They are graduates of foster care themselves.

A reader with unusual patience for tripe has studied a report of Bridgeway Family Homes, a home for foster children and crown wards. Of eighteen graduates profiled, eight aspire to careers in social work, or police work in support of social services.

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LIZ POWELL: Liz just finished two years at Tyndale University and a half year at Seneca College. She is now attending York University full time. Her goals are to work at the Children's Aid Society or work in the psychiatric field with mood disorders. She work's part time at Swiss Chalet and part time at Tyndale at the desk. She's very happy.

BECKY POWELL: Becky is doing well. Becky works full time at McDonalds and lives in Toronto. She say's she is enrolling at the adult learning center next week to continue her education.

RODNEY BARNES: Rodney is full time at Ryerson and he is studying journalism and hopes to work as a journalist one day. He is employed by an underground Toronto newspaper that he writes random articles for. He has also been playing guitar at Open Mike nights on campus and plans to go tree planting in British Columbia this summer.

VANESSA CLARKSON: Vanessa is currently living in Niagara Falls and working in the retail business. After graduating with honours in the Social Service Worker course in Peterborough, she was ready to work in the field but could not find anything in Niagara Falls. She originally moved to Niagara Falls to save money for university while living with friends. She still intends to get a Social Work Degree.

MOLIANA VIL: Moli is doing well and is positive about her life. She is working at a Wendy’s restaurant for quite some time. She has been doing hairdressing for a while and did not find this very interesting. Moli wants to go back to school for Social Work.

CANDACE BERNARD: Candace is living in Laval QC taking a French course and understands and speaks French well. She had some setbacks but is now working part time on her high school credits and is determined to complete this. She says after she completes her credits she wants to attend college and be a teacher to work with young children perhaps in a daycare or grade 1 or 2 level.

OLESYA SLABINSKI: Olesya graduated from grade 12 and is just completing her first year at Algonquin College in the Personal Support Worker program. She has plans to return to college and further her education as a dental hygienist. She is thrilled to have completed this year and is eager to work and make some money. She knows even after completing the dental hygiene program she will also have this PSW program to fall back on for a choice of jobs.

BOGDAN SLABINSKI: Bogdan is currently in grade 12 and does two in school credits and two co-op credits. Co-op is in the construction business, which he really seems to enjoy. He is well liked by his employer and they have offered him an apprenticeship program, which he is currently looking into registering for. He will do this for 2 years until completed.

JIMMY MCCARTHY: Jim has a part time job at Sunoco as a cashier and car wash attendant to earn money for college. He has won awards as an athlete and as a percussionist in his school band. He is also certified as a lifeguard/swim instructor with CPR/First Aid. He graduates from High School this June and plans to enter Durham College this fall to study Social Work. He wants to work with street kids for awhile in a ministry such as “The Refuge” in Oshawa.

KELLY MCCARTHY: Kelly graduates this June to the E.C.M. program. (Extended Care & Maintenance) He works part time at Swiss Chalet while completing high school and he has won awards in Science. He has been accepted into Durham College this fall for the 3 year Computer Technology program. He hopes to get a good enough paying job in computers so that one day he can help support other foster kids who need college scholarships. He’s currently very interested in police officers who are computer specialists who track down Child abusers & pornographers.

YUAN BARNES: Yuan is currently finishing grade 12 and has applied to 3 universities to study music education. She is in the middle of the audition process and does not know which school she will attend in September. Right now, besides high school she is keeping busy studying music harmony and grade 9 piano. Yuan works part time at Tim Horton’s and volunteers at Church leading kid’s worship on Sunday mornings and helps out at Junior High twice a month. She is not sure which career to follow. Teaching music, music therapy and piano tuning are all being talked about.

DONNIE WINGER: After several years of going through some difficulties, he is now in a very good place. Donnie is working full-time for G.P. BIKES in sales, maintenance, home shows etc. He has paid off debts, and established a bank account, and has his own credit card. He is doing well!

BOBBY WINGER: Is working full-time for BETZ POOLS and this last year they put him through a course on pump maintenance. He has his own car and is also doing well.

JONATHAN KEATING: Jonathon turned 18 in 2005 and left home in 2006. Currently he is finishing off a life skills program and is so excited to be starting two jobs. One job will be at Walmart and the second job is at the new soccer stadium.(for the summer).

BRADLEY ROWE: Bradley is working full time in the construction industry. He is currently working in a new home development. He has a nice apartment and he bought his own car recently.

RORY HARRISON: Rory has graduated from grade 12 and will be attending university to study history.

ANDREW LITTLE: Andrew is doing well. He lives in the Barrie area in a staff supported, independent living home. Andrew holds a full time job in a T-shirt screening store.

KATRINA GARDNER: Katrina just graduated from Mohawk College achieveing her Social Worker Diploma. She has completed her first year at Carlton University where she plans to graduate with her BA in Social Work. She lives in Ottawa and works full time during the summer.

Source: Newsletter from Bridgeway Family Homes, Summer Issue 2007
In case it is withdrawn, we have a local copy (pdf)

As usual in social services, they make no mention of the foster kids that wound up behind bars, and they name children in a way that would get real parents in jail.

The introduction of the newsletter describes an incident on a public street in which a mother was observed trying to get a garment on a recalcitrant child. The characterization exemplifies the prejudice against natural parents, and favoring fosters: "It may have been a mother and son having a disagreement of some sort and I could have totally misread the whole situation. However I prefer my version where I am reminded of the unconditional love that is extended to foster children from foster parents.".

A later section asks the question: "What can dinosaurs teach us about fostering?". The discussion contains the advice: "If you have a rigid idea of what parenting looks like, fostering is probably not for you". Indeed. Social work is for you. With a rigid idea, you will find lots of parents to relieve of their children. Maybe dinosaurs and the foster system were both too big.

The newsletter publishes the masterpiece below from the Social Work Museum of Fine Arts, by Skylar, age 3.

National Child's Day

November 11, 2007

Parents will have an opportunity to take their views to the public on Tuesday, November 20 from 8 am to noon in an event organized by Fathers are Capable Too. There is nothing about the cause of separation in the organizing, so parents bereft by child protection can join those affected by divorce.

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Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 10:07:28 -0500

National Child's Day

National Child's Day is our annual day for reminding the Courts of International Conventions on the rights of children to family, all family and specifically frequent contact with both parents as parents. This is the anniversary of the day that Canada signed this Convention, but the Courts have long decided that international convention applies only to other nations. Please come out and support the rights of our children -- all of our children -- on this important day.

In Toronto, we will be at the family court building at 393 University Avenue (just south of Dundas) on November 20 at 8:00 am to noon/1pm. We want to let these people know what Canadians think as they show up to work, rather than after they hide in the building. Attire is recommended to be business attire -- like a shirt and tie -- it eliminates the usual dismissals of what we have to say. Please remember that this is November in Canada -- it is COLD. Dress warmly, bring gloves, wear a hat because we will be outside and we will be in the weather.

In other jurisdictions, it is our understanding that other groups will be present also at selected spots. If you are out as an individual, or as a group, please let us know at webmaster@fact.on.ca.

Source: email from Brian Jenkins

Indians Fire Child Protectors

November 11, 2007

The Bloodvein First Nation in Manitoba has expelled child-welfare workers from its reserve, to protect their families from heavy-handed tactics. What is the chance white men will follow the lead of the Indians?

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Manitoba reserve fires child-welfare workers

Band councillors take over social work duties

Last Updated: Friday, November 9, 2007 | 5:53 PM CT, CBC News

A Manitoba First Nation has kicked child-welfare workers off the reserve, saying its members are tired of their heavy-handed efforts.

Two hundred members of the Bloodvein First Nation handed a petition to their band council in late October, demanding Southeast Child and Family Services workers be ordered off the reserve.

On Oct. 31, the reserve issued a memo to families and foster parents saying the "Bloodvein supervisor and CFS band workers have been relieved of their duties and responsibilities as per band council resolution."

Coun. Stella Keller told CBC News that too many children were being taken into care and shipped off the reserve.

"They approach families and they tell them, 'Well, you know, we can just take your kids, just like that,' and to me that's a threat," she said.

"CFS is not only there to apprehend kids. CFS should work together with the health programs to have intervention, prevention, and this wasn't really happening."

Chief Craig Cook said he opposed firing the workers, but he was outnumbered and had to carry out the wishes of council.

"The CFS staff were doing all they can to confront the issues that plague our children," he said.

"A lot of times our young parents will utilize the funds like the child tax benefit, the welfare payments, to support some of their habits — binge drinking, alcoholism — negative habits that go on in our community."

The band's four councillors have taken over child-welfare duties — including family visits, foster-care payments, local business payments, children in care and all court proceedings — for now.

Keller acknowledged that the replacement workers, herself included, are not qualified social workers and have little information about children in care or at risk in the community.

However, she said, "I've lived here all my life. I know the families."

Parenting skills lost, says father

John Cook, a father of five on the First Nation, had mixed feelings about the firing of the CFS workers. "A few" children on the reserve could be at risk, he said.

"The majority of the problem is alcohol, I believe, and neglect," he said. "Parenting skills, I think, were lost a long time ago during the residential [school] programs, where our kids were taken from our homes and never learned to parent."

Keller said she hoped the reserve will remain peaceful over the upcoming long weekend, since none of the councillors handling child-welfare cases will be in the community for the weekend.

If trouble erupts, she said, the community will have to handle it.

Officials with the Southeast Child and Family Services authority did not return calls from CBC on Friday.

Southeast CFS is run by aboriginal people under a provincial policy launched five years ago in the hopes of increasing social workers' sensitivity to the needs of aboriginal families.

About 600 people live in Bloodvein, an isolated reserve located 200 kilometres north of the province's capital on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.

Source: CBC

Sex-Ed No-No

November 11, 2007

Politicians used to try to keep children from buying erotic material on the grounds that sex education was the domain of parents. No any more. A Wisconsin mother has been forced to accept punishment for discussing sex with her teenaged sons. Maybe authorities in Wisconsin prefer teens to learn from pimps and prostitutes.

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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Alleged explicit sex discussion gets mom probation

Smalley

A Pardeeville mother accepted a plea agreement on charges she had a sexually explicit discussion with her two sons, even while she maintained she did nothing wrong and that she didn't understand why she was charged.

Amy J. Smalley, 36, said in court Thursday that she accepted the plea agreement in part because she thought it would be in the best interest of her sons, ages 12 and 16, in that it would spare them from testifying in court.

"I think this is what I'm going to have to do to make everyone happy," she said.

According to the charges filed against her, Smalley last year told her sons about several sexual experiences she had. She also allegedly described performing oral sex and also showed the two a sex toy.

"That is what I'm being charged with, but that is not what I did," Smalley said. "I believe I'm not guilty."

Smalley's attorneys unsuccessfully argued in court in July that the charges should be dismissed as the discussions should be protected as free speech between a parent and her children in the vein of sexual education.

Smalley said the charges were filed after she brought her sons to counseling in an attempt to help them from getting into trouble. One of her sons told authorities he did not think the discussion was appropriate.

"This whole thing's been like a nightmare for me and I can't understand it," she said.

In the agreement, Smalley pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of exposing a child to harmful material in exchange for the dismissal of a felony charge of exposing a child to harmful descriptions.

Columbia County Circuit Court Judge James Miller accepted the agreement and sentenced Smalley to a year of probation in addition to counseling — following the recommendation of Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long.

The felony charge could have levied a sentence of more than three years in prison and fines up to $10,000.

If the trial moved forward, Smalley's sons almost surely would have been required to testify.

"That would cause a great deal of additional pain and discomfort," Maura Melka, Smalley's attorney, said. "This is an internal family matter. ... Having the children testify would just be so hard."

mcall@capitalnewspapers.com 745-3510

Source: Portage Daily Register

Adoption Record Appeal

November 9, 2007

John Dunn forwards a message from Marie Marchand announcing a hearing on and effort to get her adoption records. Supporters are invited to attend in Toronto on November 13 and 14. Appellate hearings are not very exciting, but this is an opportunity to show the party, and the court, your support.

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PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT IN TORONTO IF YOU CAN

NOV 13, 14 2007 10:00am

The appeal is on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Ontario Court of Appeal- the buildings on the corner of Queen and University. We start at 10 both days. The case is called Infant #10968 also known as D. Marie Marchand v. The Queen in Right of Ontario.

Peace,
DM

PRESS RELEASE - October 22, 2007

Adoptee/lawyer taking on government in Ontario Court of Appeal for open records.

D Marie Marchand, a lawyer and adoptee, will be acting in person arguing an appeal at the Ontario Court of Appeal, on November 13 and 14, 2007 at 10:00 A.M. - at the Queen/University court Complex.

Marchand has been a member of the bar since 1996. She states she feels like "David must have felt when facing Goliath". Like David, she says she has "God on her side but her slingshot is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms".

She will be fighting for open adoption records appealing the decision of Frank J. in Marchand v. Her Majesty the Queen, which found among other things that Marchand didn't have standing to be in her court because Marchand's records weren't sealed. As Marchand states: "This is ridiculous - how am I supposed to know my records are sealed or not when my records are sealed? The government had 23 years to tell me that, but instead they waited until the day the government was to respond to our Notice of Constitutional Question to do so! With this kind of behaviour and its approval by the courts, our right to even assert our constitutional rights is in jeopardy.

There's a 40 percent chance an adopted person's records aren't sealed, so we could face the possibility that nearly half the adopted people who'd be willing to come forward would have the same dilemma. The other thing is the Registrar General or the adoption agencies can use their discretion anytime to release even sealed records. Either way, the case, if handled like Frank J. handles it would always be thrown out of court".

Marchand has a two-fold battle on her hands: the government has not decided whether or not to appeal the Cheskes case which struck down the somewhat less than perfect open records legislation brought forward while in the middle of Marchand's case. They have delayed this decision until November 15, the day after Marchand's appeal is completed.

As a result, it appears the weight of both decisions will fall on Ms. Marchand's shoulders. In Marchand's words, "Why would the government bother to pay their lawyers to do the Cheskes appeal when I'm going to have to do it anyway?".

Marchand may be contacted at [ bigbear3 at sympatico.ca ]

The appeal is on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Ontario Court of Appeal- the buildings on the corner of Queen and University. We start at 10 both days. The case is called Infant #10968 also known as D. Marie Marchand v. The Queen in Right of Ontario.

Peace,
DM

Source: email from John Dunn

More on Gary Putman

November 8, 2007

The Orangeville Banner has another hagiography on the retiring Gary Putman. The publisher of the Banner only prints stories on children's aid that have Mr Putman's prior approval. We have learned a few of the things that will never get into the Banner. Mr Putman has unleashed a reign of terror on the families of Dufferin that generated hundreds of personal pleas for help to Dufferin VOCA. The man who pretends to protect women from violence has taken dozens of children from single mothers. A smattering of other children were taken from intact families, cases in which his staff routinely suggests that one parent should divorce the other to improve their chances of keeping their kids, an implied promise that is never kept. A few foster parents and prospective adoptive parents also complained of harsh treatment from Mr Putman's staff. The terror extended within his own organization to his staff, and to other institutions such as the press. When faced with a membership drive that threatened to undermine his power through legitimate political organizing, he responded not by improving the performance of his agency, but by adopting rule changes cutting the membership out of a voice in the selection of management. In April 2001 Dufferin Children's Aid started five separate actions through its lawyer to get Dufferin VOCA shut down. While failing to shut us down totally, he prevented advocating for particular families by inflicting even more hardship on the families that we did mention.

The article says Mr Putman has three children, without specifying how he got those children. Parents who claim to know have reported that at least one is adopted. Is there any conflict of interest in taking babies by force of arms while also adopting? The photographer was gracious in taking a picture that did not show Mr Putman's extreme obesity.

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Orangeville Banner

Gary Putman retiring after 30 years with family services

Monday November 5 2007, ERIC SPARLING

Gary Putman

Gary Putman has had a long tenure as the executive director (ED) of Dufferin Child and Family Services. When he started the job, back in 1978, he was just 31. He'll be retiring on Nov. 30. In between, he's raised three kids with his wife, and overseen the growth of the Dufferin Children's Aid Society -- a small agency with eight employees -- into a multi-service agency employing almost 100.

Joining Dufferin CAS from Peel CAS was a smart career move for a young social worker. It also afforded the Putman's the opportunity to get back to their small town roots -- both grew up in rural centres -- to raise their children. But they had a five-year plan, after which the intention was to move on. That didn't happen.

"[We were] quite happy here," says Putman, adding that they lived first in Orangeville, and then in Erin Township. A year ago the couple relocated to Cambridge, where they plan to retire living close to family.

A number of different aspects of the job kept him motivated through the decades, says Putman.

"We know we're doing good work," even if the perception isn't always positive, he says. He also credits the community with keeping his work rewarding, from the pleasures of raising kids in the area, to the partnerships the agency has enjoyed over the years. The growth of the agency, as well as its broader mandate -- agency HR manager Jennifer Moore says it includes child protection, mental health, support for the developmentally-challenged and work with families in crisis -- has kept the ED on his toes.

It was just two years ago that DCFS moved into a building on Riddell Road built by a Guelph developer for their purposes, bringing all of the services under one roof. The agency will be buying the building at the end of a five-year rental contract, says Putman.

The final reason he offers is his colleagues: "A great bunch of people that work here."

Just because he's enjoyed his work doesn't mean it hasn't been without its challenges. Dufferin presents a number of obstacles to happy, healthy families. The first is the commute. A huge number of residents face a daily drive to Peel Region or Toronto. That was true when Putman moved to Orangeville decades ago and it's still true today (although some commutes have actually shortened, he says, due to increased employment opportunities west of Toronto). Long days can put stress on families: kids come home to empty houses and parents miss family time. The ED also began noticing an increase in hard drug use about a decade ago. It doesn't rival the problems faced by large cities, he says, but it's made an impact on the community. And despite the amalgam of services offered by his agency, he says services to families in the region are still "fractured."

Dufferin is a relatively small player in southern Ontario, so local residents find they need to travel to Wellington or Peel -- increasingly the latter -- for help.

"There are some real cracks" in services for kids with serious emotional or mental health needs, says Putman, citing the fact that children who need inpatient psychiatric care are currently sent to Oshawa for treatment.

In a month or so, however, these problems will become someone else's professional responsibility. The soon-to-be retired executive director says many people have asked him his plans for retirement. He won't be doing social work, at least not in the short term; if he wanted to continue working, he'd stay in his current position, he says. With a new grandson and travel plans -- possibly back-to-back summers on the east and west coasts -- Putman figures he has enough to keep him busy. But come six months from now, he may start assessing social work projects he'd like to tackle.

Looking back on almost three decades of service to Dufferin, Putman returns to the kids. When he hears from a child who has been helped by him or the staff -- "had a significant impact" on their lives -- that's one of the job's biggest rewards.

Source: Orangeville Banner

Lawyer Loses Daughter

November 8, 2007

What should a father do when he sees two women roughly treating his baby daughter? Apparently taking the baby from them by force and leaving is not the correct response. British lawyer Jonathan Phillips has lost his daughter and she will be placed for adoption. This case acts as well as a warning to lawyers: we are more powerful than you, and if you cause us trouble, we will take your children. Remember that the next time you wonder why a lawyer fails to provide effective representation in family court.

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The Daily Mail, 08/11/07

Solicitor jailed for snatching own baby daughter from social workers

By ANDREW LEVY

A solicitor who snatched his baby from two care workers before going on the run has been jailed for 20 months.

Jonathan Phillips, 40, punched the two women, one of whom was heavily pregnant, before grabbing his daughter and speeding away in his car.

The child had been taken into care because of concerns over his wife's mental health - although the couple insist she does not present a risk.

Regret: Solicitor Jonathan Phillips will spend almost two years in prison and may not be allowed to see his daughter until she is 18

They were allowed to visit their daughter for two hours every day at a family contact centre in King's Lynn, Norfolk. But Phillips lashed out because he felt staff were treating her too roughly.

He shouted, "Take your hands off my baby" before overturning a table, attacking the women and seizing his child, who was four months old at the time.

Phillips, a soldier in the Territorial Army, fled with his wife Erica and the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons. They were stopped on the M6 near Birmingham later the same day.

Phillips, of Downham Market, Norfolk, was sent to prison after admitting kidnap and two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm.

Before he was sentenced he said: "I was acting under extreme provocation. Social services had taken our baby into care under dubious circumstances and whenever we visited her, the staff handled her roughly, overfed her and generally ill-treated her.

"I lashed out in the heat of the moment. I could see my family crumbling before me.

"Now the tragedy is that she looks set to be adopted and we will not be able to see her again until she is 18."

Wife: Erica Phillips was deemed mentally ill by social services - the couple deny this

Norwich Crown Court heard that Norfolk County Council gained an interim care order in May to place the child in foster care because of Mrs Phillips's mental health. The couple say they have independent evidence showing she was capable of looking after her baby.

Mark Shelley, defending, said Phillips was "a well respected and popular solicitor".

"It was not a planned snatch," he said. "It was a culmination of emotions as he could see his daughter slipping away from him."

The court heard the two care workers suffered cuts and bruises during the attack in August.

Phillips was jailed on Tuesday for 12 months for kidnap and eight months to run consecutively for the assaults.

"These are extremely serious charges and I cannot see them in any other light," Judge Paul Downes told him.

Mrs Phillips, a qualified cardiology nurse, said afterwards that staff at the contact centre were rude and would go out of their way to upset them. She added: 'My husband is a decent man and a kind and loving father and had no criminal convictions before this.'

Norfolk County Council said the sentence sent out a strong message that violence against its staff was unacceptable.

Source: Daily Mail (UK)

Nobody Responsible for Mother's Death

November 7, 2007

The death of Sally Clark has been ruled accidental. Two of her three children died in infancy, for which she spent three years in prison as a double baby killer until exonerated by the courts. She never recovered. In the face of the obvious evidence that she drank herself to death, the ruling of accident spares the family the embarrassment of admitting that it was suicide, and spares the child protection apparatus the greater embarrassment of admitting that they killed her.

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Wrongly-jailed Sally Clark died from drink

By Matthew Moore, Last Updated: 1:55pm GMT 07/11/2007

A solicitor wrongly jailed for murdering two of her children died of acute alcohol intoxication, a coroner ruled today.

Sally Clark, 42, had so much alcohol in her blood when she died that she would have been five times over the drink-driving limit, post mortem tests showed.

Sally Clark's convictions were crushed by the Appeal Court

Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray ruled today that Mrs Clark's death was accidental, and said there was no evidence that she intended to commit suicide.

Earlier the hearing heard that Mrs Clark had been receiving treatment for "serious psychiatric problems" since the trauma of her court cases and time in prison.

"These problems included enduring personality change after catastrophic experience, protracted grief reaction and alcohol dependency syndrome," the coroner's officer told the hearing.

Mrs Clark's body was found in bed by her cleaner at her home in Chelmsford, Essex in March this year.

"There has clearly been a most tragic history leading up to Mrs Clark's sad death," the coroner said. "The court's hope is that Mr Clark and the family will be able to treasure all the happy memories they have of Mrs Clark."

Mrs Clark was in prison for four years largely as a result of discredited evidence from the paediatrician Prof Sir Roy Meadow.

She had been accused of smothering her sons Christopher, who was 12 weeks old, and Harry, who was eight weeks old. Her conviction was subsequently quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Today a spokesman for her family said Mrs Clark had never been able to come to terms with the false accusations made against her.

"Having suffered what was acknowledged by the Court of Appeal to be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent years, it is hardly surprising that her ordeal culminated in the diagnosis of 'enduring personality change after catastrophic experience', 'protracted grief reaction' and 'alcohol dependency syndrome' and that she was never able to return to being the happy, kind and generous person we all knew and loved," the spokesman said.

"The hope is that some good may come out of the tragedy of her untimely death and that a sense of balance will be restored which will not only protect infants but also their innocent parents."

Mrs Clark was charged with murder following the sudden death of Harry in Jan 1998. Fourteen months earlier, her first child Christopher had died suddenly at home and when Harry died, medical staff called in the police.

The convictions were quashed after the Appeal Court was presented with a medical report discovered by her husband Stephen in November 2001, which showed the presence of the staphylococcus aureus bacteria in Harry's central spinal fluid.

In addition it revealed the presence of a higher than average white to red blood cell ratio and polymorphs - cells which fight infection. All suggested that Harry, rather than being the victim of a non-accidental death, could have been suffering from a rare form of meningitis.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Blame Dad

November 7, 2007

Kevin Fox was not involved with child protective services, but was still one of its victims. Child protectors have fostered a culture targeting parents, especially fathers, as the worst danger to their children. Mr Fox's three-year-old daughter Riley was raped and murdered, but police, following the anti-parent culture, blamed dad, and even forced him to confess to the crime. In the news article, the exculpatory evidence is postponed until the end.

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Riley Fox's dad set to get his day in federal court

RIGHTS VIOLATED FOR 'CONFESSION'?

November 6, 2007, By KIM SMITH STAFF WRITER

CHICAGO -- Kevin Fox's civil rights lawsuit is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. today in U.S. District Court.

The lawsuit was initially filed in November of 2004 and lists former Will County State's Attorney Jeff Tomczak; a jailer; a county social worker; six detectives; and a polygraph examiner with conspiring to coerce Kevin Fox into adopting a fabricated tale of how he killed his daughter, Riley.

Kevin Fox

U.S. District Judge John W. Darrah has denied all motions to dismiss the civil suit, including the latest one this past September. A trial date of Nov. 5 was set and recently changed to Nov. 6.

"It could take as long as Wednesday before a jury gets selected," said Will County Sheriff's spokesman Pat Barry. "Personally, I think it may not go. There have been talks of settlements."

Around 8 a.m. on June 6, 2004, Kevin Fox reported his daughter missing from their Wilmington home. He told police he had picked up Riley, 3, and her brother Tyler, 7, from their grandparents' home late the night before after attending a concert. His wife, Melissa Fox, was spending the night with friends planning to participate in the Avon Breast Cancer Walk.

The news spread and in hours hundreds of volunteers scoured the area in an attempt to find the missing child. Her body was found that afternoon in Forked Creek nearly four miles from her home.

Kevin Fox was arrested and charged with her murder following a 14-hour police interrogation in October 2004.

Reportedly, he broke down and told authorities he accidently killed Riley when he struck her head with the bathroom door. In his panic, he tried to make her death look like an abduction and sexual assault before dumping her body into the creek.

Later, Kevin Fox said he gave the statement after being misled into thinking he would be charged with involuntary manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. He also said he was threatened and denied access to a lawyer as investigators screamed at him and vowed to see that he was sexually assaulted in prison if he did not give a statement saying he was involved in his daughter's death.

Kevin Fox spent eight months in jail until DNA evidence showed samples recovered from Riley's body were not his.

Kevin Fox is represented by attorney Kathleen Zellner of Naperville. Scott Panek, Zellner's office manager, said it is possible that the jury could get picked today with opening statements to follow either in the afternoon or on Wednesday.

"I am almost sure," Panek said.

Reporter Kim Smith can be reached at (815) 729-6067 or at ksmith@scn1.com

Source: (Chicago) Herald-News

Beyond Repair

November 7, 2007

The Baltimore Sun reports on the experience of Bill Grimm, who sued the state of Maryland and forced them to implement improvements to their foster care system. Three decades later the system is just as bad.

Among families victimized by the foster care system, the most popular suggestion for reform is a class-action lawsuit. The Grimm case shows the futility of achieving reform through the courts. As long as money gushes into the foster care agencies for each child they take, they will find ways to corrupt the police, courts, doctors and group homes to keep the money flowing. The system can only be cured when legislatures get the courage to cut off the money supply.

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baltimoresun.com

Decades later, and foster kids still suffer

Jean Marbella, November 6, 2007

Bill Grimm was in his mid-30s when he filed a civil rights lawsuit in 1984, charging widespread mistreatment of children in foster care in Baltimore. The suit was settled four years later with the state agreeing to vast, systemwide improvements, and Grimm went off to a California-based national advocacy group to fight similar battles elsewhere, thinking his work was done in Maryland.

Well, not so fast.

Today, Grimm is 58. Suits he has filed against other states have been tried and resolved. He can cite foster care reforms he's helped push in states from Washington to Utah to California. He's even seen one governor he tangled with in Arkansas go on to become president, and now, that governor's wife is running for that office as well.

And how about back in Maryland, the first state in which he tried to help these most vulnerable children, taken from their own homes because of abuse or neglect and at the mercy of the state to place them in safe homes?

"Virtually every aspect of the system is deficient," Grimm said flatly when I reached him yesterday at his office at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, Calif.

As Lynn Anderson reports in The Sun today, lawyers for the children went to federal court yesterday to detail - in more than 400 sometimes-heartbreaking pages - how the state continues to fail foster kids. Some are sent to homes where they are abused. Others are bounced from facility to facility. Caseworkers aren't always visiting them monthly, as required, to monitor their well-being. Even the basics - like getting them medical and dental care, or enrolling them in school - prove a challenge for the state and city social services agencies.

In other words, some of the same problems that prompted his lawsuit in 1984 remain, some of the same problems that the state pledged to remedy in the 1988 consent decree that settled the suit.

"We can't expect an agency to change overnight," Grimm said.

Or two decades, for that matter.

"It's amazing these things are still going on," he said.

Grimm was called back to Maryland last summer - he grew up in Kensington and got his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Maryland - to help with what he calls "intense" negotiations with the state to bring this long-running issue, finally, to true resolution.

"That went nowhere," he said.

Grimm's praise for the lawyers keeping the fight going - including Mitchell Y. Mirviss, who worked with Grimm at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau to file the initial lawsuit and now is a partner at Venable, and Rhonda Lipkin, of the Public Justice Center - is matched only by his disdain for the agencies and political leaders who have failed to live up to the consent decree that mandated reform.

"There's a lack of sustained will to make change happen," he said. "How many administrations have come and gone and paid lip service to the consent decree?"

Grimm said that the occasional death of a child in foster care will spark outrage and a flurry of promises to fix the system. But, eventually, even those tragic events fade and everyone moves on - because foster children are far from the most powerful of constituencies.

"Where's the political fallout? These kids do not vote. Their parents probably do not vote. These people are from poor neighborhoods. They have no lobbyists," Grimm said. "Frankly, it's pretty easy for politicians to push this aside, except for the occasional sound bite - 'these most needy of children.'"

The problems are deep and beyond the quick fix, Grimm said: Social workers can have too many cases to juggle, kids are often sent to live in group homes rather than with a family, there aren't enough people willing to be foster parents.

"There's a long-standing neglect of foster parents. They are not being supported," he said. "And they're your best recruiters of other foster parents, so if they're not getting the support they need, they're not bringing in new people."

It baffles him that Baltimore's social service agencies have not been able to tap into the city's wealth of great medical and mental health institutions for help. "We've litigated cases in rural areas of Nevada where there were no mental health services, or even medical services," Grimm said. "For an urban area not to be able to pull together the resources to support these children - it's inexcusable. Baltimore should be an example for the nation."

While change hasn't come as quickly as he imagined when he first negotiated the consent decree, he doesn't regret filing the suit. And he still has hope, although maybe not as much as he started out with.

"There are other systems that have made improvements," he said. "They're not perfect; there are no perfect systems. But it's not impossible."

jean.marbella@baltsun.com

Source: Baltimore Sun

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City's foster care is faulted

Monitors' lawsuit contends Md., Baltimore not carrying out reforms ordered in 1988

By Lynn Anderson

Sun reporter

November 6, 2007

Baltimore foster children are still being sheltered at a state office building and still missing medical and dental appointments, according to lawyers charged with monitoring a long-standing court decree on care for these children.

In a more than 400-page document filed yesterday in federal court, the lawyers say the state Department of Human Resources and Baltimore's Department of Social Services have persistently failed to comply with a 1988 agreement that called for swift reform in the care of foster children.

Attorneys say that as recently as Oct. 27, a 14-year-old boy in foster care stayed overnight in a state office building on Gay Street in Baltimore and that caseworkers are still too slow to enroll children in school. They say some caseworkers fail to make regular visits to children to ensure that they are well.

"A generation of children, literally tens of thousands of abused and neglected children, has lived in the foster care system since [the consent decree] without receiving the court- ordered services and protections that [the state] agreed to provide," lawyers Mitchell Y. Mirviss and Rhonda Lipkin contend in the document charging the state with contempt of court. "Baltimore's abused and neglected children are entitled to better treatment than this."

State officials must respond to the contempt filing, and a federal judge is expected to consider the allegations. Mirviss and Lipkin hope the judge will appoint a full-time monitor who will follow up on the state's efforts to improve foster child welfare in Baltimore. Such a system has worked well in other states, including Alabama and Utah, they said.

Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald, who has been in the post for less than a year, said she knew the court action was coming - she had been warned in writing by Mirviss and Lipkin as required by law several months ago. Still, she said she was disappointed that they couldn't wait a bit longer to see whether her initial reform efforts could produce improvements.

Donald's agency recently joined with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to study successful foster care programs in other states and try to replicate them in Maryland. And for the first time yesterday, Donald met with leaders at Baltimore's social services headquarters, including director Samuel Chambers Jr., as part of a new effort called Baltimore ReBuild that she hopes will speed reforms. Chambers also has tried to enact changes during his nearly three years in the position, including creating community centers in several city neighborhoods to reach families in need of counseling and other services.

"This is a 19-year-old lawsuit, and I have only been here nine months," said Donald, who was appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley this year. She oversees the Baltimore social services office because it is part of the state's human resources network. "We've been making such great strides, and I think there is clear evidence that the central [DHR] office is taking Baltimore very seriously," she said. "We are bringing a large number of resources to the city."

Donald said children are staying at the state office building on Gay Street for a few hours at a time, not days on end as in the spring of 2005 when The Sun first reported that children were sleeping on floors and chairs. She said there are regular reports on the children who stay at the office - which is staffed 24 hours a day - and that those reports are shared with child advocates. In October, 45 children stayed at the office for an average of 1.9 hours, Donald said.

"I believe that the Gay Street situation has been resolved," Donald said. "Certainly, it is an overnight placement office and sometimes children come in in the middle of the night, but they are not staying there for long periods of time."

Mirviss and Lipkin acknowledge that Donald - a former deputy mayor for children, youth, families and elders in Washington - has brought new energy to the agency. However, they said they had heard too many unfulfilled promises since the lawsuit was first filed to wait any longer for evidence of improvements.

"We're at a crisis point," said Lipkin, whose position with the Public Justice Center in Baltimore is funded by legal fees paid by the state out of the consent decree. "What's unfortunate is that we've been at a crisis point for quite a while."

Lawyers used the Freedom of Information Act, which guarantees public access to certain documents, to force the state to let them examine files of numerous foster children in the city. A review enabled attorneys to document a history of unsuitable foster home placements - including an over-reliance on expensive, group home facilities - as well as failure by the state to ensure basic medical and dental care to some children.

In one case documented by the lawyers, city social services case workers allowed a 13-year-old girl to live with a family friend who "drank [alcohol] and physically abused her."

In another case, the agency moved a 14-year-old boy with psychiatric problems to 11 group homes in as many months. As a result, according to court documents, the boy's mental condition deteriorated and he had to be placed in an expensive therapeutic facility.

Mirviss, one of several Baltimore attorneys who represented foster children when the class action lawsuit was filed in the 1980s, said he believes that in some ways the city's system is in worse shape now than 20 years ago.

The attorney said he is worried about the large decrease in the number of foster families in the city - a situation that has been worsened by the agency's decision six years ago to cut day care subsidies to foster families. According to information Mirviss obtained from the state, the total number of foster families in the city has dropped by more than 55 percent - from 3,000 in 2001 to about 1,330 this year.

Donald said her department plans to reinstate day care subsidies for foster families early next year.

But in the meantime, the drop in foster families has meant that officials have had to rely more heavily on group homes, which charge the state up to $60,000 a year per child. Foster families receive a subsidy rate of $735 a month, or about $8,820 a year, Mirviss said.

Group homes often are not the best living situations for foster children, many of whom have been sexually abused or have emotional problems, Mirviss said.

"The system is not providing good outcomes for these kids," he said, adding that while reading some of the foster care files he felt heartbroken and angry. "The children who remain in care aren't getting the services they need to become independent, functioning adults."

lynn.anderson@baltsun.com

Source: Baltimore Sun

Quote of the Week

November 5, 2007

When Ronnie Nauls spoke to the oldest of his three daughters in foster care, the five-year-old told him: "Daddy, we're ready to come home now, we promise to be good." The family was broken up for using and selling marijuana for medical purposes, acts legalized in California by a referendum in 1996.

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The Federal War on Marijuana Becomes a War on Children

2007-09-10

By Dan Bernath

Automatic weapons. Check. Helicopters. Check. Dogs. Check. Bulletproof vests. Check.

You may not buy the government's characterization of its campaign against medical marijuana patients as a "war on drugs," but increasingly violent, militaristic tactics in recent months offer a troubling glimpse into the federal law enforcement community's mentality: To them, this is war.

Raids on medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California July 17 by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents, often with local law enforcement officers in tow, seemed designed to send a clear signal that the feds were deliberately escalating their war on medical marijuana patients.

The enemy, then, are people like Ronnie Naulls, a Riverside medical marijuana patient who owned two of the dispensaries raided that day.

A church-going family man who used medical marijuana to ease chronic pain from injuries sustained in a 2001 car accident, Naulls already had two successful businesses – one as an IT consultant and another as a real estate property manager – when he established the Healing Nations Collective to save fellow Corona patients the hours-long drive to Los Angeles for medicine.

By all accounts, Naulls ran his collectives with exemplary scrupulousness. He maintained strict dress codes and professional standards for all employees. He paid state taxes on the dispensaries – amounting to several hundred thousand dollars a year – even when loose tax regulations allowed other dispensary owners to slip through the cracks. Profits from the dispensaries went to local and national cancer organizations.

Nevertheless, at 5:50 a.m., July 17, Naulls' home and businesses were invaded by DEA agents armed with shotguns, automatic rifles – even helicopters. They seized everything he owned: His businesses. His property. All of his accounts.

But that wasn't the worst of it. County child protective services came along on the raid and took Naulls' three daughters, aged 1 to 5, and charged him and his wife with child endangerment. They weren't even accused of breaking any state laws.

When Naulls spoke to his children in their foster home, the oldest said, "Daddy, we're ready to come home now, we promise to be good."

Of course they were too young to understand that they were victims of the strong-arm tactics of drug warriors whose goal was probably to make Naulls regret helping fellow patients receive their medicine in a safe, compassionate environment. Who cares if that means ruining a family financially, imprisoning the parents, and traumatizing the children?

Federal drug warriors have shown no sign of letting up since then, as dispensary raids have continued steadily in California and Oregon. The DEA has even found creative ways to open new fronts in its war by threatening to go after landlords who lease property to licensed dispensaries.

[ paragraphs not relating to Naulls omitted ]

Those wishing to contribute to the Naulls family's legal defense fund can do so at http://www.green-aid.com/defensefunds.htm

Dan Bernath is the Marijuana Policy Project’s assistant director of communications, www.mpp.org. Email him at dbernath@mpp.org.

Source: High Times

Blame Mom by Proxy

November 5, 2007

Diana Owen took her sick baby to the hospital repeatedly. Instead of finding the problem with the baby, the doctors diagnosed the mother with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and social services put the baby in foster care. It is a convenient way for doctors to dispose of difficult cases. Even after the baby's symptoms persisted in the foster home, child protectors continued to harass the family for a year.

The article says Munchausen is rare, but goes on to say that one hospital reported ten cases in a year. Multiply that by the number of hospitals to see that accusations of Munchausen are not at all rare.

The American elite press is now following the British press and reporting on child protection from the innocent parent's point of view. The Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times. Here are links to the Boston Globe and our local copy.

Child Protector Arrested

November 3, 2007

A Nevada child protector, Shajuan Ashley Bush, has been arrested for leaving her infant child alone. Another news source gives her name as Shajuan Huff-Bush.

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Alyson McCarthy, Reporter

Woman Employed to Protect Children Arrested on Child Neglect

A county employee whose job it is to protect children has been arrested for child neglect. It's believed the charge is related to the employee's own infant.

Eyewitness News just confirmed new details with Clark County officials -- including the fact that the young woman who was arrested will not be allowed to return to work pending the outcome of the investigation.

County officials say 24-year-old Shajuan Ashley Bush was arrested Thursday and booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a charge of child neglect.

The public information officer for the Clark County Department of Family Services confirms that Bush was an employee of that department when she was arrested. Her official position was family services specialist.

While we do not know what her specific job duties included, we do know she was not an investigator for Child Protective Services. We also know that the child Bush is accused of neglecting was not under the care of the county and was likely her own child.

A source familiar with the investigation tells Eyewitness News that a maintenance worker had entered Bush's apartment Thursday afternoon to make repairs and discovered a 3-and-a-half month old infant alone inside the apartment. County officials say that child is now safe, unharmed and in protective custody.

Shajuan Bush is scheduled to make her first appearance in Justice Court Saturday morning.

Source: KLAS-TV Las Vegas Now

Fran Lyon on TV

November 3, 2007

Fran Lyon, the British expectant mother condemned prenatally to lose her baby, has appeared on British TV with her champion, British MP John Hemming. Since the baby does not legally exist, it is impossible for the courts to issue a gag order. When the baby is born, we can expect an immediate gag order, shutting the mother up for eighteen years. There is a copy of the program on the website Family and Social Services Information Team (wmv, 45 megabytes). We regret that it has less than the usual audio quality. Since it may disappear with the gag order, we have a local copy.

Parentless Girl(s) Assaulted

November 2, 2007

A man, Allan Lewis, has been arrested for sexual assault on a girl, or girls, in a foster home. Being a foster home, the girls did not have a father to guide them through puberty, or chase away unwanted suitors. The article also reminds pedophiles of job opportunities placing them near lots of vulnerable girls.

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Man, 67, charged in foster home sex assault

Nov 02, 2007 09:03 PM, Sarah Boesveld, Staff Reporter

A Toronto man was arrested after a young woman told police she was sexually assaulted in a foster home.

The assaults are alleged to have taken place in an apartment in the East Mall and Burhamthorpe Rd. area, which police say has operated as a foster home for nearly 25 years.

Police believe there are more victims.

Allan Lewis, 67, faces one charge of sexual assault and one charge of sexual interference.

Anyone who has contact with Lewis and may be a victim is urged to contact Det. Const. J. Watson or Det. Const. Wolfe at 22 Division Youth Bureau at 416-808-2205 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS or online at www.222tips.com.

Source: Toronto Star

child 00046 (male)

November 1, 2007

A British Columbia foster boy identified only by his number, 46, presented evidence in the inquest into the death of Savannah Hall. According to his testimony his foster mother hit him over the head, give him cold showers, starved him for four days, bit him and washed his mouth out with soap. He kept quiet out of justified fear of the foster mom, who later used deadly force against another child.

His silence illustrates an important truth. When children complain about abuse, it is mild abuse. Victims of severe abuse have to remain silent.

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Foster child complained about treatment in care

Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, October 31, 2007

PRINCE GEORGE -- A jury at a coroner's inquest heard shocking allegations Tuesday from a former foster child who said he was struck over the head with a wooden spoon so hard it broke, he was put in cold showers fully clothed as punishment and sometimes went without food for four days in a local foster home.

The allegations were in a statement by the child, identified only as Child 46 to protect his identity, which was read into the record by coroner's counsel Chris Godwin.

The child had complained about his treatment in the foster home of Patricia Keene, who also looked after three-year-old Savannah Hall, who was rushed to hospital on Jan. 24, 2001, and died two days later after being transferred to B.C. Children's Hospital in Vancouver.

The inquest into Savannah's death has heard how the boy's complaint was received by a social worker and an investigation was ordered Nov. 28, 2000, but it wasn't carried out until Savannah became gravely ill.

Usually an investigation would be launched within a day for a serious allegation and should be completed within 30 days, but the standard of the Ministry of Children and Family Development wasn't met in this case.

Former ministry social worker Katrina Ludwig testified she was assigned to investigate the allegation of abuse and neglect, but she sent an e-mail to her supervisor on Dec. 4, 2000, saying she was too busy.

Another social worker wasn't assigned to investigate the boy's complaint until Jan. 25, 2001, and the boy was interviewed the next day. The inquest was told the boy had put a blanket over his head while he was being interviewed.

The boy, then in Grade 7, said he and his sister were both mistreated in the Keene foster home. He said Pat Keene would hit him on the head, hands and feet with a wooden spoon if he didn't do his chores.

"She hit me so hard on the head, it [the spoon] broke," the boy recalled, adding his sister was also hit with the spoon.

He said he would be put in a downstairs bedroom that had no windows and a bed with no blankets .

Pat Keene also gave the boy and his sister cold showers as punishment, he said, recalling he was sometimes pushed in the shower fully clothed.

He also had his mouth washed out with soap if he didn't speak loudly enough to be heard, according to the statement read in court.

He said he once bit Pat Keene while she was putting soap in his mouth and she bit him back, advising him she could bite twice as hard.

He said he didn't want to tell anyone because he thought his foster mother would get angry at him.

Coroner Scott Fleming warned the jury of five women to use caution in assessing the statement of a child, who did not attend court to be cross-examined.

The inquest also heard the testimony of Robert Watts, the regional director of child welfare in the northern region, who outlined a series of changes to the ministry made after Savannah's death.

He said there used to be one director of child welfare for B.C., based in Victoria, but now directors are assigned to regions to oversee child protection.

Peter Grant, the lawyer representing Savannah's birth mother, Corinna Hall, at the inquest, asked Watts whether the investigation of Child 46 would "fall through the cracks today" as it did in 2000.

Watts said ministry staffing levels had improved in the north since 2001, and there are more team leaders to supervise smaller groups of front-line social workers.

"I think the system we have now is better than we had before," he said, but added under further questioning that he couldn't give an absolute guarantee the system would protect all children.

Watts agreed with Grant that the ministry is the guardian of children in foster care, who deserve protection.

"We are the guardians of these children and we owe them a very high standard of care," he testified.

The inquest is expected to hear the testimony of the foster mother today.

Earlier Tuesday, a doctor who examined Savannah Hall at B.C. Children's Hospital before the child died, testified she was concerned about bruising on the child and the fact that there was massive brain swelling.

"I was concerned about the location of some of the bruises," Dr. Jean Hlady, one of the province's top experts in child abuse, recalled.

Hlady said she examined the girl on Jan. 25, 2001, a day after she had been admitted to the emergency department of the hospital in Prince George.

After the child was transferred to Children's Hospital in Vancouver, Hlady interviewed the foster mother, who reported the child had had a mild cold, had fallen twice the day she was admitted to hospital, and wasn't feeling well, so was put in bed early.

Hlady recalled the child was initially admitted to hospital with massive brain swelling, was comatose, had a very low temperature and a low salt level.

"The history I was given didn't add up," the doctor recalled.

The child was determined to be brain-dead and life support was discontinued on Jan. 26, 2001, and the child was declared dead when her heart stopped, Hlady said.

(The girl's birth mother, who was in court for the testimony, wiped tears from her eyes as the doctor described the end of the girl's life.)

Hlady said she was still puzzled by the case to this day.

The inquest, now in its second week, is trying to determine the facts surrounding the little girl's death and has heard that the ministry had received a series of allegations about mistreatment of foster children in the home.

The inquest jury is expected to make recommendations to try to prevent a similar death.

nhall@png.canwest.com

Source: The Vancouver Sun

Families Trashed

November 1, 2007

Child protectors in Alberta have bullied parents and the media into keeping quiet about the names of protected children, even dead ones. Now lax record handling by a social worker has exposed the records of many families to public view in a dumpster.

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October 31, 2007

Private details in dumpster

Government documents found by bottle picker

By BROOKES MERRITT, SUN MEDIA

Sun Media reporter Brookes Merritt holds some of the hundreds of sensitive provincial government documents that were found in an Edmonton dumpster yesterday by a bottle-picker. (Jason Franson, Sun Media)

Personal information about local foster parents - including driver's licences, health-care numbers, and even a social worker's private notes on how kids were being raised - turned up in an Edmonton dumpster yesterday, free for the picking.

In fact, it was a bottle-picker who found them.

Kevin, 51, was checking his daily "trapline" of dumpsters east of NAIT yesterday morning when he hit what he called an identity-theft jackpot: hundreds of government documents containing the entire lives of foster families from Morinville, Stony Plain, Spruce Grove and other areas.

"It's the kind of stuff that should be locked up or shredded," said Kevin, who didn't want his last name printed.

One of his own kids is currently in foster care.

"It could have been me in these files. It could have been my daughter. These people must really be hoping that nobody else got to this information before I did. This is the kind of information that could enable the wrong kind of person to track down a kid," he said.

After stumbling across one bulky folder in the dumpster, Kevin called Sun Media.

A reporter joined him and they returned to the dumpster at 11908 105 St. to recover a second folder and countless other documents.

The folders and documents belonged to Joan Conibear, a social worker with the Spruce Grove Child and Family Services Centre.

Police said the files were stolen Friday from Conibear's van at the Chateau Louis Hotel, where she was attending a work function.

Conibear cried yesterday after learning the documents had been located.

"I've hardly slept since then. I called the police immediately and reported it ... I've been so worried," she said.

One of the parents whose information was recovered is worried about her case file having turned up in a dumpster.

"Those files are supposed to be sealed. I was under the impression they weren't to ever leave the government offices," she said. "Who's to say someone hasn't already taken the information they need from these documents (to steal an identity)?"

Guy Quenneville, a case worker and union steward at the Spruce Grove centre, said it's not the first time such an incident has taken place.

"On paper this stuff is supposed to be kept under lock and key, but the reality is we bring our work home with us. If a family needs to meet a case worker after hours, we grab their file and meet them."

Child and Family Services spokesman Cheryl Oxford said the people whose information was compromised are being contacted.

"The protection of people's personal information is of vital priority for us," she said. "Due to the nature of this work there are times when information may be travelling in a person's vehicle. In this case a vehicle was broken into."

FILES FROM CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Here is some of the information included in Alberta Children's Services documents found in an Edmonton dumpster:

• Allegations of sexual misconduct and physical abuse in foster homes
• Details of investigations conducted by Children's Services
• Detailed behavioural assessments of foster parents and foster children
• Contact numbers for foster parents, foster children and case workers.
• Financial statements of foster parents
• Information about parents whose kids were seized by Children's Services

Source: Edmonton Sun

Grape Expectations Video

October 31, 2007

Cathy Norris (justiceseeker) has posted a video of the Grape Expectations demonstration on YouTube. Watch CAS workers and supporters arrive dressed in tax-supported opulence, and compare them to the parents who take real responsibility for children. Thanks to Mary Janiga for pointing out this video.

Halloween Grinch

October 30, 2007

A foster mom identified only as Lanette tells a story of stealing Halloween candy from her foster kids.

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Foster Children at Halloween

Here is the major a problem that I ran into with Halloween and the whole candy business: These children get all of this candy in their bag which means in their eyes it is their candy. In my house no one eats any candy until I go through it all and then it is placed into a large Halloween bowl. The children are able to have a couple of pieces of candy with permission but all the candies are placed together. My little secret is that I also throw out some of the candy a little at a time, things they do not like too much to help do away with the mound of candy and sugar highs that come with it. Every one of my foster children they struggled with this rule. One little guy attacked me when he thought I was taking his candy. It is their candy they feel like they earned and do not want to give it up easy.

Source: foster care and adoption blog website

New Minister Deb Matthews

October 30, 2007

In a cabinet reorganization following the October 10 election premier Dalton McGuinty appointed Deb Matthews, MPP for London North Centre, as the new Minister of Children and Youth Services.

Addendum: Here is a constituent experience. It does not look good.

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Last Ontario parliament term, I was disappointed with Deb Matthews, MPP, Liberal, lack of support in stopping the legal kidnapping of my children. Last year Deb's staff waved Michael Bryant MPP former Attorney General's statement that the family court system is in perfect order. Yea right. Now he is going to help our Canadian Natives. I'm already starting to feel sorry for our Natives.

At a political debate last month Deb told me that we need to ask for funding to get a proper study done. Currently, I'm trying to work with the Canadian Equal Parenting Council to see if any the London politicians can help to sponsor funding. Sounds like Deb may help. I will keep you informed.

Source: email from Rob DeJong, October 31, 2007

John Dunn's FOI Requests

October 30, 2007

John Dunn has posted his letter to Jean Paiero of Queens Park requesting information about Ottawa Children's Aid:

1. Service contracts with the ministry
2. Records, financial policies, directives, notes, memos, or communication relating to the service contracts
3. The quarterly report of expenditures
4. The bylaws

Here is a link to the letter (pdf).

Thoughts From Jail

October 30, 2007

John Murtari of Syracuse New York has a son Domenic born in 1993. When the boy was five years old the marriage broke down and his ex-wife moved across the continent with the boy to be as far as possible from John. Although the mother's family had the means to easily care for the boy financially, she applied for court-ordered child support from John. He was a highly-paid computer specialist, and the support level was based on his former earnings. But with the disruptions of family law, continuation of that career was impossible and his earnings are now greatly reduced. High child support and low earnings have left him impoverished. What little money he has is used to pay trans-continental plane fare each time he gets to visit his son. His finances mean that he regularly spends time in jail for non-payment of support.

Rather than direct anger toward his ex-wife, John treats the family court as the party responsible for separating him from his son, and has conducted a number of actions to demonstrate his love for his son to the court. For example, this summer he chalked the message "I love you Dom" outside the courthouse. These actions led to a jail term. Below are John Murtari's thoughts after his recent release, addressed to others who have been forcibly separated from their children.

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Good People & People of Faith,

Just got out of jail last Friday. It was good to hear that if your sentence ends over a weekend, they let you go early! I started this message while there... Need background:

www.AKidsRight.Org/clinton

Get used to it!

A single room, lots of noise, 45 men and 2 TVs without much space or privacy -- get used to it. It's so crowded they even put in steel bunk beds. The guy five feet away snores like a freight train ... you gonna giv'm a shove and tell'm to roll over? I don't think so -- you better get used to it.

Freight train got released and I've had some quiet nights. That can be worse for some because you can think. What am I doing here! Thoughts of regrets and wasted days and should-have-beens.

This may sound strange, but I haven't felt regret or that I did the wrong thing, took the wrong path.... just gotta get used to it.

How about you?

Maybe you think you could never get used to it. Live part of your life that way? Never! Personally, I think many of you are lying. Why? Because you've already demonstrated an ability to live in a much worse environment...

One of even greater pain, personal indignity and injustice. You were separated from your children and the tremendous beauty and love and fulfillment that relationship 'can' bring. But most of you GOT USED TO IT!

Oh, in jail there are a lot of those 'coping' mechanisms. You can keep the outside noise turned up and just not think. You can live in denial, or quiet acceptance, or explode in aggression. A few choose to 'hang up'. What about you -- how are you coping with injustice?

What we need.

More action and less talk in our effort for reform. I'm really hoping a few of you have NOT gotten used to being separated from your kids. That you feel the pain fresh every day, but have not 'coped' by anger, resignation, or forgetfulness. I plan to resume 'our' efforts in early January. I hope some of you are getting close to making a decision to come forward, to take real action for what you believe in.

Glad to accept the discomfort of jail and the life disruption it can bring as a minor inconvenience compared to the loss of a normal life with your kids. Willing to sacrifice in an effort that may not improve a thing with your kids, but may help others.

Why?

Because our goal is worth it. Because some good examples from history say the method can be effective. Because real peace & joy can be found when our actions correspond to the reality in which we live.

http://www.AKidsRight.Org/approach.htm

We have held up the ideal that people willing to demonstrate: Faith, Love, and Personal Sacrifice can be the means of effective social change. More specifically, that Parents can promote Family Law reform by demonstrating:

1. Faith in a loving God,
2. Love for their children, former spouses, and other "brothers and sisters", and
3. Willingness to make Personal Sacrifice,

NonViolent Action allows you to demonstrate through "unambiguous physical action" the depth of your Faith and belief in your "cause." It is a positive demonstration of love given at sometimes tremendous personal cost.

Hope to see you in January!

Source: email from John Murtari

Fractured Family

October 29, 2007

Many personal stories of child protection get posted to the internet daily. Here is one by Bessie Hudgins, one of the organizers of the DCrally in Washington last August, and planned again for August 2008. She paints a good picture of the pain inflicted on children by our divisive family law system.

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Bessie Hudgins
my14mema at yahoo.com

Subject: Family story

Good Evening my Many Friends,

I am here once again to tell you about the sadness of the plight of our children.

As most of you know, I have two of my grandchildren back with us after being away from us for over seven years due to the abuse of our system. These two girls have a sister, ten years old. We are still not allowed to see her because her mother still uses her to control the situation.

One of the girls was able to spend some time with her little sister this weekend. The young sister asked could she please talk to her daddy. It has been way too long since I talked to him. The oldest one called their daddy on his cell phone and handed the phone to her baby sister.

I'm not even sure I can make everyone understand the happiness and the pain that this little girl and her daddy felt through this conversation, but I will try.

My ten-year-old granddaughter told her daddy how much she loves him and how bad she wants to see him. She talked about her sister's puppy and her new pocketbook, and school. She laughed and had the best time with her daddy. She asked him all kinds of questions about where he lives and what he does everyday. She asked him if he wanted to see her as bad as she wants to see him. She told him over and over how much she loves him and how badly she misses him.

When it came time for her to hang up, she got very sad and didn't want to say bye. She told her daddy that she misses him so bad, and how she doesn't understand why she has to stay where she is and her sisters get to live with us.

The oldest sister watched her little sister become very happy and alive while she talked to their daddy, and she said it really made her see how horrible it is to keep parents away from children.

I pray every night that the people in power in this country will wake up and see how cruel and inhuman our courts are when they rule against our children.

I have two grandchildren that we spent over $50,000.00 to bring home. We went through five attorneys and got no where. Once we ran out of money and went pro se, and the girls found out we were STILL fighting for them, they came on their own to find out if it was true. The rest is history. They moved in with me a short time later and are now very happy.

The youngest girl is not allowed to see us, but the two oldest ones do give her messages from us and she sends us messages all the time.

"Best Interest of the Child" this judge has now decided our case is not right for his court and has moved it to Juvenile court, which also has rendered the girl's mother without an attorney cause the mother's attorney is also the juvenile judge in our county.

Godspeed

Source: email from Bessie Hudgins

Children's Aid:
Public Nuisance

October 29, 2007

Neighbors of a group home for teenaged girls complain of problems with parking, noise and inmates removed in handcuffs. Not mentioned in the article, many CAS wards have a mom or dad, or both, willing to care for them, but were relocated by force of arms.

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Resident wants group home laws changed

MPP says no notification because "nobody wants them"

Fri Oct 26, 2007

By Jillian Follert

OSHAWA -- All Angela Borysenko wants is to have a say in what happens in her neighbourhood.

The north Oshawa resident says her world was turned upside down this summer when a group home for youth opened down the street from her house on Iris Court.

"We've had problems with parking and traffic, we've had problems with noise and children being taken away from the home in handcuffs, but the thing that bothers us the most is that we had no say in the matter. We weren't even told this was happening," she said at a recent meeting of council's development services committee. "The process has to be changed."

Ms. Borysenko and other neighbours only discovered a group home would be located at 220 Iris Crt., after they noticed renovations at the property during the summer and questioned a contractor.

Weeks later, Ontario Family Group Homes sent a letter to neighbourhood residents explaining that the home would house young women ages 12-16, in the care of various Children's Aid Societies in Ontario.

An open house was held to introduce the group home to the neighbourhood on Sept. 19, but Ms. Borysenko still feels her concerns are unresolved.

"We want the laws completely changed. They shouldn't be able to put group homes in single family neighbourhoods, just like you couldn't put a lodging house here," she says. "If this was a business it would be forced to close and this is technically a business."

Officials at Ontario Family Group homes did not respond to requests for comment.

Ward 5 Councillor John Henry acknowledges group homes provide a vital service, but says the lack of consultation and communication with the community is unacceptable. He wasn't even aware of this latest group home in his ward until residents called him to complain.

Councillor Louise Parkes, who chairs the development services committee also sympathizes, but said there is little the City can do.

"As a municipality, we have zero control with regards to location of these homes. That's all done by the Province," she said. "All we can do is hope the people who provide them would have good judgment."

According to Anne Machowski, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, the only guidelines used when deciding where to locate youth group homes are municipal zoning, fire and health standards.

She said the Ministry monitors children's residences through an annual licensing renewal process, which assesses things like whether the children are receiving appropriate care and whether municipal bylaws are being complied with.

Those applying for a licence must provide a range of documentation including program proposals, descriptions of the intended client population and written evidence of community consultation -- something Ms. Borysenko insists was not done in this case.

Where there are issues, Ms. Machowski said the Ministry's regional office may become involved to help resolve them.

Oshawa MPP Jerry Ouellette couldn't comment on this specific group home without more information, but said this isn't the first time he has dealt with this issue.

"There is no requirement for pre-notification for residents that these homes are going in and that upsets some people," he said. "There's no requirement because nobody wants them anywhere and where would you put them if you notified people and everyone was against it?" He said the Province needs to do a better job of differentiating between good owners providing the service to help children and those just in it for the money.

In the meantime, the MPP said concerned residents should take their concerns to the operator first, the Ministry of Children and Youth Services.

Source: Durham Region website
pointed out by a Dufferin VOCA reader

Grape Expectations

October 28, 2007

The final reminder for Grape Expectations, held tomorrow October 29. You have a chance to raise you objection in person to this CAS fundraiser.

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Screen name: sparton2000

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 2:46 pm

Subject: protest PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE OF EVENT: OCTOBER 29, 2007 5PM TO 9PM
LOCATION: LIUNA STATION 360 JAMES ST. N. HAMILTON ON
CONTACT PERSON: MARY LOU JANIGA, CHILD ASSIST SERVICES
EMAIL: casservices2005@yahoo.ca
PHONE NUMBER: (905) 296-4366

Every Halloween the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society holds a fundraiser called the GRAPE EXPECTATIONS GALA. Every Halloween a group of concerned citizens come out to the event to protest. This will be the third year for people to unite for a common goal.

parts of message omitted

And with all the corruption within the system that controls the family and the state infringing upon these rights by funding an agency that destroys families, I am ashamed to call myself a Canadian.

Source: Canada Court Watch Forum

Addendum Here are three reports on the event.

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Screen name: sparton2000 [ Mary Janiga ]

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:03 pm

It was a great success. 15 people in attendance for our rally. I would like to thank all that attended the rally at the Grape Expectations Gala and making our voices heard. I will say that the rally/protest gets bigger every year and lets hope on our fourth anniversary we have just as many or more. We handed out CCW leaflets about what happened last year and the illegal drug use of CAS workers at last years event and people have to understand now that changes are needed in the Children's Aid System. We must overhaul the CAS and our voice must continue to resonate we are here and we are not going away and we are not going to take it any more. Again thank you and I look forward to seeing you all at next years protest/rally. Very happy. (On a side note I was there in spirit, after organizing for the past month I was immobilized by a superficial embolism of the outer veins of my left leg making me unable to walk or even stand — plaque and mini clogged veins which will clear up with heavy duty antibiotics in the next week with lots of rest and relaxation — and I spent today in the hospital emergency room from 3 pm until 9 pm. Ed called me while I was in the hospital and told me of the great success and even met me after the rally to keep my spirits up and going. So lets just say there were 16 people in attendance with me there in spirit and I hope that one day this system will change for our children and families of Canada.

---

Screen name: MConn

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:28 pm

It was great to see all the people there, we even had native people there helping with the protest and I learned something from one native that they are fighting for the same thing, to stop CAS from destroying their families and they did not know that the CAS was doing the same to us. We got to find out if this is true

---

Screen name: moldessa

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:31 pm

It sure was a success.

One of the best protests i have been to. It was nice to meet the people I read from everyday. We came with high hopes and we left feeling as we made a small drop in the bucket. I think its great that we came together as one as we worked to achieve the same goal. Its great to be with like minded people and feel as though you're understood, acccepted, its just so nice to be part of something bigger then yourself. Many thanks to the organizers of the event. Keep up the good work.

Source: Canada Court Watch Forum

Kids Can't Find Advocate

October 28, 2007

Recent legislation strengthened the Office of the Child and Family Service Advocacy (Judy Finlay), empowering her to help children to get proper care. John Dunn has found that children resourceful enough to find the home page of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services will not be able to find Judy Finlay. She is mentioned on the website, but cannot be found from the home page. His message to the minister via their webform is below.

I wanted to inform you of the fact that the Child and Youth Advocates office is not easily, if at all accessible through the Ministry web site. I have searched and searched and can not find it.

I am asking you for a response to this request.

Will the Ministry place a very obvious link to the Child and Youth Advocate so that children and youth who require access to their services can quickly locate them in times of emergency.

Source: email from John Dunn

Experiment on Baby

October 27, 2007

The British press has been exposing the child protection system by skirting the prohibition on mentioning children, reporting on children not yet born or over the age of majority. Today's story is that of Lawrence Alexander, stolen from his parents as a baby on a junk science theory and subject to medical experiments. At age 14 he suffered a decline leaving him nearly disabled, possibly a side-effect of the experiments. The article paints a picture of the doctor involved, Dr David Southall, as a child abuser. Psychopaths do sometimes get licensed to practice medicine. For a portrait of a medical psychopath, we suggest the book Blind Eye by James Stewart detailing dozens of homicides by Dr Michael Swango. In case the link dies we have a local copy.

Alberta Kills Another Boy

October 27, 2007

A Calgary couple had a squabble last month and social services seized their baby for his protection. On October 24 the boy died in their "care".

If you don't believe the story that the death was an accident there is no way for you to check. Alberta social services have bullied all elements of the press, even the CBC, into concealing the names in dead child cases. Even the mother does not know the truth.

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October 26, 2007

Mom blasts province over tot's death

By TARINA WHITE, SUN MEDIA

Just weeks away from giving birth, a grieving Calgary mom is demanding answers about the death of her 18-month-old son in a foster care home this week.

Crying uncontrollably, the boy's mother, 22, said she's in shock about the death of her blond-haired, blue-eyed son at a foster home in the Hamptons on Wednesday.

"I want to know how exactly he died," she said between sobs. The toddler was apprehended from his mother's home and placed in foster care just under a month ago after a physical confrontation between her and the child's father, she said.

The young mom is questioning the safety and care provided by the boy's foster parents, and said she plans to sue them as well as the provincial department responsible for foster care, Children's Services.

"It's ridiculous that you open foster homes and the child dies," she said.

Cops have deemed the death accidental.

Police were called to the Hamptons residence after paramedics arrived to find the boy not breathing and in cardiac arrest about 2 p.m. Wednesday.

Along with a police escort, an ambulance rushed the boy to Alberta Children's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

The initial police investigation indicated he was found not breathing in the basement of the home by his foster mother.

They have determined the death was an accident, but released no further details on the incident.

His mom said the boy's father was scheduled to spend time with him the day he died, but Children's Services cancelled the visit due to a lack of staff to supervise.

She last saw her son Tuesday during a supervised visit, which they spent playing with toy trucks and snuggling.

"He had three weeks until he would see his sister," she said in reference to her unborn daughter.

The grieving mom described her little boy as a delight who lit up a room with his beaming smile.

"He was a joy to everybody's life," she said.

Calgary and Area Child and Family Services Authority has placed the other foster children at the Hamptons home in alternative care while an internal investigation into the tot's death is conducted, said spokeswoman Dawn Delaney.

An autopsy was conducted yesterday.

Source: Calgary Sun

CPS Threats Unconstitutional

October 27, 2007

A US federal court has ruled that threats against parents to get their consent are unconstitutional. This ruling will have little practical impact because of a procedural rule. Challenges to apprehensions must be made at the shelter hearing, within three days. Most parents can't find a lawyer that fast, so their rights are forfeited. Only the few parents with legal counsel will benefit from the court's ruling, so this case is a good reason why homeschooling parents should be members of the HSLDA. Of course, no Canadian court will be as generous to parents as the Arizona appellate court. Below is the report on the case from the HSLDA. We also have the full text of the court's opinion (pdf).

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October 22, 2007

Judge Rules Social Worker Fear Tactics Unconstitutional

A federal court in Arizona has ruled that an unsupported threat to place children in custody, made to coerce cooperation with a social services investigation, violates the constitutional guarantee of family privacy and integrity.

As detailed in the March/April 2007 issue of the Court Report, social workers and sheriff’s deputies had come to the home of Home School Legal Defense Association members John and Tiffany Loudermilk, demanding entry based on a six-week-old anonymous tip that the newly constructed home was unsafe for children. The Loudermilks declined consent, as was their right under the Fourth Amendment. After an escalating confrontation at the front door that lasted 40 minutes, the social workers, backed by no fewer than four deputies, threatened to take the Loudermilks’ children into custody and place them in foster care if the Loudermilks continued to deny them entry to their home. An assistant attorney general repeated this threat to HSLDA attorney Thomas Schmidt, who was assisting the Loudermilks during the confrontation.

Under this duress, Mr. and Mrs. Loudermilk allowed the social workers and sheriff’s deputies inside. Within five minutes, the social workers determined that the anonymous tip was false and left.

HSLDA filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Loudermilk family, alleging that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that the unjustified threat to remove the children was a separate constitutional violation of the family’s Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy and family integrity. The social workers and assistant attorney general moved to dismiss the claims, arguing that neither the search nor the threat to remove the children violated the Loudermilks’ constitutional rights.

On September 27, 2007, the judge ruled in the Loudermilks favor, stating: “Defendants persisted in their threats to remove the children if Plaintiff Parents did not consent to the search, stating that [they] could arrest or handcuff the Parents in front of the children. Based on the allegations set forth in the Amended Complaint, viewed in Plaintiff’s favor, no reasonable official would have believed that his or her conduct was authorized by state or constitutional law.” With regard to the assistant attorney general, the court ruled that “Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that [the attorney] . . . by ‘threat’ exerted ‘coercive pressure’ on them to allow the search of their home so that their children would not be removed.”

The judge’s ruling allows the case to proceed to trial. “The ruling in this case makes it clear that threatening to remove children to gain a parent’s cooperation is unconstitutional,” said James R. Mason, Senior Counsel for HSLDA. “We hope that this ruling will change this common tactic used by investigative caseworkers all over the country.”

Source: Home School Legal Defense Association

CAS Stories Wanted

October 26, 2007

An aggrieved father, Brian Latreille, is soliciting stories of abuse by CAS to help him in assembling information for corrective action. We ask all persons responding to also send a copy of their story to Dufferin VOCA by email to [ rtmq at fixcas.com ]. Please indicate in your email whether you wish to keep your story confidential or have it publicized.

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Family Law needs to be re-written for the best interest of the children.

Were you a child who has been involved with the CAS as a result of a supervision order?
If you feel that you are not close to one or both of your parents and/or siblings as a result, I want to hear from you.
If you are a parent that has had nothing but problems with your children as a result of the CAS involvement, I want to hear from you.
If you are a father to children that you have been alienated from as a result of the CAS, I want to hear from you.
If you had to deal with the CAS at all, and feel that they lied to make their case against you, I want to hear from you.
If you are a parent who has tried to prove to CAS that you were wrongfully accused, and got no response or lost in court as a result of negligence on the part of the CAS, I want to hear from you.
If you are a parent who has had nothing but headaches from dealing with the CAS at all, and feel that they misused their power against you, I want to hear from you.
IF YOU ARE A WOMAN WHO LIED TO GAIN CUSTODY OF YOUR CHILDREN, AND USED A SHELTER OR COMMUNITY CENTER TO BEGIN YOUR FALSE CLAIMS AND HAVE, GONE THROUGH THE SYSTEM PUT INTO PLACE TO PROTECT ACTUAL ABUSED WOMAN, AND THE FATHERS LOST OUT AS A RESULT OF YOUR LIES, I DEFINITELY WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.

(We will not disclose any information to the authorities regarding any lies you have made, if you make the request in your letter.) We need to act on the solution to fix the glitch in our family laws to better protect the children and parents in the future so we can all stay involved in our children's lives. I believe that all children need both parents in their lives.

On a plain piece of lined paper, tell us your full name, address at the time, telephone number to reach you and the best time to contact you regarding any questions we may have. Give a description of what happened, and how it all unfolded. Please include if you feel the CAS has wronged you, and how you feel it has changed your lives with family members on a long-term basis. Include; if you feel, that if the CAS were not involved, how do you think things would have worked out?

ALL INFORMATION WILL BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL UNLESS WE USE YOUR INFORMATION IN COURT.

* Please note that names, dates and addresses are very important. As we will be investigating further into the ethics used by CAS and systems put into place to better protect people that really need it.

We are looking to take the CAS to court in an effort to providing a better system to protect children, without having long term effects to the family members involved. We will be trying to make law that everyone accused has a right to defend oneself properly with Legal Aid assistance if needed. We want a better way of dealing with false allegations/accusations made to gain custody of the children involved. Both parents need to have their say, and a chance to defend their names, LONG TERM.

If a lawsuit transpires from the evidence we provide from your information received to us, we will contact you to make you aware so you can act on a sit should you feel it would help out. We cannot assist in any lawsuit against any party involved, as we are not lawyers. We are just trying to make a difference in our policies we adhere to so that all parties have a fair and equal chance to be able to clear ones name and keep it clear.

Thank you for taking the time to care about the best interest of all children and their parents as a single unit working together for a safer tomorrow and families being together again.

Please forward all letters to:

DAP2/Dads Are People 2
79 Dean Street, Smiths Falls Ontario K7A 4S6

Web: ca.geocities.com/dadsarepeople2

Email: [ dadsarepeople2 at yahoo.ca ]

Yahoo Groups: ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/dadsarepeople2

Source: email from Bryan, [ dadsarepeople2 at yahoo.ca ]

CAS Records Abandoned

October 26, 2007

Following a visit to a private home, a Halton CAS worker abandoned several documents. The client is returning them to the judge in their case. In an earlier mistaken disclosure EkaterinaEthier placed a document on the internet — it is in the second addendum to the Easter Grinch story. Documents like this ought to be published, not for the names and conditions of the children, but for what they disclose about the methods used by social workers to break up families.

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October 25, 2007

Family secrets revealed

CAS worker forgets info in client's home

By SARAH GREEN, SUN MEDIA

An Oakville couple say they were shocked when a case worker with the Halton Children's Aid Society left behind papers that they say contain sensitive information about other families.

"It scares me to death," said the 33-year-old woman, a mother of four children, aged 15 to 5. "Is my information out there at somebody's house? We don't think this is right at all."

The CAS worker left the stack of clipped papers on the kitchen table following an hour-long visit Monday afternoon to the couple's Oakville home, the woman said.

OPEN FILE

The woman said the Halton CAS has had an open file on her family for nearly four years following allegations made after the breakdown of her abusive, former marriage. She has full custody of her children.

"I thought they were papers for me," the woman said. "I didn't think it would be information on all these families."

The woman alleged the papers contained the addresses of foster homes where kids are living, as well as other potentially sensitive information.

"This is stuff that shouldn't be out there," she said.

Nancy MacGillivray, executive director of the Halton CAS, said she spoke to the case worker yesterday and "we have no idea what they have in their possession."

The case worker "doesn't seem to be missing anything," MacGillivray said.

"If we've left confidential information behind, of course it's concerning on our part, but I have no idea what it is," MacGillivray said.

The agency left a message for the couple Tuesday and two Halton CAS officials visited their Oakville home yesterday afternoon to ask for the return of the papers, the woman's fiance, 33, said.

A letter, written by the agency's director of protection services, noted the couple had information with the names and addresses of 15 clients.

"We look forward to the immediate return of our documents," the fiance said, reading from the letter. "I am sure that you can appreciate that privacy and confidentiality of all of our clients are of the utmost importance to us."

The couple, who have a hearing today in family court in Milton, said they plan to turn the papers over to the judge instead.

Source: Toronto Sun

Addendum: Canada Court Watch has found the parent in this case and identified Barb Turkowska as the incompetent caseworker.

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Halton CAS worker, Barb Turkowska, gets exposed for her incompetence

(October 25, 2007) A child protection worker with the Halton Region Children's Aid Society, Barb Turkowska, is incompetent and has tarnished the reputation of the Halton CAS and should be fired as a child protection worker claims an Oakville mother. Under existing legislation, the name of the mother cannot be published.

According to the Oakville mother, CAS worker, Barb Turkowska left highly confidential case files containing personal information about several other families at the mother's home when she came for a visit at the family home on Monday October 22, 2007. The mother says she found the files in her home and at first thought that the files were left for her by the CAS worker. When she looked at the files in more detail later, she discovered that highly confidential and sensitive information about other children and families was there as well. Ms. Turkowska did not call the family for the missing files and it was only when members of the media tried to reach Ms. Trukowska at her work, did the Halton CAS become aware of Ms. Turkowska's most serious mistake.

According to Nancy McGillivray, the Executive Director of the Halton CAS, Ms. Turkowska, was not missing anything and that the CAS had "no idea" as to what information the Oakville mother may have had in her possession. Examination of the files at the mother's home by reporters from various media agencies, clearly revealed the highly sensitive information. Either the worker misled the Executive Director of the Halton Children's Aid Society, or she was just so forgetful that she really could not remember what files she had outside of the offices or where she had left them in error.

The mother claimed that not only was the Halton Children's Aid Society worker forgetful, but that she did not know how to spell English properly. According to the mother, Ms. Turkowska's case notes are riddled with spelling mistakes and errors. Even the simple word "mother" was spelled, "mahter" in the worker's own notes. The mother also claims that the children could not communicate with Ms. Turkowska very well because the CAS worker's accent was so heavy that the children had difficulty understanding what she was saying much of the time.

Court Watch has claimed for some time now that workers with the various CAS agencies in Ontario must be more carefully screened and trained and that all workers with CAS agencies be licensed by the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers. Most citizens would agree that any child protection worker who carelessly leaves confidential files on the job and then cannot even remember which confidential files he/she had with them outside the confines of their office, obviously is not fit to bear the responsibility of a child protection worker.

Source: Canada Court Watch

CCAS Success Stories

October 24, 2007

The Fall Newsletter of Hamilton CCAS salutes six of their wards who are going on to higher education. These are their more successful cases. Note two points:

• When Cathy Norris mentions the names of her teenagers she is sent to jail, and threatened with additional jail time for continuing. When CCAS does so, it is overlooked.
• Half of crown wards in Ontario are drugged, most of them boys. Five of the six success stories are girls. Did the boys get brain-damaged from their drugs? None of the boys headed for a career of crime or homelessness are included.

The publication of names and photos makes us share the hope of Hamilton CCAS that at least these six young people will have a bright future. Publication of the names of all CAS wards could get us to root for them as well, instead of thinking of them as mere ciphers to justify more funding.

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bound for HIGHER EDUCATION

This past June, CCAS hosted its Annual General Meeting in our newly redeveloped building. One of the highlights of this event was the presentation of six educational bursaries to six very deserving youth in the care of CCAS who have plans to pursue post-secondary education. Each of these young people have lived their lives with struggles few of us could even imagine. We congratulate all of them for striving for success and working toward a brighter future.

The Bishop Anthony Tonnos Bursary
Crissandra Foss

The Theresa Balon Bursary
Estera Falger

The James Gillam Bursary
Adaire Clements

The Kenneth Lancaster Bursary
Melissa Cronk

The Jack Kemp Bursary
Elizabeth Rozek

The Heather Steigvilas Bursary
José Ordonez

Source: Fall 2007 Newsletter of Hamilton CCAS (pdf)

Comply with Court Order
Lose Child

October 24, 2007

On our help page we suggest parents molested by children's aid should scupulously comply with court orders, to get better treatment from the judge at the next hearing. Here is an exception. Garrett Thomas, 14, ran away from foster care and called his mother to pick him up. His mother, following a court order, did not do so, instead asking the foster facility to pick up her son. The boy has not been seen since. To most families, saving a child is more important than compliance with a court, so this is a place to defy a court order. The remainder of the story below details a boy led into a life of crime by the system claiming to protect him.

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DAILY-NEWS RECORD ONLINE

Posted 2007-10-19

Elkton Boy’s Disappearance Fuels Dispute

Mom Claims Social Services Shouldn’t Have Let Him Stray

By David Reynolds

Thomas

HARRISONBURG — A 14-year-old Elkton boy has run away from an institution in Salem, his mother says, leaving her fearing for his safety and wondering whether the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Department of Social Services should have kept closer watch.

On Sunday, Garrett Thomas left the home where Social Services placed him days earlier, according to his mother Teresa Shenk.

Garrett called Shenk, 41, from a Salem bus station, she says, but because picking him up would violate a court order, she called the home he left to arrange for them to pick him up.

Before that could happen, Garrett was gone, and hasn’t been heard from since, she says.

Garrett’s disappearance is the latest in an ongoing dispute between Shenk and Social Services that began in March when a juvenile court judge granted the agency custody of the boy.

Since then, Shenk says, her son, who is bipolar, has left homes, accumulated a criminal record, and warned Social Services that he won’t stay in homes in the future.

Shenk says that the agency, which won’t allow her to care for her son, isn’t doing enough to protect him.

“These people are supposed to protect our children. That’s what our tax dollars pay them to do,” Shenk said. “What are they doing with my kid?”

The Runaway Case

Sgt. Joe Mills of the Salem Police Department says Garrett was on a field trip with other children, when he told another boy he was going to the bus station, then left.

A counselor with Hope Tree, a home for troubled children in Salem, had been accompanying the children when Garrett ran away, Mills said. On Thursday, a representative of the home said that information about Garrett should come from police or the Harrisonburg-Rockingham DSS.

Mills said there is no sign of foul play, that Garrett left voluntarily and presumably he knows people are concerned for his safety.

But, because he is a juvenile, Mills said, a detective began working the case Monday morning. Since then, the investigator has forwarded Garrett’s picture to officers at the Salem department and other authorities in the area.

Police also have sent out an alert to law enforcement nationwide.

The boy’s picture and a description have been forwarded to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He is 5 feet 6 inches tall and 140 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Runaway cases are common for police, Mills said, and children often turn up with a friend or relative.

An Ongoing Conflict

Shenk says she’s concerned for her son’s safety and that his disappearance shows Social Services isn’t watching the boy as closely as she would.

The dispute started in March when the agency sought custody to give Garrett expensive in-patient mental health treatment, according to court records and Shenk.

The agency’s reasoning changed two weeks later, however, when it said the mother could not properly care for the troubled boy and that residential treatment wasn’t necessary.

The change came the day after Shenk’s complaint about the agency’s handling of her son’s case appeared in an article in the Daily News-Record.

During the seven months since the agency took custody of Garrett, his mother says, he has been in several homes, run away more than once and been arrested for disorderly conduct.

Earlier this month, Shenk says, Garrett told her and a DSS worker that he intended to run away again.

Contact David Reynolds at 574-6278 or reynolds@dnronline.com

Source: Harrisonburg (Virginia) Daily News Record truncated by Dufferin VOCA

Addendum: The boy was found twelve days later. To show their appreciation for saving the boy, authorities arrested his father.

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Friday, October 26, 2007

Missing boy found in Tazewell County

By Reed Williams

A 14-year-old boy who ran away in Roanoke while in the care of HopeTree Family Services is no longer missing.

Garrett Thomas and his father, Brian Thomas, turned themselves in to authorities in Tazewell County today.

Brian Thomas was arrested on outstanding warrants unrelated to Garrett's disappearance. Garrett was being returned to the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Department of Social Services.

Garrett is in the custody of the social services department but had been placed in the care of HopeTree, a group home for troubled youths in Salem. He ran away Oct. 14 during a field trip to Elmwood Park in Roanoke. He has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and a pervasive developmental disorder, his mother, Teresa Shenk, has said.

In March, Garrett was taken from the custody of his mother, who lives in Rockingham County, under an emergency Child in Need of Services petition, Shenk said.

Source: Roanoke Times

Where's Mom?

October 24, 2007

A man, or woman, adopted through Simcoe Children's Aid is looking for his/her mother. The mother's deaf siblings are so unusual she should be recognized immediately by anyone knowing the family. Replies may be made through the webpage that is the source of this message.

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Full Details for Query #151292

Date Posted:	19-Oct-2007>
Surname(s):	HOOEY
Query Text:	I am searching for my birth mother who was 17 at the time of my birth. I was born on December 12, 1974 at Scarborough General Hospital. I was adopted through the Simcoe County Children's Aid Society. I believe she was working as a waitress in Scarborough where she had met my father, the owner of the restaurant. My father was 28 at the time and was from Argentina. My birth mother had 10 siblings and three were deaf.

Source: Cousins Connect, website for genealogical queries

Truth du Jour

October 23, 2007

We have not seen the legal papers used to take custody of Matthew Reid from his parents (they are secret) but if they are like all other child protection cases they paint a picture of a horribly abused boy taken from an unsafe and unloving home. Now in the effort to deflect responsibility by blaming a mentally defective girl for the failures of the child protection system, a crown attorney has made a contradictory claim, describing Matthew with the words: "A young life, you hear from the family, was a very happy life.” Sounds like they tell the story that suits their purposes at the moment, and rely on secrecy to avoid being caught.

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Crown argues girl who killed toddler should get more than 7 years

By KARENA WALTER Standard Staff, Posted October 12, 2007

Seven years is not long enough to hold a teenage girl accountable for smothering a toddler, the Crown argued in St. Catharines court Thursday.

That’s the total sentence the girl, who was 14 when she killed Matthew Reid, can receive if she is sentenced as a youth for second-degree murder.

“This young lady needs supervision and support and will probably need it for the rest of her life,” said assistant Crown attorney Patricia Vadacchino, arguing the girl should be sentenced as an adult.

“Not only does she need it, but the community needs it.”

But lawyer John Lefurgey told Justice Ann Watson that a youth sentence for the girl, now 16 and suffering from developmental disabilities, is the best option in the case.

“It may not be perfect, but it’s better than all the alternatives,” he argued.

An adult sentence would mean the girl would receive life, with eligibility for parole in five to seven years. A youth term brings a maximum seven years, with no more than four of those years in custody.

Watson will make her ruling on the adult versus youth sentence Nov. 16 in the Ontario Court of Justice.

The girl, whose identity is protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, pleaded guilty in January to killing the three-year-old.

The court has heard the girl arrived at a Welland foster home on Dec. 14, 2005 and suffocated Matthew, also a foster child, with his own pillow sometime after 9 p.m. that day.

He was found dead the next morning with blood smeared into a cross on his forehead and a note under his head that said, “I know what his last words were before he died. Momma.”

Vadacchino said the court has to evaluate the girl’s prospect for rehabilitation and if she can be re-integrated into society. The youth sentence is not a sufficient length to meet those standards, she said.

Experts who testified said the girl will always need supervision, Vadacchino said.

The girl has the cognitive ability of a seven or eight-year-old, has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. She has a conduct disorder that makes her violent and irrational, Vadacchino said.

Prior to Matthew’s death, the girl had significant difficulties, was suspended from high school, stole and ran away from home, Vadacchino said. She had difficulty controlling anger and would throw things and swear. She stole her foster parents car to meet a 40-year-old man, was charged and ended up in the Welland foster home.

“Within 24 hours she killed Matthew Reid. She takes the life of a young person she did not know. A young life, you hear from the family, was a very happy life,” Vadacchino said.

“There is something utterly wrong with burying a child. That’s what this family faced.”

The girl was assessed by several health professionals and there were numerous attempts to assist her, she said. Under a youth sentence, Vadacchino said, if the girl does not respond to treatment, she will still be out in seven years.

But Lefurgey said the youth sentence should be looked at in proportion to the person — seven years is half the girl’s life from the time she committed the crime. She won’t be done serving the sentence until she is 23, and that’s a very long time for a 16-year-old, he said.

He said the girl wasn’t someone born with a silver spoon who went out to commit crimes.

“She was born with certain issues, her whole upbringing has been full of issues, she hasn’t been dealt a good hand to begin with,” he said.

If she is sentenced as a youth, there is already a reintegration plan in place and supports in the community, Lefurgey said. He said she has been showing signs of improvement.

Source: St Catherines Standard

Classroom Snooping

October 23, 2007

The following gossipy clip about the Britney Spears celebrity child custody case illustrates a point that we can never report in more mundane cases because of secrecy. When child protectors send parents to parenting or anger management classes, the instructors are not there just to teach. They are gathering evidence for the adverse party. It works because persons sent to class by compulsion, such as Britney Spears, rarely have a positive attitude toward the instructor.

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Parenting Coach to Brit -- I'm Not A Potted Plant!

Posted Oct 23rd 2007 1:35PM by TMZ Staff

TMZ has learned Britney Spears' parenting coach has submitted her report to the court, and it ain't pretty.

Sources say the two-and-a-half page report says Britney totally ignored the coach -- didn't even acknowledge her presence. The coach says she was unable to teach Britney anything, because Spears didn't want to listen.

The report, which was presented to the court yesterday and will be critical in determining if Spears should regain 50/50 custody, concludes that Britney often ignores her kids and lives in her own little world -- that Britney often disappeared and wasn't around the kids or the coach. We're told the coach has said Brit spends a lot of time on the phone and changing clothes.

Source: tmz.com

More Threats for Cathy Norris

October 22, 2007

Cathy Norris has posted a new video, along with mention of a new jail threat.

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Video-group homes

casinternment

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:08 pm

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSlXaKaqFy8

Video on group homes. Secret tape of a CAS worker stating that “group homes are not ideal, so we obviously would not want to do that.” talking about where my son would be placed after he ran away from the group home and I was put in jail because he ran away from the group home.

The office of the Children’s lawyer has threatened to throw me in jail for my videos. So as can be expected I am working hard on more. I lost my computer for a while as it was getting fixed. Now I should be cut off services soon. (supposed to have been cut off Saturday) So if I am not answering anyone it is only because I don’t have internet. While I am down I will be working hard and I hope to be up and running soon.

Source: Canada Court Watch Forum

Career for Pedophiles

October 21, 2007

Psychotherapist James F. Bonczek has been arrested for the victimless crime of storing pictures on his computer. But earlier the same man had been a social worker, using his authority to get close to lots of naked children. It is the perfect career for an aspiring pedophile.

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The New York Times

October 21, 2007

Child Pornography Arrest Stirs Previous Allegation Against Therapist

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

A Manhattan psychotherapist arrested last week on child pornography charges was fired in 1996 from his job as a social worker for New York City public schools, after an investigation by the school district.

The psychotherapist, James F. Bonczek, 58, was arrested on Thursday morning after the police found more than 2,000 computer images of child pornography, the authorities said. A maintenance worker fixing a leak in Mr. Bonczek’s Stuyvesant Town apartment on Wednesday saw a disturbing screen-saver image on his computer and notified the police, the authorities said.

Mr. Bonczek did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment. He was charged with possession of photographs of children performing sexual acts, said the police, who said the images were of boys under the age of 10. He posted bail, set at $3,500, on Friday.

From 1984 to 1996, Mr. Bonczek was a social worker for New York City public schools. He worked in several schools, but was terminated in 1996 after an investigation by the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District, said Andrew Jacob, a spokesman for the Department of Education.

Mr. Jacob did not know the details of that investigation. The current special commissioner, Richard J. Condon, said the report was not available yesterday. WNBC-TV reported that the investigation involved four adults who accused Mr. Bonczek of misconduct years earlier, when they were children. One accused Mr. Bonczek of having sex with him, and the others said they had slept in his house and bathed with him, the station reported.

In December 1996, he sued the city’s school board by filing an Article 78 lawsuit, which allows a judge to review an agency’s action or decision. The case was closed a few months later, according to court records, which did not disclose the outcome.

No charges appeared to have been filed after the special commissioner’s investigation. Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said she did not believe Mr. Bonczek had any prior criminal record. She said the child pornography investigation was continuing.

According to the New York State Education Department, which oversees the licensing of 47 professions, Mr. Bonczek is licensed as a clinical social worker with psychotherapy privileges.

Alan Ray, a spokesman for the state Education Department, said no information was available yesterday about the details of Mr. Bonczek’s licensing history. “Individuals who have no criminal record and show no proven evidence of misconduct can generally get a license under the law,” Mr. Ray said.

A profile posted on the Psychology Today Web site said that Mr. Bonczek had experience with children affected by divorce and adoption, as well as those with attention deficit, mood and other disorders. In an office on East 27th Street, he had hosted an anger management group for children on Friday nights called Stay Cool and a children’s organizational skills group on Saturday afternoons called Get It Together.

Cara Buckley contributed reporting.

Source: New York Times

Dracula Protects Baby

October 21, 2007

Nebraska baby Joel Anaya was forcibly taken from parents Josue and Mary Anaya for mandatory blood tests. The parents opposed the action on religious grounds. In the photographs neither parent appears to be of African descent, so the sickle cell test was superfluous. Instead of taking the baby for the few minutes required for the test, the state kept him for six days, interfering with breastfeeding.

Child protectors love the cases where they appear to be providing real help to a child, and publish them with real names notwithstanding confidentiality laws. In the more common cases where they harm a child with a parentectomy, they keep the case secret and threaten anyone contemplating publishing the facts.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Blood test done on Omaha baby, but fight isn't over

BY JENNIFER PALMER, WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Six-week-old Joel Anaya with his mother, Mary, who said she would continue to press for an exception to state-mandated blood testing.

Baby Joel Anaya was welcomed home Tuesday into his mother's arms. And his father's arms. And his sister's. And his brother's. And another sister's. And another brother's.

In fact, all nine of Joel's siblings held, kissed or otherwise fawned over the 6-week-old brother they hadn't seen since he was whisked into foster care last week.

"Finally, he's home," said older brother John Anaya. "He should have never left."

The family of 12 piled onto a small couch for a photograph of the happy moment, with the baby in the center. Not having Joel "has been very stressful for the family," said Josue Anaya, their father.

Despite the objections of Josue Anaya and his wife, Mary, Joel's blood was drawn Friday and screened for medical conditions, as required by state law. The tests screen for a variety of conditions, including cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease, which could lead to mental retardation or death.

Joel had been in state custody since Oct. 10 when a petition was filed in Douglas County Juvenile Court alleging the Anayas put their son at risk by not having him screened.

Following a court order, Joel remained in foster care until the preliminary test results were received Tuesday and showed the baby was not predisposed to any of the disorders, the Anayas' attorney said. The Anayas then were reunited with their son, and prosecutors dismissed the case.

Joel's parents say they object to the blood withdrawal because of their religious beliefs and conscience. They believe in certain Scriptures that say life is in the blood.

Joel Anaya, 6 weeks old, is cuddled by his mother, Mary, who is also holding Justus, 23 months. Patting Joel's face is Rosa, 4. James, 8, is at left. Juda, 10, is at right. The family reunion also included father Josue and the five other children.

Attorney Jeff Downing, who represents the Anayas, said it was appalling that Joel's blood was drawn before the Anayas had an opportunity to appeal the judge's decision.

"We can't undo what was done," Downing said. "But from a legal standpoint, we have a right to appeal."

They are considering filing an appeal, either in Douglas County District Court or the Nebraska Court of Appeals, he said.

Judge Elizabeth Crnkovich was not looking out for the child's best interests in Friday's court hearing, Downing said, criticizing her comment that it was inappropriate to allow Mary Anaya the frequent visits needed to breastfeed Joel at every meal.

Not allowing Mary Anaya to consistently breastfeed Joel during the critical first few weeks of attachment put him at greater risk than the chance that he had one of the diseases being screened for, Downing said.

She was allowed some visits and was able to nurse the baby during those times.

Mary Anaya, 40, said she will keep pushing for Nebraska to adopt an exception to the state-mandated testing, for the sake of her children and the grandchildren she hopes to have in the future.

Most states provide some sort of exception for people who object to the blood tests based on "religious" or "sincerely held" beliefs. Nebraska has no such provision.

Joel was born at home. Workers with the Nebraska Health and Human Services Department routinely cross-check a database of newborns who have had the screening with birth certificates issued. In Joel's case, a worker noticed the boy had a birth certificate but had not been screened.

The HHS worker first sent the Anayas a certified letter informing them that their baby needed to be screened in accordance with state law. She also called Mary Anaya, congratulated her on her new baby and asked if she planned to have the baby screened, according to court testimony.

Mary Anaya said she did not. Then the worker asked Mary if she knew what would happen next. Mary said, yes, we've been through this before.

The Anayas previously fought a court order that required that the testing be done on their daughter Rosa. But in 2005, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the order to have the testing performed. In that case, Rosa remained in the Anayas' custody while the case was being argued.

So when sheriff's deputies arrived Oct. 10 to take Joel into state custody, it was a complete shock, Mary Anaya said. She expected to be summoned to court, but she didn't expect her child to be placed in foster care.

In court Friday, Mary Anaya explained that part of her objection to the blood screening is she doesn't believe in inflicting pain on a healthy infant. She also said the Bible talks about how life is in the blood. "To me, the blood is something important and not to be tampered with lightly," she told the court.

Mary Anaya declined to discuss her religious beliefs in detail Tuesday because she said she feared others might mock them. Anaya and her husband are ordained ministers. They also are administrators of the Mission for All Nations food and clothing pantry in Omaha.

They have avoided having the metabolic screening done on most of their 10 children, who now are ages 21 years to 6 weeks.

Every parent chooses the risks they are or are not willing to take with their own children, she said, adding that she won't allow her son to play football because of the risk he could be injured.

Source: Omaha World-Herald.