Dufferin VOCA News December 2007

Reunification Appeal

December 31, 2007

A mother is seeking reunification with her two sons, both young adults. Her son John Cory was taken for adoption because she was the victim of abuse by her late husband. Even after the husband's death, she could not see her adopted son. She has posted at least a half-dozen appeals on the web to find her boys. Expand for full details. You can send replies to Cindy Darlene Wells/Truckle, cindy_65_2004@hotmail.com

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Her first son, Jeffrey Thomas Anthony Elliott, born March 27, 1983, passed away August 29th 2003 due to severe infection to his finger while in a privately owned prison in Penetang.

mother:
name at child apprehension: Cindy Truckle
name today: Cindy Darlene Wells
date of birth: July 21, 1965

husband: Nelson Truckle aka Lucky, deceased (suicide April 1990)

son:
name: Christopher Micheal John Elliott
place of birth: Ottawa Ontario
date of birth: June 17, 1984

son:
name at birth: John Cory Truckle
date of birth: October 21, 1985 at 12:39 am
place of birth: Toronto East General ,Toronto Ontario
birth weight: 6 pounds and 2 ounces
birth condition: healthy baby boy

I'm Looking for my son I lost to adoption. He was taken away from me by Dan Freedman in Toronto Ontario Canada, and someone else in the children's aid handled the adoption. I was 20 at the time or 21.
My Son was taken into care for the first time and into an emergency foster home on September 16, 1986, both times due to me being abused. He was returned to me on November 11th 1986. John Cory Truckle was taken once again into care and put in an emergency foster home December 27th 1986. He had been in the care of my ex-husband. He was found to be intoxicated (alcoholism)(drug abuse).
At that time I was allowed 2 hours per week to visit in which John Cory was happy to see me and responded well to me. The visits were: July 27, August 12, 19 and 26, 1986. On January 1988 John Cory became a permanent ward of the agency John Cory met his adoptive parents in March 1988 and moved in May of 1988. Early in 1989 John Cory's adoption had been finalized apparently in Toronto Ontario through a worker in the children's aid - his adoptive parents were both in the 40's age range. They had a baby girl as well that John Cory always played with and was happy with.
Whoever lives around Scarborough, Ontario I know Christopher lives in that area. His last known whereabouts was the Gerrard/Carlaw area
Harold Kenneth Murphy and his mom Margaret were the ones that raised him thinking they were related (As they were told). His real dad is Thomas Donald Elliott of Ottawa. Harold goes by the name of Kenny to all his friends that know him, he used to work at the Applebee Auto Wreckers back in 1984. He is tall, dark hair, skinny build, used to have a blue pickup truck.
My boys if you see this please know I love you both tremendously and didn't give you both away. you were both taken then moved away from me. I've been searching since 1995 with nothing but brick walls
Thanks in advance any help at all is appreciated in the Toronto area.

John Cory Truckle, age 17 months

Source: email from Cindy Darlene Wells combined with info from several websites

Fran Lyon Cleared

December 30, 2007

Fran Lyon, the pregnant woman driven out of the UK by the threat to remove her baby at birth, has been told that it is safe for her to return home. There is no way to tell whether this is an honest change of policy by Northumberland social services, or a sucker play to get her back where her baby can be seized. Fran is taking no chances, and will remain outside England. We had earlier reports on October 18, November 3, November 12 and November 24.

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Pregnant Fran told she's in the clear
Dec 28 2007 by Ben Guy, The Journal
A WOMAN who fled the country to avoid her newborn child being taken into care has been told she is safe to be a parent after all.

Fran Lyon, 22, Hexham, pictured in her home.

Fran Lyon flew to Continental Europe last month to escape a Northumberland County Council social services ruling that her child would be taken from her 10 minutes after birth.
But now a psychologist’s report to the council has said Ms Lyon, 22, would not be a threat to her baby, who will be named Molly, and that she should be allowed to keep the child if she returns.
The U-turn comes after a previous report said Ms Lyon should not be allowed to keep her baby because psychiatric problems she suffered as a teenager made her a threat to the child.
Speaking exclusively to The Journal, Ms Lyon, who used to live in Hexham, said that despite the new report, she had no intention of returning to the UK.
She said: “It is basically as close as you will get to them saying ‘sorry, we messed up’, as they have realised they wouldn’t stand a chance if it was challenged in court.
“I hit the roof when I found out. Because of them I have lost everything – my job, my home and I have sold everything.
“I literally own what I can carry. Apart from Molly, I have got nothing at all.”
The original decision to remove the child was taken after a paediatrician Miss Lyon had never met said she was likely to suffer from a condition that would cause her to harm her child.
Despite other doctors saying she was fit to be a parent, social services refused to back down – until the latest recommendation was made by a London expert.
Miss Lyon said she was now happily settled in a flat and had an excellent midwife.
“They have said that if I go back, I would be allowed to go into a mother and baby unit with Molly and that I would be allowed to breast feed. But there is absolutely no way I am coming back. Why on Earth should I?
“You think of the damage that they could have done to Molly if she had arrived before I made my decision to leave.
“They simply shouldn’t be allowed to put somebody through this and then at the last minute turn round and say they were wrong.
“They have destroyed so much, I am not going to allow them to destroy any more.”
Molly is due to be born early next month, and Ms Lyon said she had spent much of the past few days shopping and preparing for the new arrival.
A Northumberland County Council spokesman said: “Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on individual cases. However, we can say that child protection recommendations are always subject to review.
“We would never put a child protection plan in place without current and appropriate grounds for serious concerns, and we are concerned that Ms Lyon’s whereabouts are still unknown.
“We urge Ms Lyon to urgently get in touch with us, or a medical adviser, so we can be sure she and her unborn child receive the help and support that they need.
“It is crucial that the authorities wherever she is have relevant information from us to do this.”

Timeline

August 27, 2007: Ms Lyon – then five months pregnant – tells The Journal she is considering an abortion to prevent her child going into care.
September 8: She vows not to terminate her pregnancy but will fight to keep her daughter.
September 13: Ms Lyon is not allowed to attend the meeting deciding the fate of her unborn child. She faces an anxious wait for a letter from the Northumberland County Council’s safeguarding children panel telling her if the appeal has been upheld.
October 4: Ms Lyon says she is facing losing her home as a result of the battle to keep her child. The time spent attending meetings, seeing doctors and filling in legal forms means she is struggling to work enough to pay the rent.
November 10: She leaves her home in St Hilda’s Road, Hexham, after receiving a birth plan for her child from Northumberland social services. She says she is being hounded out of the region by council bosses.
November 26, 2007: Ms Lyon flees to Continental Europe to avoid the social workers planning to take her baby.

Source: website Journal Live (UK)

Adoption Scammers Sentenced

December 27, 2007

In October a charity called Zoé’s Ark tried to fly 103 children out of Chad to France for adoption. They represented the children as injured orphans from Darfur (Sudan). The injuries were fake, the children were Chadian, not Sudanese, and they had been under the care of their families. Today a Chadian court sentenced the schemers to eight years. Now if we could get children's aid workers before a Chadian judge ...

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The New York Times, December 27, 2007
French Aid Workers Get 8 Years Hard Labor
By LYDIA POLGREEN
DAKAR, Senegal — Six French aid workers were found guilty on Wednesday by a court in Chad and sentenced to eight years of hard labor for trying to take to Europe 103 children who they claimed were orphans of the conflict in Darfur.

Luc Gnago/Reuters
Police at the Palace of Justice in Chad, where six French citizens were convicted Wednesday of trying to kidnap 103 children.

Luc Gnago/Reuters
Éric Breteau, leader of the group that was found guilty.

Display images for more detail

The verdict came after four days of closely watched testimony in Chad’s capital, Ndjamena. The case enraged many Chadians and embarrassed France just as a European peacekeeping force made up largely of French troops was to begin deployment in the region. The episode brought condemnation across Africa.
Prosecutors portrayed the aid workers as remorseless kidnappers bent on exploiting Chad’s children. But the workers claimed they were humanitarians acting within the confines of international law, trying to save children from imminent harm.
Diplomats and analysts widely expect that the French workers will be allowed to return to France. Though French officials called the verdict a sovereign decision, they said they would ask Chad to allow the workers to serve their sentences in France, news agencies reported.
The workers claimed they had been rescuing child refugees from parched, war-torn Darfur, in western Sudan, but it turned out the children were for the most part neither Sudanese nor orphans.
This year the aid group, Zoé’s Ark, posted an emotional appeal on its Web site claiming that a child dies in Darfur every five minutes and calling upon families in Europe to help the organization bring the children to Europe for temporary refuge. The group said it planned to rescue 10,000 orphans. Many donated money to help cover the costs of chartered planes.
In October, Chadian officials stopped workers from the group as they hustled dozens of children, some of them in bandages and attached to intravenous drips, onto a plane in eastern Chad. The aid workers were charged with attempted kidnapping.
The bandages and bloodstains turned out to be a ruse. The group’s supporters have argued that local helpers misled the workers about the children’s status, but video images released by a journalist who had traveled with the aid workers showed them putting the fake bandages on the children.
The children were turned over to the Red Cross and found to be in relatively good health. Interviews with those old enough to speak showed that virtually all of them were Chadian, not Sudanese, and had been living with adult relatives they considered to be their parents.
The case touched off anti-French riots in Chad, a former French colony with close ties to France. In street demonstrations, Chadians demanded the death penalty.
French troops occupy two bases in Chad, and French troops are expected to make up a large portion of a European Union peacekeeping force aimed at stabilizing Chad and the Central African Republic, which have been destabilized by the conflict in Darfur and by rebellions of their own.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France flew to Chad to try to defuse tensions, and eventually the aid workers were allowed to leave on condition they returned for the trial.
Source: New York Times

Addendum: Another article gives more details, allowing for a comparison between children's aid and the French kidnappers.

Local snitches assist in finding families with children. Initial contact with the families is achieved through misrepresentation, in Africa by promising to build a school, in Canada by posing as helpers.

The kidnappers falsely claimed their African finds were orphans. In Canada, the same effect is achieved by getting a judge to declare them crown wards, turning them into paper orphans.

Mr Breteau claimed to act from purely charitable motives, overlooking the Frenchmen back home who had already paid for adoptive children. Again, just like Canada, where at least two different money streams fund the adoption industry, appropriations and fees from prospective adopters.

News of the mass kidnapping spread panic through Chad. A similar kind of panic exists in the west, though limited to parents apprised of the true power of child protectors.

One real difference is the fake medical treatments for the children to fool airport authorities into letting them out of the country. In Canada, fooling the authorities is unnecessary.

Unlike most western countries, the courts in Chad represented the parents, and treated the kidnappers harshly. Until there is a change in political mood, the courts in the US and Canada will continue to represent the interests of the child snatchers, protecting them from punishment.

Chad, a former colony, is a French client state, and the French government arranged for the transfer of the convicted kidnappers to France on December 28, two days after their sentencing. France may yet reduce their punishment.

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Chad jails French volunteers for eight years
SUSAN SACHS, From Thursday's Globe and Mail, December 27, 2007 at 1:00 AM EST
PARIS — A court in Chad yesterday convicted six French volunteer charity workers of attempting to kidnap 103 African children and fly them to France without their families' consent.
The four men and two women were sentenced to eight years hard labour by a judge in N'Djamena. They were also ordered to pay $8.9-million in damages to the families of the children they tried to take to France.
One of the six, nurse Nadia Merimi, was in tears and had to be comforted by her lawyer. Another, former soldier Alain Peligat, gave the charity's impassive leader Eric Breteau a brief hug of solidarity.
The aborted airlift has embarrassed France and exasperated legitimate aid organizations working in Chad. The defendants were members of an amateur aid group called Zoe's Ark. They said they believed they were rescuing orphans from “sure death” in Darfur, in neighbouring Sudan. But most of the children, ranging in age from toddlers to 10 years old, turned out to be neither orphans nor from Darfur.
Instead, they had been rounded up from villages in neighbouring Chad. Several of their fathers testified at trial that they had handed over their children because “the white people” from France had promised to build a school nearby and educate them.
The Zoe's Ark members, admitting they knew neither the region nor its culture, said they relied on local intermediaries to search out and bring them orphans to airlift out of the country. Two of the local men they hired, one Sudanese and one from Chad, were also convicted as accomplices. They received lighter sentences of four years in prison.
Just before the end of the trial, Mr. Breteau, who was also convicted of using forged papers, apologized to any Chadian parents who had been separated from their children.
But he again insisted that he and his colleagues had acted in good faith when they tried to fly the children from eastern Chad, near the border with Sudan's conflict-ridden Darfur region, to France.
“If they are Sudanese … we have deprived them of a better future; if they are Chadians and we were lied to, if we separated them from their families, we are really terribly sorry, for we never wanted to separate families.”
The case of the snatched children has complicated France's already delicate relations in Central Africa, where it has a leading role in the planned United Nations-African Union mission for Darfur. The French are seen as crucial to securing the co-operation of Chad, which is to be the staging ground for a massive international peacekeeping mission set to deploy next month in Darfur.
Since the affair broke in late October there has been more than one anti-French protest in the streets of N'Djamena. (Chad, a landlocked Central African country of 10 million people, won independence from France in 1960.) France has not defended the actions of Zoe's Ark, but has requested that the self-proclaimed Good Samaritans be sent home, presumably to serve out at least part of their jail terms.
Chad has done little to stop the popular anger whipped up against the Zoe's Ark operation. UN and private aid workers in the area have said that the French group's actions sparked rumours that Western “child stealers” were at large, panicking Darfur refugees.
Mr. Breteau has insisted he intended only to ask for political asylum status for the children and did not suggest to his supporters they could adopt them. At one point during his detention in Chad, he described himself as the only person in the world trying to do something concrete for Darfur victims.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has tried to handle the controversy with a combination of behind-the-scenes diplomacy and grand public gestures. He has described the Zoe's Ark operation as “illegal” and “unacceptable.” Foreign Ministry officials said they had repeatedly warned the charity against attempting any sort of private rescue scheme.
But after the group was arrested in late October as they tried to take the children out of Chad in a rented airplane, Mr. Sarkozy intervened personally to secure the release of several journalists and airline crew members who were with the Zoe's Ark group.
He pledged to bring home those remaining in Chad, “no matter what they have done,” and proposed that they be tried in France. Chad's Interior Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir briskly rejected the suggestion, calling it an insult. “These bandits should be tried and convicted here,” he said, adding, “Let them get a taste of our prisons.”
Despite the angry words, the French charity workers were apparently treated well. When one of the accused women fell ill during the trial, she was taken to a French military hospital, not a local one, for treatment. The group was held in a low-security detention centre that is one of the newest prisons in Chad. Their fellow detainees were described as people caught up in clan disputes who considered it safer to live in prison than at home.
But French Foreign Ministry officials have apparently been negotiating for some time to bring the Zoe's Ark defendants back to France, taking advantage of a 1976 agreement with Chad that provides for extradition of convicted criminals to their home country to serve out their prison sentences.
A Socialist deputy suggested the price to be paid for the return of the charity workers could be high.
“It's clear that he is going to have to pay a lot of money, to the families [in Chad] as well as to the Chad government,” said Jean-Louis Bianco, one of the leading opposition figures in the National Assembly. “But if this money is used for the development of Chad, why not?”
A quick transfer of the convicted charity workers to France is likely, according to Antoine Glaser, editor of Letter from the Continent, a magazine specializing in Africa. Chad's President Idriss Déby wants French military support to fight the insurgents and Mr. Sarkozy wants to make sure Chad does not create roadblocks for the Darfur peacekeeping force.
“There is a real deal between the two men that goes beyond the Zoe's Ark affair,” Mr. Glaser told the newspaper La Croix. “Just like in the good old days, everything will be worked out between France and Chad without bothering with the sovereignty or judicial process of either country,” he added.
Special to The Globe and Mail, with a report from Agence France-Presse
Source: Globe and Mail

Lawyers Want Tax Money

December 26, 2007

Two lawyers, Gregory and Byron Mills, are specializing in suing the state of Nevada on behalf of dead and lost foster children. It looks promising, but it turns out all they are doing is lining up to take tax money, and force the legislature to appropriate more of it. Parents get short shrift in their view, "these people did things to have their children taken away in the first place". Even purported reformers, such as the lawyers in this case and Marcia Lowry of Children's Rights Inc soon join the lineup of claimants on the public treasury. Family integrity cannot be restored through litigation.

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December 21 - December 27 2007
Firm takes up cause of victimized kids in foster care
By Stephanie Tavares / Staff Writer

Attorneys Byron Mills, left, and brother Gregory are shown at their downtown Las Vegas offices.
LEILA NAVIDI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Sometimes the growth of a practice comes in unexpected and even unpleasant forms.
Attorneys Gregory and Byron Mills had a fairly quiet family law practice in the heart of downtown Las Vegas for the last few years, handling a variety of low-profile matters.
But the disappearance last year of one foster child and the death of another launched the brothers into a major new practice area: Fighting for compensation for foster children abused while under the care of the Nevada Child and Family Services Division and left without treatment by the state's foster system.
"The system has to change, and so far the only way we can see to do it is lawsuits. Unfortunately it's the only way," Byron Mills said. "There's no funding to help kids abused in the system, and it's been going on for years. They're not getting the protection and the counseling they deserve after something like that happens. In many cases it's simply been covered up."
Their law firm, Mills & Mills, has five active cases against the state, is working on several more and anticipates a large influx of cases as word gets out about what it is doing. The four-attorney firm has spent many man-hours researching and preparing its first cases, one involving the disappearance of Everlyse Cabrera and the other, the death of a baby boy.
The firm can't afford to do these cases pro bono because of its size and the amount of time the cases will take to prepare. Gregory Mills has already spent months preparing the cases the firm has, and legal legwork could last for years.
If it succeeds in the end, the firm stands to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from these cases over the next several years. And right now it is the only law firm in town aggressively seeking out abuse victims in the foster care system, preparing advertisements and public information campaigns.
Gregory Mills (who prefers to go by the nickname Gregor) is leading the firm's efforts, representing the biological parents and missing or deceased children. He is seeking restitution as well as additional information about the care that the children received.
Other cases at this point involve children who have been sexually or physically abused at the hands of foster parents or foster siblings and have not received counseling and treatment.
The firm's initial aim is to get the state to pay compensation up front for children abused in the system.
"We can't just ask for the court to give these kids counseling at this point," Byron Mills said. "The family juvenile court already is tasked with getting them counseling, and it isn't. The money from these lawsuits will go into court-monitored and controlled accounts to pay for counseling until the kids are 18. At that point anything that's left over will go directly to the kid."
The idea is for the firm to be a resource for these children since they have nowhere else to turn.
"The sad part is these kids and their parents don't know who they could report it to," Mills said. "I mean, you can't call (the children's service division) on itself. And these kids are not getting the help they need."
The parents will not be able to exploit the situation because they won't have access to these funds except in cases where the child has died, he said.
"If the parents know their kids have been abused or are being abused they can contact us. But they don't stand to gain from it," Mills said. "Remember these people did things to have their children taken away in the first place. So we're very mindful of that."
The firm's secondary aim is to see the department reformed, fully funded and children protected from future abuse.
Ideally, foster care caseworkers have about 20 kids to evaluate, Mills said. In Nevada, funding for the program is so inadequate that one caseworker may be working with 50 or more children, according to media accounts. These caseworkers are supposed to meet these children in person at least once a month, but there simply isn't enough time. They are lucky to see kids once every other month, Byron Mills said.
"It makes it impossible for them to do their jobs," he said.
If a caseworker cannot see the child, she has no way of knowing if abuse is taking place or likely to occur. And the lack of qualified foster homes has led to children being placed in homes that have not been properly evaluated.
"While doing these types of cases we realized that while the foster system is quick to take kids away from their parents, they're not so good at protecting them once the kids are in foster care," Byron Mills said. "People within the foster system have asked us for help. They have a huge amount of cases and not even close to enough caseworkers and nowhere near enough money to run the program and protect the kids."
The Mills brothers have supported legislative lobbying efforts in the last session, although they haven't done any direct lobbying themselves. Gov. Jim Gibbons has pledged to leave the agency's budget intact while many other agencies face budget cuts in the latest round of belt-tightening. And the Mills brothers hope that something will occur in the 2009 Legislature to bring additional funding to the program.
In the meantime, they plan to use the only means they have of persuading lawmakers that fully funding foster care programs is in the state's best interest.
"Just like a large corporation, until it hurts them in the wallet, they're not gong to do anything," Mills said. "It's our goal to hit them so hard and so repeatedly that they're forced to deal with the problem and increase the funding. We hope that in the future we don't have to do this anymore because the problem won't exist."
At the same time, the brothers are urging their colleagues in the legal profession and the business community to get more involved in the issue. They are encouraging lawyers and businesspeople to lobby legislators and to participate in the Court Appointed Special Advocate program, which provides volunteer advocates for abused and neglected children going through the foster care system.
The Mills are also spreading the word about the dire need for foster parents. There are too few foster parents anyway, but even fewer from the professional and business community, and the more good homes foster children have to go to, the better off everyone will be, they said.
"Ultimately this comes out of all our pockets," Byron Mills said. "And if this problem grows, this burden will grow for everyone and in myriad ways."
Stephanie Tavares covers utilities and law for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4059 or tavares@lasvegassun.com.
Source: In Business Las Vegas

The Night Before CAS

December 24, 2007

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap -

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutter, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But an ugly black sleigh pulled by 8 robot deer

With a CAS worker, it made me quite sick
I knew in a moment it wasn't Saint Nick!
More rapid than eagles her coursers they came,
And she hollered and cursed and called them by name.

"Now Slasher! now Danger! now Pouncer and Tricks 'em!
On Rotten! on Stupid! on Dodo and Blitz 'em!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall,
Screaming "I want the children - I want them all!

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky,
So, up to the housetop the robots they flew,
With a sleigh full of cops and CAS too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The scratching and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
Down the chimney the CAS came with a bound:

She was dressed up for combat, from head to her foot,
And her clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys she carried so well,
And she looked like a witch just casting her spell.

Her eyes, how they glistened! her pimples, how scary!
Her cheeks were so wrinkled, her nose was all hairy;
Her thin smirking mouth was drawn up like a bow,
An attempt to look kind, but just like a troll.

Bearing gifts for the children parents could not afford
"Foster care, foster care, all hurry aboard!"
Then in came a lawyer so slickly and quick
I thought for a moment that HE was St Nick.

"No children tonight! No warrent! no order!
Now get out, now get out! and torment no other!
He gave me a wink and nodded his head,
and so let me know I had no more to dread.

He said nothing to me as he finished his job
Making sure they were gone, the CAS mob.
Then glancing around he so quietly said
"All is now well, you can go back to bed"

As fast as he came,as quick he left
Like a phantom, was gone, with a movement so deft
But I heard him proclaim as he faded from sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, keep your children - tonight

Source: adapted from the work of Clement Moore and Linda Weston

Brain Damage

December 21, 2007

A scientific study of Romanian children confirms the obvious, that foster care is worse than parental care, and institutional care is worse still. But this time, the researchers measured the difference. Pre-school children in an orphanage suffer an IQ loss of six points per year relative to foster children, who in turn suffer a similar deficit relative to children in the care of their parents. Which form of care serves the best interest of the child?

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CNN.com
Foster care better than orphanages for kids' IQs
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Toddlers rescued from orphanages and placed in good foster homes score dramatically higher on IQ tests years later than children who were left behind, concludes a one-of-a-kind project in Romania that has profound implications for child welfare around the globe.

This photo, provided by the journal Science, shows an orphanage in Criova, Romania, in 1994.

The boost meant the difference between borderline retardation and average intelligence for some youngsters.
Most important, children removed from orphanages before age 2 had the biggest improvement -- key new evidence of a sensitive period for brain development, according to the U.S. team that conducted the research.
"What we're really talking about is the importance of getting kids out of bad environments and put into good environments," said Dr. Charles Nelson III of Harvard Medical School, who led the study being published Friday in the journal Science.
The younger that happens, "the less likely the child is to have major problems," he added.
The research is credited with influencing child-care changes in Romania, and UNICEF has begun using the data to push numerous countries that still depend on state-run orphanages to start shifting to foster care-like systems.
"The research provides concrete scientific evidence on the long-term impacts of the deprivation of quality care for children," UNICEF child protection specialist Aaron Greenberg said. "The interesting part about this is the one-on-one caring of a young child impacts ... cognitive and intellectual development."
That orphanages are not optimal for child development comes as no surprise. Earlier studies have found that thousands of children adopted during the 1990s from squalid orphanages in Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere continued to face serious developmental problems even after moving to affluent new homes with doting parents.
But questions remain. Were those abandoned or orphaned children who spent more time in orphanages less healthy to begin with? How much damage does neglect and lack of stimulation in the early months of life do? How long does that damage last?
In the study, U.S. researchers randomly assigned 136 young children in Bucharest's six orphanages to either keep living there or live with foster parents who were specially trained and paid for by the study. Romania had no foster-care system in 2000 when the research began.
The team chose apparently healthy children. Researchers repeatedly tested brain development as those children grew, and tracked those who ultimately were adopted or reunited with family. For comparison, they also tested the cognitive ability of children who never were institutionalized.
By 4½, youngsters in foster care were scoring almost 10 points higher on IQ tests than the children left in orphanages. Children who left the orphanages before 2 saw an almost 15-point increase.
Nelson compared the ages at which children were sent to foster care. For every extra month spent in the orphanage, up to almost age 3, it meant roughly a half-point lower score on those later IQ tests.
Children raised in their biological homes still fared best, with average test scores 10 points to 20 points higher than the foster-care kids.
What does that mean as these children grow up? Just this week an anxious acquaintance cornered Nelson to ask what to expect of a child who spent nine months in a Vietnamese orphanage.
"There's much more to functioning in life than your IQ," Nelson stresses.
Plus, he only now has begun testing these children again as they turn 7 and 8. They might catch up.
For now, Nelson tells adoptive parents, "The older the child is when they leave the institution, the more likely that child may have some developmental problems and the more difficult it may be to ameliorate those problems. ... The message to parents is simply to go into this with their eyes open, but not to give up."
For the U.S. and other countries that depend on foster care instead of orphanages, the study has implications, too, because it used high-quality foster care that is not the norm in many places, Nelson noted. Studies comparing the impact of foster care of varying quality are under way.
The Romanian government requested the study and began its own foster care program shortly thereafter. Early study results are credited with influencing Romania's recent prohibition on institutionalizing children under 2 unless they are severely disabled.
Source: CNN

Escape Utah!

December 20, 2007

A Utah mother, Denise Mafi, has fled the state to avoid losing her children. One of the few good defenses against child protectors is to leave their jurisdiction before legal process is served. Sadly few parents take this advice, because they are unwilling to believe the abuses committed in the name of children until it is too late. The prospects for Denise Mafi are better, as long as she never returns to Utah.

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Thursday, December 20, 2007
POLICE STATE, USA
Woman abandons home to escape public schools
Judge ordered homeschooler to enroll kids or lose custody
Posted: December 20, 2007, 1:00 a.m. Eastern, By Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com
A Utah woman who was ordered by a juvenile court judge to enroll her children in public school or lose custody of them has abandoned her home, furniture and other possessions to escape the order.
Denise Mafi, a nine-year veteran of homeschooling, has confirmed to WND she and her children packed up their essentials – clothes and homeschool materials – and fled Utah over the weekend, spending more than 50 hours on a bus trip to an undisclosed part of the country.
There she has obtained an empty home and is spending the Christmas break trying to find beds for her children and herself. After the New Year she will involve the children in a local homeschooling process.
"We're shampooing carpets right now. We have no furniture. We have no beds," she said. "But my kids are not going to public school. They are not going where Jesus isn't welcome."
Her home, furniture and other possessions left behind in Utah? "I'm not going back unless the judge removes the threat of arrest," she said. "I'll fight for the cause but I'm not going to be a martyr."
The case erupted for Mafi because of an apparent paperwork glitch that could be the fault of her local school district. Now Utah home school officials say they have asked the state Legislature to review actions by the judge, whose office has declined comment to WND.
The confrontation developed after Mafi, still married but separated from her husband, already had begun her homeschooling plan for the 2007-2008 year, for which she had received a district exemption as required in Utah. She was told she was being accused of four counts of failing to abide by the state's compulsory education law, with a penalty of up to six months in jail on each count, because the district alleged she had not submitted a required affidavit for the long-completed 2006-2007 school year.
Counseled by a public defender, she thought she was meeting the court's demands earlier when she enrolled her two youngest children in classes in Utah and put her two older children in an online curriculum connected to the public school. However, she soon learned otherwise.
"Well everything fell apart in court today. I had to enroll my two oldest in public school. … If I didn't the judge said I would lose custody of my children. He threw out the plea and we go to trial on January 9th. I have NO CHANCE with this judge. He will find me guilty. He already has. So I will probably be spending some time in jail. Please pray for my children," she noted in an online forum connected to a "Five In A Row" homeschool curriculum she had used when her children were younger.

Scott Johansen

At issue are the threats issued by Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial District. Johansen threw out the agreement Mafi thought would resolve the charges.
Mafi has reported, and her recollection of events has been confirmed by attorneys, that Johansen told her homeschooling fails 100 percent of the time and he would not allow it.
"I can tell you there are several legislators working on this, including one on the judicial retention committee," said John Yarrington, president of the Utah Home Education Association. "There's no excuse for this kind of bias and prejudice."
Mafi, who has her own copy of the required affidavit, said she faxed it to the school district office Oct. 27, 2006. But the district alleged it didn't arrive, and Mafi failed to keep a fax confirmation she received at the time.
WND contacted the judge's court, but was told to call the state judiciary's office. A spokeswoman confirmed the situation was being reviewed, but she couldn't comment on a pending case. The district attorney's office didn't return a telephone request for comment.
Tom Smith, however, who identified himself as a friend of the judge, wrote to WND in his defense.
"I and another local Republican official wrote to encourage Gov. Bangerter to appoint Scott Johansen, who was a Democrat county attorney at the time, as a juvenile judge. Scott did not like the partisan politics at the time, and many of his views today tend to be more conservative," he said. "I believe he has served our area very well in his capacity of juvenile judge."
Smith cited an occasion when he was teaching a number of years ago, when "some in our school wanted to change the method of teaching to a more liberal way; a method that had not done well in other schools. Judge Johansen took a stand against it with those of us who opposed the change. The result was that several of us teachers were not required to make the change."
Yarrington said a lawyer for the UHEA is working on the case, and lawyers for the Home School Legal Defense Association are reviewing the situation.
Mafi said she is hoping she will not be required to return to Utah for the scheduled Jan. 9 trial, and it was unclear immediately how the fact her children no longer remained in Utah would affect the charges already filed.
She has explained that her opposition to public schools comes from what she sees as an anti-Christian atmosphere. Mafi said she and her husband had decided homeschooling would be their choice even before the children reached school age.
As WND has reported, such threats and actions are becoming more common in Germany, but that nation still makes homeschooling illegal under a law launched when Hitler expressed a desire to control the minds of youth.
A recent court ruling there, in fact, said not only is homeschooling a basis for child endangerment charges, but a local government was remiss in allowing a mother to take her two children to another country where homeschooling is legal.
Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole."
Drautz said homeschool students' test results may be as good as for those in school, but "school teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct, encourages dialogue among people of different beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become responsible citizens."
The German government's defense of its "social" teachings and mandatory public school attendance was clarified during an earlier dispute on which WND reported, when a German family wrote to officials objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.
"The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling," said a government letter in response. "... You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. ... In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."
Source: WorldNetDaily

Addendum: The family appears to have successfully escaped the wrath of Utah.

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Saturday, January 12, 2008
POLICE STATE, USA
Homeschooler's trial date abandoned
Mom who fled state accused of failing to file district affidavit
Posted: January 12, 2008, 1:00 a.m. Eastern, WorldNetDaily.com
A trial date for a homeschooling mom from Utah who fled the state when a judge threatened to take away custody of her children has been vacated, officials have confirmed.
A lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which actually became involved in the case after it was well advanced, told WND that parties in the case against Denise Mafi by stipulation had vacated a trial date scheduled this week, and no new court date has been set.
Mafi had fled her Carbon County, Utah, home after a judge had ordered her to enroll her children with a public school within a day or he would remove then from her custody.
Mafi, who at that time had had counsel from a public defender, abandoned her home, furniture and other possessions to leave Utah and seek refuge in another state, where she is getting her four children involved in another homeschooling program.
Mafi told WND she and her children had packed up their essentials – clothes and homeschool materials – and spent more than 50 hours on a bus trip to an undisclosed part of the country.
Charges against her stemmed from what she has described as a paperwork mixup. She says she faxed a required notification of her homeschooling plans to her local school district; officials there say they never received it.
While Mafi's case isn't yet fully resolved, officials with the HSLDA confirm that another situation with similar circumstances was successfully resolved with the case being dismissed.
In the second case, an unidentified homeschooling mother was facing criminal counts for failing to enroll her daughter in a local public school.
"Though the mother had been properly notifying the school district for the past two years that she was homeschooling her 12-year-old daughter, she inadvertently delayed notifying for the 2006-2007 school year until February 2007," according to the organization's report on the situation.
"The district decided that failure to file the affidavit before the first day of the public school year was an automatic criminal violation of the state's compulsory school attendance law. Yet Utah's home education statute does not specify a filing deadline, requiring only that an affidavit be sent to the district 'annually,'" the HSLDA said.
The case eventually was dismissed with prejudice by Utah Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Lindsley.
According to attorney Frank Mylar, who worked on the case in Utah, the result "is a great victory for all homeschoolers in Utah."
He said he's hopeful that the message for school districts is that they cannot intimidate families who may inadvertently file their notice after the school year begins.
Mylar, president of the Utah Christian Home Educators, also is working with the HSLDA on the Mafi case, officials said earlier.
When Mafi fled, she told WND she would not return to Utah to retrieve her furniture and other items unless the threat of her arrest was removed. But she did confirm she would be available for scheduled court appearances.
In her new location, she obtained an empty home and spent part the Christmas holiday period finding beds for her children and herself and shampooing carpets. But she was adamant about homeschooling.
"My kids are not going to public school. They are not going where Jesus isn't welcome," she said.
Her plight prompted dozens of WND readers to request a way to make a donation to her, and HSLDA's own foundation, while not immediately set up to transfer donations to one specific individual, does recognize that homeschoolers may have urgent needs, and does respond to those needs.
The case erupted for Mafi because of an apparent paperwork glitch that could be the fault of her local school district.
Mafi, still married but separated from her husband, already had begun her homeschooling plan for the 2007-2008 year, for which she had received a district exemption as required in Utah. Then she was told she was being accused of four counts of failing to abide by the state's compulsory education law, with a penalty of up to six months in jail on each count, because the district alleged she had not submitted a required affidavit for the long-completed 2006-2007 school year.
Counseled by a public defender, she thought she was meeting the court's demands earlier when she enrolled her two youngest children in classes in Utah and put her two older children in an online curriculum connected to the public school. However, she soon learned otherwise.
"Well everything fell apart in court today. I had to enroll my two oldest in public school. … If I didn't the judge said I would lose custody of my children. He threw out the plea … I have NO CHANCE with this judge. He will find me guilty. He already has. So I will probably be spending some time in jail. Please pray for my children," she noted in an online forum connected to a "Five In A Row" homeschool curriculum she had used when her children were younger.

Scott Johansen

At issue are the threats issued by Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial District. He threw out the agreement Mafi thought would resolve the charges, and then warned her about losing her children if they were not enrolled in the public school district, or if they missed class without a doctor's note.
Mafi has reported, and her recollection of events has been confirmed by attorneys, that Johansen told her homeschooling fails 100 percent of the time and he would not allow it. Court officials told WND the comments didn't happen as Mafi reported, but have been unable to provide a transcript to confirm either version.
Mafi, who has her own copy of the required 2006-2007 affidavit, said she faxed it to the school district office Oct. 27, 2006. But the district alleged it didn't arrive, and Mafi failed to keep a fax confirmation she received at the time.
Source: World Net Daily

Hanity on Drugs

December 20, 2007

Sean Hannity with Doug Kennedy (YouTube) shows the connection between anti-depressants and violence, suicide and homicide. Many massacres are committed by students on psychotropic drugs, or recently withdrawn from drugs. The one important issue omitted is that drugs are often administered under threat of child removal. The black box warnings discussed in the program are futile when the drugs are administered by force. You can also view the letter titled The Mental Health Screening of Children (pdf) by Georgia State Senator Nancy Schaefer.

Sidebar: Vegetarians Only!

Do you remember the headlines about the ten-year-old girl who massacred other students with a steak knife? We don't. The principal of Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala Florida is taking no chances. He has had a girl arrested for using a knife on her dinner. She admits to being a repeat offender, and has been charged with a felony.

It is not steak knives that are responsible for school killings. We suggest going after the drug pushers instead.

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Student Arrested After Cutting Food With Knife
10-Year-Old Charged With Possession Of Weapon On School Property
UPDATED: 4:08 pm EST December 14, 2007
An elementary student in Marion County was arrested Thursday after school officials found her cutting food during lunch with a knife that she brought from home, police said.
The 10-year-old girl, a student at Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala, was charged possession of a weapon on school property, which is a felony.
According to authorities, school employees spotted the girl cutting her food while she was eating lunch and took the steak knife from her.
The girl told sheriff's deputies that she had brought the knife to school on more than one occasion in the past.
Students told officials that the girl did not threaten anyone with the knife.
The girl was arrested and transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center.
Source: WKMG TV-6 Orlando Florida

Addendum: Charges against the knife-wielding girl were dropped.

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OrlandoSentinel.com
Charges dropped against 10-year-old who brought steak knife to school
Katie Fretland, Sentinel Staff Writer
1:37 PM EST, December 26, 2007
The State Attorney's Office has decided not to prosecute a 10-year-old girl who brought a steak knife to school to cut her lunch. After a review of the child's school record, prosecutors determined charges should be dropped, Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway said today.
Teachers saw the child using a 4 1/2 inch kitchen knife to cut her steak at lunch on Dec. 13. They notified the Marion County Sheriff's Office and she was arrested on a felony weapons charge. She was also suspended from school for three days.
Investigators with the Department of Juvenile Justice then interviewed the child and looked at her clean school and behavioral record. They recommended that charges should be dropped and the State Attorney's Office agreed.
"She has an excellent school history, no disciplinary problems, good grades and nothing whatsoever to suggest she was a troubled child," Ridgway said.
Source: Orlando Sentinel

Allison Quets Sentenced

December 18, 2007

Allison Quets has been sentenced. Her story would be rejected for publication as fiction, because it is too absurd. To summarize:

Allison Quets became pregnant through expensive in vitro fertilization.
She had life-threatening problems during pregnancy, but gave birth to healthy twins.
She was cajoled or coerced into consenting to adoption.
After regaining her health she tried to reclaim her children.
Lawyers purportedly representing her took a half a million dollars in fees without getting her children back.
On a visit with her children, she fled with them to Canada.
She and her children were forcibly returned to the United States.
She was incarcerated in North Carolina indefinitely until pleading guilty.
She pleaded guilty as her only means of getting out of jail.
She has been sentenced to five years probation, with severe restrictions on contact with the family that has taken her children.
As a convicted felon, she will have no prospect of regaining her children ever, or resuming her high-paying career.

For earlier stories on this case, refer to December 29 20006, January 4, 2007, April 14 and Sept 15

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National Post, Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Biological mom gets five years for kidnapping twins
Andrew Thomson, CanWest News Service Published: Tuesday, December 18, 2007
OTTAWA -- Allison Quets was sentenced to five years probation on Tuesday afternoon for kidnapping her biological twins and crossing the border to Ottawa in December 2006, according to North Carolina media reports.
A federal court judge in Raleigh also ordered the 50-year-old to stay away from two-year-old Holly and Tyler and their adoptive parents without state court approval and a parole officer present. Quets was fined $15,000 and must also pay travel expenses to Kevin and Denise Needham, the reports said.
She must also surrender her U.S. passport.
Quets pleaded guilty on Sept. 14 to two counts of international parental kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
She was released after eight months in jail and prosecutors pledged to recommend a penalty at the low end of federal sentencing guidelines.
On Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bowler accused Quets of harassing the Needhams with her continued efforts to regain custody, according to the News & Observer of Raleigh.
Her case gained notoriety once she drove north in her white minivan, arriving in Ontario on Dec. 23 and spending Christmas at a Kingston, Ont. bed-and-breakfast before renting a city townhouse.
Ottawa police arrested Quets on Dec. 29, and the twins were returned to the Needhams.
Federal authorities argued she planned the cross-border trip months in advance, which included obtaining passports for the children and contacting a Canadian immigration lawyer.
The complicated story began when Quets undertook a pregnancy by in-vitro fertilization at the age of 47, while living in Orlando, Fla.
Holly and Tyler were born in July 2005.
Quets has argued she was in medical distress and never intended to give up the babies one month later to a North Carolina couple, Kevin and Denise Needham.
She has fought to regain custody ever since.
Ottawa Citizen
Source: National Post

Lawyers for Children Sued

December 18, 2007

Nateyonna Banks was taken into state care in Atlanta Georgia. In July 2006 she was returned to her mother, Shandrell Banks. Under her mother's care, the child was beaten and died on November 9, 2006. Now a lawsuit on behalf of the child's estate has been launched against the state-appointed lawyers who represented the child. Money collected would have to go to the girl's heir, almost certainly the mother who killed her, so this is not a plea to compensate an innocent party. Of more concern, hurting the lawyers financially will scare future lawyers into opposing all reunifications of their clients with their parents.

In Ontario, the Office of the Children's Lawyer already opposes all reunifications, as projected for Georgia. We have never come across a case in which a children's lawyer addressed the court saying: "Your worship, I respectfully suggest that my client's interest would best be served by remaining in the care of his parents". It can only get worse. Recent legislation mandated public inquiries into cases such as Nateyonna Banks in which a child dies in the care of parents after being returned from CAS care. We can expect one such inquest per year, giving widespread publicity to the dangers of returning children to their parents. The dozens of children dying each year in foster homes will remain out of view of the press and the public.

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Suit targets lawyers in tot's death
By ANDY MILLER, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Published on: 12/15/07
A 2-year-old Atlanta girl whose death sparked widespread outrage was placed in a dangerous home because her publicly appointed attorneys failed to represent her properly in court hearings, a lawsuit alleges.
Nateyonna Banks died in November 2006 after being placed with her mother, who was charged with beating her to death. The girl's estate filed suit Friday against Fulton County's child advocate attorney office and the lawyers who represented her.
Attorney Don Keenan of the Keenan Law Firm, who filed the suit in Fulton state court, said Fulton's Office of the Child Advocate Attorney failed to fully investigate Nateyonna's mother, Shandrell Banks.
Keenan said Banks had a history of Fulton's Department of Family and Children Services removing her children, had a mental illness and had a drug possession conviction.
The child advocate attorney office is understaffed, underfunded and overworked, Keenan said, citing a University of Georgia study.
"That safety net had a huge hole in it, and Nateyonna fell through and died,'' Keenan said. He compared child advocate attorneys to ''potted plants'' during Juvenile Court proceedings on Nateyonna Banks' placement.
Keenan said he hopes the suit helps repair the legal safety net for children. It seeks unspecified damages to be awarded to Nateyonna Banks' estate, including to her five siblings.
Fulton County and its child advocate office, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Three attorneys who handled Nateyonna's case could not be reached for comment.
Also named as a defendant is a company contracted with DFCS as a case management agency that handled the Banks case. The company, Family Ties Enterprises, did not return a phone call requesting comment on the suit.
Shandrell Banks had given birth to Nateyonna while incarcerated on a cocaine possession charge. She had already had two of her children removed from her care.
Nateyonna's great-aunt, Carolyn Banks, had raised the girl since infancy. She approached the state child welfare agency seeking financial help raising Nateyonna in May 2006.
Fulton County DFCS workers agreed the child should be placed with Carolyn Banks.
But supervisors overruled that decision and recommended placing the child with the mother, which occurred in July 2006.
DFCS Director Mary Dean Harvey later said, ''It was poor decision-making.''
Nateyonna Banks' death caused a shakeup in DFCS.
Keenan said Friday's suit was the first civil litigation in the country naming a governmental child advocate legal department in a suit alleging incompetence.
He cited a Carl Vinson Institute of Government study that found in about half of the cases, Fulton County child advocate attorneys did not review DFCS case documents. In more than 60 percent of cases, child advocate attorneys did not interview at least one family member.
Lawyers in the Fulton County office had an average caseload much higher than recommended, the study said.
Notes from a case management worker reported that two months before Nateyonna died, Shandrell Banks was feeling ''overwhelmed at times'' and ''more and more despair.'' In October, the child had a swollen face and an eye that was closed, the case worker reported.
DFCS is not a defendant because suing the agency is futile, Keenan said, adding that he would rather focus ''on the lawyers that should have done their job.''
"I assume DFCS is not going to do its job,'' he said. "The courts demand — we demand — these kids get effective lawyers. We can't trust DFCS to do their job.''
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Family Courts Worse than Communism

December 18, 2007

Professor Stephen Baskerville writes on family law in America, but he could have just as well said Canada or England or Australia. Family law does not attempt to dispense justice, replacing that goal with "the best interest of the child". In the final paragraphs, he recounts the experiences of refugees from eastern European police states. They report that American family courts are harsher than the worst that eastern Europe had to offer.

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TOTALITARIANISM IN AMERICA
By Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D, December 18, 2007, NewsWithViews.com
Mass incarcerations without trial or charge; forced confessions; children forcibly separated from their parents with no reasons given; doctored hearing transcripts and falsified court records; evidence fabricated against the innocent; government agents entering the homes, examining private papers and personal effects, and seizing the property of citizens who are under no suspicion of legal wrongdoing; special courts created specifically to convict people who cannot be convicted in ordinary courts; children instructed to hate their parents by state functionaries: Is all this the Soviet Union in the 1930s or Communist China in the 1960s? Is this some novelist’s prognosticated dystopia? No, all this and more is routine in the United States today.
Among the most disturbing tales to come out of totalitarianism were the revelations of how both Nazi and Communist governments intruded into family life. The practice of governments dictating to parents what they could tell their children or using children as informers against their parents strikes us as chilling and unnatural. Yet similar practices are occurring in America today on a much more massive scale.
What we are talking about here is family law, a secretive political underworld of which few are aware until it strikes them. Parents summoned to family court discover that their children can be taken away, they can be forced to turn over all their property without explanation to government officials and their private clients, their future earnings can be confiscated to the point where they are unable to house or feed themselves, and they can be incarcerated without trial – all without any evidence or even charge that they have committed any actionable offense.
Unlike any other court, family courts do not even pretend that they are concerned with justice. They claim to determine “the best interest of the child” in divorces or other cases where one party is trying to take away someone else’s children. It is not necessary for the parent or parents whose children are targeted to have done anything legally wrong. Because most parents will spend any amount of money not to have their children taken away, these courts are very lucrative for lawyers and others who have developed a stake in taking control of other people’s children.
Traditionally, parents determined what was best for their own children. Now courts make that determination, over the objection of parents who have done nothing to forfeit the right to make it themselves. Once courts stop administering justice, they start administering injustice; there is no middle ground. Without justice, asked St. Augustine, “What are kingdoms but great robberies?”
Never before in human history has any government created a machinery whose primary purpose is to take children away from their parents. The Nazis and the Communists both did it. But it was not their principal aim. In America, we have created multibillion dollar machinery that exists for no other purpose.
The very idea of incarcerations without trial should be raising an outcry and have us demanding to know what is taking place in the world’s greatest democracy. Yet we hear nothing but silence from journalists, self-styled civil libertarians, and “human rights” groups.
Conservatives have allowed this to happen by credulously swallowing feminist propaganda about “deadbeat dads,” “pedophile” fathers, and wife-beaters. Having given the Left a monopoly as gatekeepers of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties, conservatives can hardly be surprised that they stand defenseless as the Left targets the family, fathers, Christianity, and other “patriarchal” institutions.
The erosion of our freedoms today is so gradual that few can find tangible points at which to oppose it. But here we have an attack on freedom that is much more direct than culture; it involves a direct assault on private family life by a dangerous government machinery. Until we wake up to the fact that radical feminism is a totalitarian ideology and that the family courts are executing the feminist Terror, we will never reverse the family’s decline.
Facile parallels with totalitarian dictatorships drawn by westerners who never experienced those terrors are a much-abused form of criticism and one to which conservatives are especially susceptible. Yet in this case, survivors of those dictatorships readily attest to the similarity. Bogumila and Jerzy Koss compare New York’s family courts to the bureaucratic tyrannies they knew in Poland. “As children we lived through Nazi horror, then through Communist occupation,” they write, “and now, in the United States, the ‘Land of the Free,’ we are persecuted by judicial tyranny.” But in contrast to Nazi and Stalinist regimes, which used children as one weapon among many, today in the Western democracies children and families have become the central object of government tyranny, and parents rather than dissidents have become the targets.
After experiencing American family law, Romanian dissident Mihai Muset gained a new perspective on totalitarian justice under communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, by whose regime he had been arrested for a protest. "I was sentenced to two months in prison," he recalls, "but at least I got to appear in court and talk to the judge. That's more than I got in family court."
Stephen Baskerville holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and is president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children and ssistant professor of government at Patrick Henry College his book, Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family (Cumberland House, 2007).
Web Site: www.stephenbaskerville.net
E-Mail: sbaskerville@cox.net
Source: newswithviews.com

Foster Care Damage is Permanent

December 16, 2007

The three children of Tim and Gina Williams were taken by British child protectors. When an appeals court ruled in their favor two years later, the children were returned, but they were not the same kids. The family now lives in constant fear. This case shows the futility of trying to undo the damage caused by wrongful intervention in the name of child protection.

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The Daily Mirror
Pain of social work sex slur family
Exclusive by Julie McCaffrey 15/12/2007
There was supposed to be a happy ending, but for now the scars run too deep.
When Tim and Gina Williams' three children were taken into care, the Mirror described their story as "every parents' nightmare".
Wrongly accused of sexually abusing their children - two girls and a boy all under 10 at the time - the couple were finally vindicated and reunited with their little ones.
But by then their children had spent two agonising and utterly unnecessary years in care.
And now, more than a year after their children were returned to them and they were absolutely vindicated in the High Court, a damning report is to be released listing 32 recommendations that might ensure such an appalling blunder by a social services department never happens again.
The Newport Safeguarding Children Board's full report will remain confidential. But the summary heavily criticises Newport City Council, the Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust and the Gwent police.
Tim and Gina, 38, from Newport, South Wales, want the board to publish the damning faults in full.
But for now they hope the report will ensure no other families endure such living hell.
Tim, also 38, says: "Of course we're still angry at how we've been treated. Of course we're bitter. But we've never been interested in pointing the finger at individuals who made mistakes.
"We just want to know that serious lessons have been learned and that no one suffers like our family. We wouldn't want our worst enemies to go through what we did."
Sadly, the suffering is far from over for the Williams family.
Tim and Gina believe Zara, now 13, Ieuan, 10, and eight-year-old Courtney - whom the family call Buffy - have been damaged by their years in care.
Gina explains: "Our children are so different since they came back to us, it's like having three little strangers at home.
"None can bear to have us out of their sight because they think we won't come back. They believe they were taken into care because we didn't love or want them any more."
Zara had always been happy at school before being taken into care but now her teachers say she can be disruptive and can't settle in class.
Ieuan, once a sensitive little boy, has become an angry child who screams, shouts and hits out at doors and walls. He plays with the boy next door, but won't venture beyond that.
Recently, leaving for a week's school trip to an adventure park, he sobbed so much as the bus pulled away that his parents wanted to take him off.
He was terrified he was waving goodbye to his mummy and daddy for the last time.
Buffy, meanwhile, is too scared to go to sleep in case she wakes to find her parents gone, and tiptoes into their room in the middle of the night to check that Tim and Gina are still there.
She's reluctant to leave their side, choosing to play with dolls and colouring books in the living room rather than in her pink bedroom. She cries each morning as she says goodbye at the school gates.
"All three are extra clingy and constantly fight for our attention," says Tim, who has a heart condition and cannot work.
"If they don't see us at the school gates the moment the bell rings they freak out, so we have to get there 10 minutes early and stand in exactly the same spot. We take them everywhere with us because they refuse to go to babysitters. But whenever we see the children angry or in tears, we have to remember that it's not their fault.
"They were ripped from us and still don't understand why. They think it was because they were naughty, even though we've tried to explain it to them as best we can."
The family's terrible ordeal began on May 15, 2004. An 11-year-old boy had been invited to play with the children in the paddling pool and later in the day he and Buffy were sent to change out of their swimming gear and into their bed clothes.
But when Tim went upstairs he found the boy, minus his pyjama bottoms, on top of his five-year-old daughter whose nightie was above her waist.
Furious, he called the police who were followed by social services. And there began the chain of events that ripped the family to pieces.
Weeks later, Buffy sat with her mummy in hospital while she winced and sobbed as she endured an internal examination. The results devastated her parents.
The doctor said Buffy was the victim of chronic sexual abuse by an adult. Tim immediately became a suspect.
The medical report also said the abuse might have been caused by an implement, thereby also casting suspicion on Gina.
It wasn't long before social services called at the family's terraced home, wanting to take the children into care. "They said if we didn't hand them over they'd get a court order to take them from us," says Tim.
"After three sleepless nights and endless hours of talking, we felt forced to agree to their demands."
Banned from discussing details of the investigation with their children, Tim and Gina drove their distraught children to the social services office, telling them they were going on a little holiday.
Staff whisked Zara, Ieuan and Buffy from their parents' arms as soon as they arrived. They were not even allowed to say goodbye and heard screams of "Mummy! Daddy!" even after they'd left the building.
Over the next bleak two years, Tim and Gina saw their children for 90-minute supervised sessions each week. They missed milestones such as birthdays, learning to ride bikes and school plays and two Christmasses spent in terrible, lonely misery.
This year Tim and Gina have again spent more than they can afford on Christmas.
"All we ever wanted was our kids back where they belonged," says Tim. "Of course we spoil them, we can't help it because we feel we have to make it up to them."
Jessica Good, solicitor for the family, is still fighting their corner.
She says: "Brushing things under the carpet does not help. We will take all the possible steps to secure publication of the full overview report. I hope Tim and Gina can discover the truth about why this happened to them."
But for now, Christmas is a chance to forget for a while.
Ieuan is secretly trying to rip the corners of the Transformer wrapping paper to peek inside a giant present under the tree.
Buffy has knocked a bauble to the floor and Zara almost stands on it in stocking feet.
Within seconds the three are shouting at each other and the Williams' house is filled with the noise of excited, argumentative children. And that's exactly how they like it.
In care According to the Association For Adoption And Fostering there are 60,000 kids - equal to 150 primary schools - in care.
Our two years of torment
How the family's nightmare unravelled...
MAY 15 2004

Tim calls police when 11-year-old boy found on top of five-year-old Buffy.

JUNE 8 2004

Buffy is examined in hospital.

JULY 26 2004

Hospital examination results cast suspicion on Tim and Gina.

AUGUST 23 2004

Children taken into care.

APRIL 29 2005

Local authority applies for court order to ensure children remain in care.

SEPTEMBER 22 2006

Children returned home after Buffy is re-examined by an American doctor, who insists she was not abused.

OCTOBER 17 2006

High Court judgement passed, rejecting allegations of abuse.

DECEMBER 14 2007

The Newport Safe guarding Children Board's report criticises Newport City Council, the Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust and the Gwent police.

Source: Mirror (UK)

Help Me

Kiddie Shrinks Use Fear Marketing

December 16, 2007

In New York the shrinks who put labels on normal or gifted children have resorted to fear to sell their unnecessary services. The threats in the form of ransom notes will fall flat with families who have already received real-life ransom demands from their local child protection agencies.

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Clicking on one of the paragraphs below will bring up the image used in the campaign.
We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay…ADHD
We have your son.We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation. It's up to you now…Asperger's Syndrome
We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning…Autism.
We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It’s only going to get worse. --Bulimia
We have taken your son. We have imprisoned him in a maze of darkness with no hope of ever getting out. Do nothing and see what happens…Depression
We have your daughter. We are making her wash her hands until they are raw, everyday. This is only the beginning…OCD
Source: NYU Child Study Center
Our response:
To: Children's aid societies, psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, divorce lawyers, coroners, group home operators and Office of the Children's Lawyer: We know who you are. We will continue to expose your malfeasance and racketeering until you no longer have the money and power you need to hold our children for ransom.

Addendum: On December 19 the campaign was abandoned for being too controversial.

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The New York Times
December 20, 2007
Ransom-Note Ads About Children’s Health Are Canceled
By JOANNE KAUFMAN
The Child Study Center at New York University said on Wednesday that it would halt an advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness of children’s mental and neurological disorders after the effort drew a strongly negative reaction.
The two-week-old campaign, created pro bono by the advertising agency BBDO, used the device of ransom notes to deliver ominous messages concerning disorders like autism, depression, bulimia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The note about autism, for example, read: “We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives.”
Advocates for children with autism and for other special-needs children said the ads reinforced negative stereotypes.
“While many individuals spoke to us about the need to continue the campaign, inadvertently we offended others,” said Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the Child Study Center’s founder and director, who estimated that he had received 3,000 e-mail messages and phone calls. Thirty percent of those praised the initiative, he said, and 70 percent expressed anger and hurt.
“One woman was crying to me on the phone that she felt alone and ashamed about her child and thanking me because the campaign captured how she felt,” he said. “But we also heard from some parents who are working day and night to help their children, and the way they read the ransom messages was that they weren’t doing enough.”
Ultimately, Dr. Koplewicz said, “I was concerned about the focus of the debate being on the ads rather than on the children.”
Kristina Chew, founder of the blog Autism Vox and the mother of a 10-year-old son with autism, praised the decision. “I’m very glad the campaign is over,” she said.
Dr. Koplewicz said he had “started conversations” with critics of the ransom-note ads. “They said they felt our intentions were good and they wanted to help, so we want to hear their voices as we start to plan the next ads with BBDO.” The goal is to introduce a new campaign in the next three months.
He said that the decision was made by the Child Study Center with no pressure from N.Y.U., and he maintained that, despite the negative publicity, no ground had been lost.
“It’s the first time that the issue of children’s mental health has gotten national attention without being precipitated by a shooting at a high school or college,” he said.
Source: New York Times

How to Train Prostitutes, Criminals and Addicts

December 14, 2007

An article in a Vancouver magazine shows that the province's foster care system is a training ground for the next generation of social misfits. Half of mass-killer Robert Pickton's victims were former foster kids. Leaving more kids with parents is suggested as the best remedy.

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Neglected by the province, foster care is a fast track to the streets
By Pieta Woolley, Publish Date: December 13, 2007

A veteran of Downtown Eastside street life, Jody Coyen says the abuse that drives kids into the foster care system could be addressed with better social supports.

Jody Coyen isn't surprised that half of the women Robert Pickton is guilty of killing are alumnae of the provincial foster-care system. At 34, she's already a veteran of the Downtown Eastside's street life and was friends with many of the missing women. In an interview at the Ovaltine Cafe on December 11, Coyen told the Georgia Straight that "most people down here have the same story. They were abused as children, come from alcoholic homes, stayed in foster care."
In fact, 65 percent of people who live on the street are former kids in care, according to a study commissioned by the B.C. Federation of Foster Parent Associations. The statistic chills the federation's president, Melanie Filiatrault. Having fostered 42 children, she knows some of them are not making good choices and are vulnerable, just like Pickton's victims.
"It just makes my heart ache," she told the Straight in a phone interview. "It's almost criminal."
Filiatrault is travelling around B.C., asking foster families what supports they need to help kids in care make better choices. It's an ongoing project, she said, as foster parents know "the names, addresses, and phone numbers of tomorrow's homeless".
About 9,000 children and youths are in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, according to its Web site. At the University of Victoria, the Promoting Positive Outcomes for Youth From Care project studies what happens to youths after they graduate from the system at 19. It found that within 2.5 years after leaving: 85 percent had been charged with a crime; 38 percent had been diagnosed with depression; and 41 percent reported using marijuana at least a few times per week. Just 21 percent of youths in care graduate from high school, compared to 78 percent across the province.
On November 26, the provincial child and youth officer, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, released a report that found that only 18 of retired judge Ted Hughes's 62 child-protection recommendations had been implemented since they were accepted by the government in April 2006. The recommendations grew out of a review of the entire child-welfare system, precipitated by the 2002 Port Alberni beating death of foster child Sherry Charlie. Earlier this month, the B.C. Liberals refused to increase Turpel-Lafond's budget. She had asked for $6.558 million for 2008-09 but received one-third less.
In light of Turpel-Lafond's report and the Pickton case, the province should play a much bigger role in keeping its children in care from becoming victims, Adrianne Montani told the Straight in a phone interview. Montani is the provincial coordinator for First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. The bigger role will require lighter case loads for social workers, better welfare rates, better budgets for children's services, and a commitment to fund the Ministry of Children and Family Development on the basis of need rather than arbitrarily, as happens now, she said.
"The research tells us that being in foster care is a prognosis for a big vulnerability to an unproductive life," Montani said. "People end up very, very fragile and vulnerable, so they self-medicate as there's so much pain when you're taken away from your family."
She noted that there are plenty of excellent foster parents and some not-so-great ones. But the real problem with the system is that kids are taken away from their parents in the first place, and that creates a base of instability that is difficult to repair.
Realistically, Montani said, some children will always need to be apprehended, as their families cannot care for them safely. However, she said, the number of apprehensions could be cut dramatically if B.C. families were supported properly. Income assistance does not provide enough money to feed kids a proper diet, she said, which makes those families vulnerable to apprehension. The minimum wage is so low, families can barely afford proper clothing and furniture–again, making them vulnerable to apprehension. An accessible child-care system would help families dramatically, she said.
Indeed, the executive director of the B.C. Association of Social Workers, Linda Korvin, said there has always been a lack of political will to care for children and youths properly.
"The system has been underfunded since long before my time," she told the Straight in a phone interview. "It's because they're people without a voice.…I think the public cares when there's a tragedy [such as the homicide of Savannah Hall], but when it's not in the news, people go on to other things. There's not enough consistent public pressure."
Coyen said she wishes the government had intervened when she was a child. Physical abuse, sexual abuse of both her and her brother, and an alcoholic mother pushed her into addiction by the time she was a young teen, she said. Had her mom received some parenting support, she said, her life might have turned out differently.
Source: Straight (Vancouver)

Jail for Grandpa

December 13, 2007

The British prison system is short of space for murderers and rapists, but has found room to house grandfather Charles Roy Taylor for the offense of meeting his own grandson.

Jack Frost, who brought attention to this case with internet articles in October, says Britain has 200 cases a year of persons jailed by family courts in secret proceedings.

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From The Times, December 13, 2007
Free the 'Grandfather One'
Is it really in the public interest that a grandparent is jailed for not avoiding his grandson?
Camilla Cavendish
Two MPs have put down an early day motion in the House of Commons to bring attention to what they believe is a miscarriage of justice. It notes that a man named Charles Roy Taylor has been sent to prison for 20 months for being in contact with his stepgrandson. It “wonders if this is a good use of scarce prison resources; and calls for the Secretary of State for Justice to consider whether he should be released for Christmas”. Jack Straw no doubt has bigger things on his mind. And no story like this is ever as simple as it looks. But it deserves attention.
Charles Roy Taylor is a 71-year-old with a heart condition. He knew that a jail sentence was the penalty he might pay if he did not take steps to avoid his stepgrandson. But this seems desperately unfair. The teenager, whom we shall call John, has been in care since his mother died of an overdose. He has been phoning his grandparents and running away to see them for some time. In the end, social services became concerned that the grandparents were “undermining the care plan” by continuing to see John. It does not appear to be clear to the grandparents what the care plan is. But it does not seem to include them, even though they could presumably be John's first port of call when he leaves the care system at 18.
It is not the local authority's fault that this child had a difficult childhood. In taking responsibility for him, social workers were doing their best. Neither he nor his grandparents sound like the easiest people to deal with. But as in so many cases of this kind, bitterness between the family and the authorities appears to have escalated into a ludicrous situation, which simply cannot be in the best interests of the child.
After a great deal of argy-bargy that I cannot go into for legal reasons, Mr Taylor last year gave an undertaking not to communicate with John until he was 18. But asking a man not to pick up the phone to a child, not to take him in when he turns up at the front door, is a harsh demand. It is tantamount to asking him to deny that the child exists, when what that child may need most is attention.
In stalking cases, when Person A is ordered to avoid Person B, it is usually at the explicit request of Person B, who fears assault. In this case, Person B was apparently desperate to see his grandparents. He seems to see them as his best hope. So in whose interests was such an order? If he has broken his undertaking, Mr Taylor has surely been responding as humanely as most of us would. A jail sentence seems wholly disproportionate.
When I first learnt of this case I felt that there must be more to it. That perhaps the grandparents were suspected of abuse. I can find no evidence of any such allegation. Indeed, the authorities initially seemed happy to leave them in contact with John. What appears to have happened is that the exchanges between the family and social workers became increasingly bitter, all of whom no doubt believed themselves to be in the right.
The council cannot comment on individual cases. It will say only that “Mr Taylor was sentenced by the High Court after he breached a court order”. It cannot comment on John's treatment in care. John seems unhappy. He has apparently asked to be discharged. But his voice can only be heard within the system, a system he seems determined to rebel against.
There is a growing campaign on the internet to release Mr Taylor. This has two parts. The first is that a 20-month jail sentence is preposterous when the prisons are so overcrowded that dangerous criminals are being released early. The second is that Mr Taylor was allegedly committed to jail in a “secret court”. This seems unlikely. But it is an allegation that is made frequently. Legally, you cannot send someone to jail in a secret court. In practice, it is questionable whether a judge sitting in a family court from which press and public are excluded, who declares the court open for a few minutes to pronounce sentence, is really “open”.
This matters, because the view of the legal profession increasingly seems to be that the less we know the better. The justification for keeping family courts closed, despite the recommendations of the Commons Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, is to protect children's privacy. Yet this argument is no longer confined to the family courts. It is increasingly being trotted out in criminal cases too.
In the past month, one court has ruled that the defendants in a witchcraft trial, who were alleged to have done unspeakable things to children, could not be named in case this led to the identification of their victims. Another court banned publication of anything about a mother accused of poisoning her child with salt, in case the information affected her surviving child. The Times has recently succeeded in overturning yet another ruling, that a man who pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children could not be named in case his relatives might suffer. The Court of Appeal found that the man should be named, and that the attempts to restrict the proceedings were invalid.
The law must not become a secret process. Some lawyers seem convinced that the media want to identify vulnerable children, but it is always possible to write these stories without doing so. Seeing that justice is done is a fundamental part of law.
What is sad is that our elaborate system of child protection, which is designed to put children first, has sometimes become a way of avoiding accountability. The two MPs are right to ask whose interests Mr Taylor's jailing serves. Presumably, the last thing John wants is for his grandfather to be in jail. They are both victims of a system that asks us to take on trust that it knows best. But prison is surely the wrong place for Charles Roy Taylor.
Source: Times (UK)

Multiple Abuses by Halton CAS

December 12, 2007

In conjunction with the Barb Turkowska case (below), Canada Court Watch has posted a number of other problems with Halton CAS.

A family was broken up in January 1995. When the clergy intervened to urge reunification, CAS threatened the church. A letter from Brian Pearson summarized the case. The family has not been reunited, even in 2007.
Within the past two weeks a teenager in the care of Halton CAS gave a video statement to Canada Court Watch. She reported being beaten and robbed while inside a CAS supervised facility.
Within the past week, Halton CAS has refused to provide a membership list, as required by the Corporations Act. Canada Court Watch hints they may be concealing irregularities in the list.

The full story is posted on the Canada Court Watch home page in the entry for December 12, 2007. Below you can expand the letter of Brian Pearson.

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The original has a handwritten note:

PLEASE NOTE
Names of family erased because of court order banning identity of child + family.

Where the original had an erased name, we have inserted [surname], [mother], [father] or [daughter]. The letter is on the letterhead of:

St Stephen's Anglican Church
1121 - 14th Avenue South West
Calgary, Alberta T2R 0P3

April 12, 2000
To whom it may concern:
I am pleased to provide this statement regarding my dealings with the Children's Aid Society through 1995 in support of and, at times, on behalf of the [surname] family, members of St Simon's Anglican Church, Oakville, where I was rector from 1992 to 1997.
The unfolding of the circumstances involving the [surname]s and the Halton Region Children's Aid Society, right from the beginning, revealed to me a shocking abuse of power on the part of the CAS, a callous disregard for fair process, and an unwillingness to make any attempt to reintegrate [daughter], the [surname]'s daughter, with her family following her removal from the home in January, 1995. Instead, [daughter] became a pawn in the battle of wills between [father], her father, in his attempts to see her receive proper medical and psychiatric attention, and the CAS, who seemed solely concerned to protect their reputation after a botched handling of the case.
My involvement with the family has been documented elsewhere (in separate statements including those dated January 26, June 26, September 18 and December 10, 1995). This statement concerns my attempts on their behalf to effect a breaking of the impasse that existed between the family and the CAS as the case entered the fall of 1995.
In the fall of 1995, Irene Richards, a church member well known to the [surname]s, and I visited Ann Mulvale, Mayor of Oakville, outside the Halton Region council chambers. Ms Mulvale was aware of the circumstances involving the [surname]s and the CAS and was offering to help us gain access to the Board of Directors of the Halton Region CAS through Ron Carter, a Regional Councillor and a member of the CAS Board, in order to raise our concerns that the family had never received a fair hearing. She introduced us to Ron Carter, who promised to take our concerns to the next Board meeting. The result of this intervention on our behalf, conveyed to us by Ms Mulvale, was that Mr Carter was told at that meeting that this was one of the "worst cases of abuse the CAS had ever dealt with". No further information was offered substantiating this claim and Mr Carter felt no choice but to withdraw his questions.
In November, 1995, I sought an appointment with Terrance Young, MPP for Oakville North, to seek his help in pressing for a full investigation into the case by the Minister of Community and Social Services. He agreed to meet with the [surname]s and then, having done so, promised to help in contacting the Minister's office. However, following a phone conversation with CAS director Ron Coupland the next week, Mr Young suddenly withdrew his support. Mr Coupland had reiterated to Mr Young that this was one of the "worst cases of abuse the CAS had ever dealt with". Furthermore, in reference to a current media report from the US about a Sri Lankan man kidnapping his intended bride, Mr Coupland had added, "Maybe they do that sort of thing there!". Mr Young asked that neither he nor Mr Coupland be quoted, but said that with this new "evidence" he could no longer offer to help the [surname]s in their quest for a fair hearing.
But most significant was a meeting that took place on September 26, 1995, in the office of the Right Reverend Walter Asbil, then Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara. In attendance were the Bishop himself, Rob Welch, diocesan Chancellor (legal advisor to the diocese), Archdeacon Ralph Spence, myself, and two lawyers: David MacKenzie, representing the CAS, and Megan Pallett, representing the child, [daughter]. The meeting had been sought by David MacKenzie in the wake of some damaging public comments that had been made by local Anglican churches about the CAS in relation to this case.
At this meeting several revelations were made about the relationship of the CAS to the diocese. One was that the church could expect to "have egg on its fact" for attempting to take up the [surname]s' cause. Another was that, should the father, [father], fail to be reigned in in his fight with the CAS, he could "lose his daughter forever". Both of these seemed to be veiled threats directed at the church should it continue to help the [surname]s press for a fair hearing.
At the same meeting, both David MacKenzie and Megan Pallett agreed that the issue was no longer whether or not abuse had taken place; the issue was protecting the child because the believed abuse had taken place, causing the CAS to step in on her behalf. Megan Pallett agreed that, in any case, steps ought to be taken to reintegrate [daughter] with the family through visits arranged with her mother, [mother]. This reintegration has never taken place, now more than five years later.
At every turn, as these events show, the CAS, from early on, sought to discourage and dissuade those who sought to raise questions about its handling of the case and who supported the [surname]s in their quest for a fair hearing. This did nothing to assuage the concerns of many people, myself included, that the CAS was more interested in protecting itself than it was in protecting and working for her reintegration into her family.
Respectfully,
/signed/
Brian E Pearson
Rector, St Stephen's Church
Source: Canada Court Watch (pdf)

Secret Police Charge Family

December 12, 2007

Halton Police are prosecuting in a case in which a social worker left documents in a private home. There is no way to be sure, but this looks like the case we reported on October 26, in which the worker is identified as Barb Turkowska. So who is being prosecuted? Not the social worker, but the family who got her incompetent services.

Do you think this is a miscarriage of justice? Do you want to support the unfairly prosecuted family? You cannot. The proceedings are secret. You are not allowed to know the name of the aggrieved family.

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The Halton Herald
Halton Children's Aid Worker Compromises Private Confidential Client Information
Posted on Monday, December 10 @ 17:58:27 EST by editor
Halton: The Halton Regional Police Service reported today, that they have laid charges in connection to a complaint made by the Halton Children's Aid Society after confidential files were left at an Oakville client's home.
According to the report; "towards the end of October 2007, Halton Children's Aid Society files were left at the home of a CAS client family in Oakville. The files in question contained confidential information about a number of client families of the Halton Children's Aid Society". The Police report failed to note what 'type' of "confidential information" was contained in the file.
The report alleges; "CAS officials attempted unsuccessfully to retrieve the documents. As a result, the Halton Regional Police Service was contacted and asked to investigate the matter.
On December 8th, 2007 the police investigation resulted in the couple that came into possession of the CAS documents being charged criminally with Theft and Mischief."
Police reported; "The Theft charge resulted from the use of the documents by the couple after they came into possession of them". Once again, the report failed to report; what 'type' of "use" of the documents resulted in - theft charges being laid.
The report did note, however; "The Mischief charge resulted from the couple's refusal to return the highly sensitive documents to the Children's Aid Society, despite efforts made to retrieve them". No mention was made in the report as to whether or not the department retrieved the documents or if the documents might still be at large.
The department did report; "A 33 year old man and 33 year old woman, both Oakville residents, have been charged. They will not be identified, as the Children's Aid Society is still involved with them and their children on a client basis. Both are scheduled to appear in Milton Court on January 30th, 2008."
Source: Halton Herald

censorship

Addendum: This family currently does not want to attract attention. Any efforts at helping in the case should be directed to Canada Court Watch.

Return of Adoption Disclosure

December 11, 2007

Ontario is proposing to replace the adoption disclosure law, changing acronyms from AIDA to AARA. Here is the press release from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. You can already read bill 12, Access to Adoption Records Act (Vital Statistics Statute Law Amendment), 2007. Below is an announcement from COAR, giving an analysis of the bill.

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COAR Update
Today we met with staff members of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. They have created a new adoption disclosure bill. If it passes it will replace the Adoption Information Disclosure Act (AIDA), portions of which Judge Belobaba deemed unconstitutional.
The New Bill
The new bill allows:

Adopted adults (18 and older) to access their original birth registration.
Birth parents of adoptees (19 and older) to access the information found in the amended and original birth certificates.
Birth parents and adopted adults to file a contact veto
Birth parents and adopted adults to file a disclosure veto
Individuals who file a disclosure veto to provide updated medical and family histories.

The new bill is very similar to AIDA. The major changes are as follows:

The addition of the disclosure veto. The disclosure veto will expire after death. Individuals may withdraw the veto at any time.
Individuals who fear that disclosure may cause them harm no longer may apply to the Child and Family Services Board to keep their names hidden
Birth parents will not have to wait while the CAS determines whether their child was removed due to abuse. Their applications will be processed more quickly.

There is one other addition which we feel is very good news. Individuals adopted on or after September 1, 2008 and their birth parents will not be able to file a disclosure veto. They will have unrestricted access to information once the adoptee becomes an adult.
Moving the Bill Through the Legislature Today, the government introduced the bill to the legislature. They anticipate that it will return for second reading in early spring. It will then go to committee and return to the legislature for third reading. While we are very pleased that the government has created a new bill so quickly, we realize that we will have to wait several more months before we can apply for information.
We did discuss the current process and were assured that the government will resolve the issues many of you experienced finding applications for non-identifying information and the registry online. If you continue to have problems with this, please let us know and we will make sure that the government knows about them.
Like you we are disappointed to see the introduction of a disclosure veto but we all know that once this new bill becomes law we will be in a much better place than we were before the introduction of AIDA. Based on evidence from other jurisdictions we know that very few people will file a disclosure veto and that the vast majority of adopted adults and their birth parents will have access to their information.
In solidarity,
Michael Grand mgrand@uoguelph.ca
Karen Lynn ccnm@rogers.com
Wendy Rowney wrowney@rogers.com
Source: email from COAR

Family Tricked

December 6, 2007

In our news comments we treat all children in custody of child protectors as if they were seized by force of arms, even if the documents say parents gave up the children voluntarily. That is because dozens of parents have told us privately that those consents were obtained by coercion or deception. Today's story from Guam is about a senior US Navy officer, David G Matthews, who was cleared of child abuse by the police, but tricked into getting his family onto a registry of child abusers.

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Guam News
Friday December 7, 2007
$1.9M suit filed against US Navy
By Gina Tabonares, Variety News Staff
A SENIOR ranking officer of the U.S. Navy filed a $1.9 million lawsuit against the federal government for an alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
David G. Matthews, a GS14 COMNAVMAR member, filed the claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act in the District Court of Guam after the U.S. Navy denied the claim he filed on May 18, 2007 against the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, and COMNAVMAR Guam.
According to Matthews, the defendants’ reckless and unlawful conduct irreparably damaged his good name and reputation, and compelled him to seek early retirement from federal employment that resulted in significant personal, professional and financial implications.
His case stemmed from an incident on June 14, 2005 when his wife Debora was apprehended by COMNAVMAR security for alleged child abuse involving their daughter.
On the same day, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service concluded Debora Matthews did not abuse her daughter and the COMNAVMAR executive officer and attorneys stated there was no criminal investigation by the Navy or referral to the Guam Police Department.
Two days later, the Matthews couple received telephone calls from Vince Pereda, a Family Advocacy Program case manager for the COMNAVMAR Fleet and Family Support Center Guam. They briefly discussed the incident involving Debora Matthews and her daughter.
A review of the FFSC case records reveals Pereda “maintained” case notes as of June 16, 2005. Pereda discussed the case with a Guam Child Protective Services worker after initiating records and without the approval of the plaintiff and his wife.
The case manager and a Guam Child Protective Services worker told the couple that they didn’t need an attorney and that there was no criminal case, but they were never apprised of the potential consequences of their discussions which is the purpose of the PA and FAP program description document.
On June 17, 2005, Pereda asked Debora Matthews to sign two documents which he stated were required to allow FFSC/CPS to interview their daughter.
David Matthews, however, learned that the two documents were the Privacy Act statement and the FFSC Program Description.
He said neither document was explained to them nor Pereda asked his wife to read the documents prior to signing, describing the act as a trick to have Debora Matthews to sign the forms.
The plaintiff asked a criminal investigation concerning the falsified document but they felt that the defendant attempted to conceal the crime.
In September 2005, the Navy placed the plaintiff and his wife in a military tribunal for alleged child abuse. As a result, the Matthews were placed in a federal registry as child abusers.
The information that was illegally and unlawfully obtained from the plaintiff and his wife was used against them in the tribunal.
The Matthews were concerned with the personal and professional ramification of a military tribunal and, on Sept. 1, 2005, they asked the U.S. Navy if they were eligible for Navy legal service support in regard to the military tribunal but a Department of Defense employee said it was a local call denying their eligibility.
The plaintiff said they were put in the child abuser registry and labeled without due process.
Matthew said that placing his name under central registry will have negative impact on his current and future employment and security clearance.
The couple wrote a letter to COMNAVMAR and the DOD asking to remove their names from the federal registry as child abusers and asked additional information, but they were disregarded and provided no response.
They asked the court for compensatory damages of $1.951.894, the removal of their names from the federal registry as child abusers, to provide them all information requested via the Freedom of Information Act, and provide answers to all questions they asked in his original claim.
Source: Marianas Variety

No More Shaken Babies

December 6, 2007

Over the past two decades there have been many cases of parents accused of abuse or homicide on the basis of shaken baby syndrome. Testimony by Michael Pollanen to the Goudge Inquiry suggests that this condition belongs in the junk science category. English courts have already rejected the syndrome. While reversal of criminal convictions is possible, no adoptions will be undone to right two decades of wrongs.

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The Globe and Mail
MD casts doubt on shaken baby syndrome
KIRK MAKIN, JUSTICE REPORTER, December 6, 2007
The deaths of 142 Ontario babies since 1986 were attributed to a cause many scientists now believe has been discredited - shaken baby syndrome - the province's top forensic pathologist testified yesterday.
Michael Pollanen told Mr. Justice Stephen Goudge that skepticism about SBS is so great that he should consider urging a review of the cases when he produces his report next spring.
Dr. Pollanen said he did not know how many of the 142 cases were investigated as suspicious deaths, resulting in criminal charges, convictions or the seizure of siblings from the parents of the pediatric victims.
"To be very straightforward, this would generate a lot of controversy in the community... because it is very polarized," Dr. Pollanen said.
The inquiry was launched last spring to look at how the province's former star pathologist, Charles Smith, was able to rise to the top of his profession despite a series of autopsy errors that led to miscarriages of justice.
However, Dr. Pollanen's revelation yesterday went beyond Dr. Smith to include the work of other pathologists who diagnosed SBS - a conclusion that was typically made upon the discovery of brain swelling and retinal bleeding combined with tissue damage to the linings of the brain.
Dr. Pollanen said that in recent years, a significant segment of the scientific community has come to believe that these symptoms can be found in babies who suffer an accidental blow to the head or an innocent fall.
He testified that Britain took the lead a couple of years ago, systematically re-examining a large number of SBS cases in what became known as the Goldsmith review.
"In the U.K., some of these convictions were quashed," he said. "The scope of the problem is not clear in Ontario. There needs to be some consideration of whether we should undertake something like the Goldsmith review."
Similar reviews may follow in other countries, Dr. Pollanen said.
"One of the factors to put fuel on the fire in the U.S. is that traditionally, sentences have been robust in these kind of cases - the death penalty or life imprisonment.
"In the face of what some people believe to be remarkable miscarriages of justice in some of these cases, it really has polarized groups of experts."
Dr. Pollanen also testified that:
A 1991 ruling by a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice who acquitted a 12-year-old of murdering a baby was "a masterful analysis of the case ... that was slightly ahead of its time." Dr. Pollanen was effectively endorsing the judge, Mr. Justice Patrick Dunn, who rejected Dr. Smith's testimony in acquitting the babysitter. The inquiry has heard that Dr. Smith often told colleagues that Judge Dunn later confided he regretted the acquittal and should instead have convicted the babysitter.
With not a single medical school in Canada offering forensic pathology training as an area of subspecialty, "I would say we have lagged about 40 years behind in comparison to other systems."
Forensic pathologists working in provincial coroners' systems are "prohibitively" underpaid in comparison to their counterparts in the private sector.
Defence counsel in Ontario will never have more than one or two forensic pathologists willing to work on homicides unless legal aid funding improves substantially and experts get over their revulsion for disputing conclusions by colleagues testifying for the Crown.
Advances in forensic pathology have made it even more clear that a Kingston baby known as Sharon definitely died of bites from a pit bull.
At the time, the fact that most of the injuries were to her neck, shoulders and head was considered highly unusual and suggestive of a homicidal stabbing. However, Dr. Pollanen said that recent studies have shown that, unlike attacks on adults, dogs frequently savage those portions of a child's anatomy.
Source: Globe and Mail

State Ward Kills Eight

December 6, 2007

The gunman, Robert A Hawkins, who yesterday killed eight people and himself in Omaha, Nebraska, was a state ward for four years. While in state care he was diagnosed with three mood disorders. We don't know for sure that he was medicated, but if not, this is the first time on record psychiatrists diagnosed mood disorders without prescribing drugs. So this continues the pattern of mass shootings by young people — the killer was on psychotropic drugs, or separated from his father by force of arms, or apparently as in this case, both.

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KETV.com
State Spent $265K On Hawkins' Care
Mall Shooter Was State Ward For 4 Years
UPDATED: 5:16 pm CST December 6, 2007
OMAHA, Neb. -- Nebraska spent $265,000 and four years trying to provide help to the 19-year-old who became the Westroads Mall shooter on Wednesday afternoon.
Eight people were killed, in addition to the shooter, Robert A. Hawkins.
Gov. Dave Heineman said Hawkins became a ward of the state on Sept. 17, 2002, but parental rights were not terminated and none of his siblings were state wards. Hawkins was terminated as a state ward on Aug. 24, 2006.

Todd Landry, the director of Child and Family Services for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the state spent $265,000 on services provided to Hawkins over the four years he was a state ward. Landry said Hawkins was made a state ward with no parental fault, but because he needed services, which included stays at residential centers and in-patient at a hospital.
Landry said Hawkins stayed at a facility in Missouri called Piney Ridge, plus Omaha's Cooper Village, Lutheran Family Services and Addiction and Behavioral Health Services Inc. Landry said those homes provide addiction counseling, mental-health counseling and behavioral counseling, among other services, but he could not say exactly what Hawkins was treated for under federal and state privacy laws.
Landry did say that one of the treatment periods came after Hawkins threatened to kill his stepmother.
Hawkins Timeline:

2002 became ward of the state
February 2003 taken to Cooper Village
November 2003 arrested for a fight
December 2004 enters foster care
March 2005 charged with possession with intent to deliver
December 2005 went to live with his father in La Vista
August 2006 state care ends under court order

While a state ward, he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, mood disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and parent-child relations problems.
Landry said Hawkins was "provided quality services for a youth that needed it."
Chief Outlines Shooter's Day
On Thursday morning, Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said Hawkins was in and out of Von Maur before he opened fire.
Hawkins opened fire at 1:42 p.m. Wednesday. Warren said surveillance video shows Hawkins entering the store twice. The second time, he entered the main entrance on the first level of Von Maur about six minutes before police received the first call for shots fired. He said the tapes show that Hawkins was obviously hiding something in a black sweatshirt.
"He took the elevator to the third floor," Warren said. "Upon exiting the elevator, he immediately started firing shots."
It seems that Hawkins started shooting near the children's department. That's where 34-year-old attorney Jeff Schafford was shot in the arm.
On the third floor, Hawkins walked past the escalator atrium and shot down to the second floor, killing a customer, the chief said. He then walked to customer service.
"Several people were mortally injured. Multiple shots fired. In a recessed customer service area, he encountered several individuals (then) took his own life," Warren said.
Customers, shocked and scared, said that's when they began rushing for exits. By the time police arrived, the shooting was over.
Warren speculated that at least 30 rounds were fired from an AK-47 rifle. Warren said he believes the weapon was stolen from Hawkins' stepfather. Warren said the gun had two 30-round magazines with the ability to fire off rounds quickly.
Hawkins apparently left two suicide notes and a will, prompting Warren to call the shootings premeditated. The chief said people may never know why he went on a rampage. Warren said it appears that the victims were chosen randomly. He said it also appears the mall was chosen because it's a large public place where he'd get a lot of attention.
Warren said Hawkins left voice and text messages for his mother, friends and an ex-girlfriend and that Hawkins visited a friend near Westroads before the shooting.
A woman who said she used to hang out with Hawkins said she and the Von Maur shooter would smoke pot together. "Mandy" said her father forced her to quit hanging out with Hawkins and his friends, and in recent weeks she'd received threats from the group.
Mandy said Hawkins had threatened her and her family as recently as two weeks ago. She said one message threatened to shoot her if she didn't stop bad-mouthing Hawkins.
Hawkins was due in Sarpy County Court this month on minor in possession charges. In 2006, charges filed against him in Washington County related to drugs had been dropped.
Source: KETV

Addendum: Here is definite word from his mother that shooter Robert Hawkins started taking Ritalin and Zoloft early in childhood.

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Mom: Omaha mall shooter was troubled child
Published: Dec. 13, 2007 at 8:11 PM
NEW YORK, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- A young man who killed eight people at a Nebraska mall before taking his own life was a troubled child, his mother said Thursday.
Maribel Rodriguez told ABC's "Good Morning America" that Robert Hawkins was taking Ritalin, a drug given to hyperactive children, and the anti-depressant Zoloft when he was 5. From 2002 to 2005, he moved through a succession of foster homes after allegedly threatening his stepmother.
"I'm not a dictator, so I can't tell you what to think,'' Rodriguez said during the interview."But as his mother I loved him, deeply and without end. If you want to hate Rob, hate Rob. You don't need that type of pain. It destroys your soul."
Hawkins had broken up with a girlfriend and lost his job not long before the Dec. 5 shootings. He left a note that suggested he wanted to be famous for something but also said that he did not want to "be a burden" on his loved ones.
Source: United Press International