The BC Liberal Regime Destroys Another Child & Family: The Criminalization of Poverty

"While we remain the worst in Canada, we certainly have not seen a growth in child poverty in B.C.," she said.

- Honourable Mary Polak - Minister of Child & Family Development

So, lets get this straight. The "child protection" system, in their infinite wisdom, decides to take a healthy, well loved and cared for infant, two months old, away from his parents, with whom the child was safe and had experienced NO reported abuse, or neglect. The reason for the apprehension - the parents could not find the magical housing MCFD told them they had to find.
MCFD, doesn't even bother to help refer the young parents to any services, or help them find housing themselves. And, the welfare system flat out refuses to provide the mother with access to income assistance and funds for housing. And MCFD doesn't advocate for the mother to get welfare either. Then, when healthy baby gets into the hell of foster care, he is moved to no less than 3 different foster homes and EXPERIENCES SOME SORT OF CRITICAL INJURY AND TRAUMATIC HEAD INJURY WITHIN ONE OF MCFD'S FOSTER HOMES - LEAVING HIM PERMANENTLY DISABLED - BLIND IN ONE EYE, WITH CEREBRAL PALSY AND IS UNABLE TO WALK, OR MEET HIS DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONES. He's put into a 4th foster home, before MCFD sends him home, disabled for life.

If this case does not send chills down the back of anyone who has children I don't know what will? No matter who you are, how much money you have, your position, or class in life - once you are in the grip of BC's nightmarish child protection system, you will understand the sheer terror of having your own children being held hostage to a system lacking in common sense, competence, compassion and sanity. Bosch would have found this great fodder for his art.

Now are people starting to get why being #1 in Canada for child poverty 6 years in a row is bad for BC's children & families? It isn't just rhetoric - poverty hurts children, it puts families into crisis and the systems that should be there to help them, instead push them over the edge and then after they screw up, they give broken babies back to families to deal with.

• We should all be asking ourselves, how many more children has this sort of thing happened to?
  
• How many children have been put into the child protection blender and come out worse than when they went in?
• Why is so much power and authority given to a Ministry and it's minions when, in many instances, they clearly are unable to operate with a duty of care that is called for?
• How much longer do we tolerate this?

A Word to those Who Aren't Wise - MCFD and the BC government and their flotilla of soulless parasitic lawyers (aka Justice Branch) better wise up and offer a timely and fair settlement to these parents and this child. For the rest of their days and that innocent baby's time on this planet this family will be living a disadvantaged, MCFD-created nightmare of disability and the lost hopes of what might have been for their child. Settle the civil suit quickly, with justice and give this family the dignity that the state stole from them when they removed their whole and healthy child and returned him more damaged than anyone could have ever imagined.

Everyone within MCFD who touched this file and created this cluster #@^! should have been fired. There can no longer be the same kind of tolerance and protection of MCFD employees from the irresponsibility of their actions towards children and families when acting with such power as to destroy people's lives. This must be stopped. This includes everyone up the food chain all the way to top management in the region. In the private sector, when people screw up they are fired, or have the grace and decency to resign and walk away with their tail between their legs. Not so in the BC government, people who are completely undeserving walk away from the dire and tragic outcomes of their decisions safe in the knowledge they will be protected and that has to change.

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Housing, Help and Hope: A Better Path for Struggling Families.

Representative for Children and Youth

A struggling young family needed short-term housing assistance so their baby could be safe, but instead the child was taken into government care. A Representative for Children and Youth investigation into a First Nations baby’s critical injury finds that many of the systemic factors that played a major role in the infant’s removal from his parents still exist today.

To view the report, click here.
To view the news release, click here.

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BC's children's rep says government failed baby by refusing help to parents

Camille Bains, THE CANADIAN PRESS

Excerpt:

VANCOUVER, B.C. - British Columbia's child welfare system badly failed a baby boy who was wrongfully taken from his parents and placed in foster care where he suffered injuries that almost killed him, the province's children's representative says.

"For a time during my investigation period we didn't think this child would survive," she said.

Turpel-Lafond's concerns are highlighted in the report "Housing, Help and Hope: A Better Path for Struggling Families," which she submitted to the government on Tuesday.

"One day, the woman's walking with the infant in a stroller down this reserve and the RCMP and a social worker come along and say, 'We're taking your child.' How would any parent in British Columbia feel about that? I would say devastated."

Turpel-Lafond said the mom was told to wait three weeks before she could access income assistance but emergency funds should have been provided instead of placing the child in care.

Too often, she said social workers default to removing the children from their parents.

"The parents posed no threat to the child and they could not, because of poverty, access housing," Turpel-Lafond said.

"Obviously it was in the child's best interest to be with the mom, who is a loving and committed mom but also is someone who has such challenges to cope with because of her poverty and there was no one there to help."

British Columbia has the highest child poverty rate in Canada for the sixth year in a row, Turpel-Lafond said, adding that in the past few years, there's been a 72-per-cent increase in the number of two-parent families seeking assistance.

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Social workers erred in removing child from poor parents: report

CBC.
Comment from Shiney wrote:Posted 2009/07/30 at 6:59 PM ET

To Social worker. I have removed hundreds of children, so I know your moccasins. I have trained a number of social workers in child protection, and I can tell you that today's training and supervision is pathetic,in spite of there being many more staff than in my day. One thing that has not changed is the incompetent senior management.Do not let them near your cases if you can help it.
Some guidelines. Never be afraid to use your authority, because you cannot protect children without it. Be very much afraid ABUSING your authority. You have great power to destroy. Always be prepared to review your decisions when new information comes to light. Admit your mistakes and correct them immediately.Finally we never removed children because of lack of shelter. We paid for motels instead. Simple aint it

B.C. Children's Ministry report reveals 'chaos,' NDP says