Australian Four Corners Video

There is  no doubt that the video presently making the rounds of social media and world news sources is a tough watch. The series of videos show abuse of a boy over time in an Australian institution.

The videos can be found here and here and here and here. But remember, they are not an easy watch as you will se child abuse and torture of a teenage boy, Dylan Voller.

Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation video posted to YouTube

It will be easy to get focused on how the institution saw the management of children in this fashion as somehow acceptable.  And yes, that is an important question. The larger conversation though, is needed about how we treat people within prison systems. In this case - children. Strip searches, isolation and torture, which occurred in this case, come from a philosophy of how people (and I use that word very consciously) are worthy of being treated when in custody.

There are very different correctional philosophies with Norway often being cited as one where rehabilitation is the paramount objective; Canada with some balance between retribution and rehabilitation and the United States seeming to tip more towards retribution.

The Australian case is a moment for societies to consider what is the purpose of the criminal justice, child protection and mental health systems and how are they to inter-relate and inter-connect. If we just look at the case of this boy, we will miss the much larger discussion.

Affecting the discussion is an increasing sense of fear in our societies. There may well be valid reasons for some of that given recent events in Europe from what appears to have been a series of terrorist tragedies to the domestic events such as the Orlando shootings in the USA. Such large scale tragedies deflect us from the reality the, by far, the vast majority of people are in jail for crimes related to mental health, addiction, trauma and poverty. Dylan appears to be an example of such a person.

How he was treated (and many other cases of people being put into things like long period isolation) will have lasting impacts on their mental health. Every time such methods are used we reduce the probability of successful reintegration into society. The trauma and its mental health impacts accumulate over time. There are many who suggest that techniques like solitary confinement do substantial long term damage to the health of people incarcerated. Some examples of that data can be found through a PBS documentary as well as this report the American Psychological Association.

By using these incarceration techniques we are adding to society's burden. Add to this the rapidly expanding field of epigenetics and we see that traumas like this move through generations within the DNA. The implications are that the children of such an abused person will pass their trauma on to the next generations.

With the type of abuse that Dylan appears to have experienced, we also reduce the probabilities that he could be a successful parent. Not only then does the DNA carry the trauma but there is a significantly increased possibility that the social emotional environment of the next generation will be impoverished. This creates a further burden for society through child protection and its related systems.

It is this broader conversation that should be happening. Yes, what specifically happened to Dylan matters but the underlying philosophies and practices related to people like Dylan is the bigger picture. A further question that should be examined is why, as societies, are we so willing to buy into approaches that have been shown to not work - indeed to make things worse. A good part of the answer is that we fear people in prisons and also they deserve what they get - except that it is the larger society that pays the greater price.

Let Dylan Voller's case be an opportunity for the bigger conversation.

Another view on this conversation can be found at the blog of Tony Tonkin.

Intolerance as a risk for children

There is a growing intolerance that is becoming evident in the public discourse. There seems a willingness, perhaps under the rubric of freedom of speech, to target individuals, groups of persons or classes of persons. There has been suggestion that racial and immigrant intolerance was related to the BREXIT vote. Some are noting that the present US presidential race is seeing an increase in caustic rhetoric that is sexist, racist and reminiscent of the politics of oppression.

There has been a linkage to violence with the shootings in Orlando recently targeting gays. There are divisive arguments about refugees, Muslims, minorities. Here in Canada, we still see evidence of racism with a Black person in Toronto, for example, likely to be carded by the police for being Black.

One can hardly spend time on Facebook without coming across various forms of "hate" speech. Twitter has just banned Milo Yiannopoulous for racist comments about a Black actress. In essence, we have seen the growth of emotional terrorism. It is a form of tolerated bullying.

What does this have to do with child protection? In general terms, it is the most vulnerable families who come to the attention of child protection. These are also the families that are the targets of the intolerance - poor, racial minorities, LGBTQ community. Many live in areas where community supports, schools, social services and health care are not as well funded.

When we allow intolerance to grow, then there is also a reduced motivation to find the solutions that can be driven by both public and not for profit agencies. It tends to breed the "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" type of thinking. And if they cannot, then they are not worthy people.

It also breeds laws where people who can least manage in vulnerable positions are then put at greater risk. Examples can be seen with a variety of legal efforts to limit access to reproductive rights in the United States. But lest anyone think this is a US bashing commentary, be assured it is not. For the intolerance appears to be growing across many nations.

When you also see the economic challenges that many countries are also facing, then, as seen with BREXIT, there is a diminished willingness to support vulnerable populations that "are not like us".

This emotional terrorism increases the vulnerability of vulnerable families and, in particular, children. The growing field of epigenetics shows that trauma experienced in one generation is passed on to subsequent generations through the DNA. Thus, when we fail a generation of children, we create both the social and genetic conditions to carry the problems into the next generations.

This point is made explicitly clear in the Truth and Reconciliation Report in Canada which shows how the traumas arising from the Indian Residential Schools are still being played out in First Nations, Inuit and Metis families across the country.

Child welfare gets asked to intervene in families where, in reality the problems are not protection of children but systemic neglect that arises from the emotional terrorism (which often plays out in physical conditions) that society has imposed on communities. Child welfare cannot solve these problems and intolerance will lead to the problems becoming more entrenched than they are already.

The growing social unrest that follows marginalization, which we are seeing in a variety of forums, will put pressure on child protection as these pressures get lived out in family life. There is a need for a large conversation across many political, social and policy forums. Child protection should be part of the conversation so that players can see the downstream implications of intolerance.

The policy debate that should come out of the death of Alex Radita

Canadian media is covering the current trail of Emil and Rodica Radita for the first degree murder of their 15 year old son Alex. The allegations involve medical neglect of their son's diabetes leading to his death. The family is reported to have been involved in child protection systems in British Columbia and Ontario prior to his death in Alberta.

Much has been made of the supposed failure of British Columbia social workers to notify their counter parts in Alberta when they learned the family had moved left B.C. They had found out about the move as they were looking for the family when it became apparent they were not following through with Alex's medical care.

There has also been significant criticism of a judge in B.C. for returning Alex to parental care even when the child protection workers and specialists were arguing against it. National Post columnist Christie Blatchford has been quite critical of that decision and the failure of B.C. social workers to follow up with Alberta.

Alex Radita at age 15 (Source: Calgary Herald from photos released by the Court)

Child protection systems are often criticized for their failure to effectively communicate with agencies. It is a theme that has cropped up in most of the 91 public reviews I have examined in Canada. It is also very common in reviews in other countries.

There is an issue that needs discussing in Canada though, but also in countries such as the United States. Canada's constitution places control of child protection within provincial and territorial jurisdiction (there are specific aspects that are different for Aboriginal on reserve families but that is for another post). Health care and child protection legal processes also fall under provincial jurisdiction. Thus, each province and territory operates their own system, except for Ontario which places delivery of child protection into a complex network of children's aid societies following provincial legislation.

What this means is there is no national child protection system. It is a series of unique systems. Each jurisdiction has its own legislation, policy, procedures and service delivery mechanism. There is  no national requirement for data sharing. Families can and do move between jurisdictions to avoid continuing scrutiny by child protection. They are quite able to do so once their case in one province is no longer active.

When a case opens in one area, families are asked about their history elsewhere but there is no national database to work from. Should there be? Protagonists of data sharing might well argue for one but those who argue for protection of information and privacy might well make an alternative argument. Child protection legislators and senior managers across Canada might well take the Radita case as an opening for a national discussion. I want to emphasize that many of the workers I know make efforts to learn about families past participation in other parts of the country.

The Radita case raises some important policy issues and we should not let the chance pass. Another one is about legal duty of care. Like the Jeffrey Baldwin case in Ontario, it appears there were other adult children in the Radita home. Yet the criminal code does not place a duty of care on those who are not parents or legal guardians. Thus, other adults in the home who were aware Alex and Jeffrey were at risk cannot be held accountable . That too should be reconsidered.

It is important to note that, at the time of writing, the criminal trial noted above is still ongoing. Thus, the accused have not been convicted of a criminal offence in this matter. 

Managing the undefineable - the human judgments of child protection

Child protection is the front end of a bargain between a child and society. Essentially, society says that they will leave a family to raise their children as long as they do so safely. The deal with the child is that, if that does not happen, society will protect the child and the child protection authority will act on behalf of society. It's a bargain that we often do not know how to uphold.

To begin with, we lay that bargain out through legislation. Inherent in most such laws is a belief that the family is the root of society and is an institution that requires preservation. In other words, society should intrude into the family only as much as needed to protect the child.

Next comes the decision by child protection to enter the family - but there are certain hurdles:

• Someone must alert the child protection authority that there is a concern. Many countries have mandatory reporting laws that require a variety of professionals to call them. Many do but there are many examples of professionals who do not because past efforts to report a concern have led to no apparent action. Some won't because they are so uncertain about whether the child really is in danger. Some professionals feel that there is little point in reporting a child because the child is already so disconnected and won't comply with efforts to help. This was seen very clearly in the Paige case that led to a blunt review by the B.C. Representative for Children and Youth. 
• Once the report is filed, a human judgment is made by an intake worker to investigate or simply note the report in case there are further reports. This very human  judgment is influenced by such factors as how the report was framed, the degree of danger seems to exist, the resources available as well as the presence or absence of past reports.
• If the report is investigated another human judgment is made which is whether or not there is a risk to the child; how serious is that risk; is it serious enough to open a case; could it be handled in a less intrusive way or is the risk sufficient to become quite intrusive.

Inherent in this series of human judgments is defining safety and risk. There are a  multitude of factors that are taken into consideration and the investigator must try to weigh the various options and meaning of the data. Some have suggested that this means structured decisions should be used by entering data into various investigative formats. Yet, in those cases, someone must still find a way to operationalize a way to define and measure safety. Even in cases of structured tools, the front line worker must make meaning out of the data; must find the data; must contextualize the data; must know what to look for and be able to see it. To enter the data they must be able to discern what is in front of them. It is a human judgment process to make meaning out of information even when you enter it into a decision making tool.

Safety is an incredibly complex concept in which many factors interact in an unpredictable way - parenting, mental health, addiction, community, culture, poverty, housing, schooling, resources, temperament and personality of the child to name a few. The worker has to figure out the interactions. The worker is asked to predict probability for the safety of the child.

The worker is but one of the decision makers. The data gathered by the worker will be presented to a variety of other human judgment makers as the open case moves along - supervisors, colleagues, contracted community resources, lawyers and the courts, for example. Each will weigh the data (which is typically constantly changing) and judge what is and should happen.

The family are also making a series of human judgments - what to tell; what to cooperate or not cooperate around; what to try and self manage; how to interpret the direction of child protection and other parties. 

It is a series of human judgments made by many parties with ever changing data that is typically imperfect seeking to predict the behaviour of human beings in an environment where no prediction tool shows reasonable accuracy. No wonder child protection gets things wrong at times - indeed how could they not. So why are we not telling that story?

Looking at the Sixties Sxoop

The Sixties Scoop has come to represent the transition from Residential Schools as a means of controlling and disrupting Aboriginal families, communities and cultures across Canada. Indeed, Cindy Blackstock of the First People's Child and Family Caring Society has termed child welfare as the new Residential school.

An MRU journalism student sought to have a look at the Sixties Scoop and offer some insights into what that period was and profiles two people who were impacted by it. The blog can be found here.

In another relevant report, I have been part of a group that has been looking at how First Nations parents are assessed in the child welfare system. The report, Nistawatsimin: Exploring First Nations Parenting: A Literature Review and Expert Consultation with Blackfoot Elders:

This report provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the scholarship that encompasses relevant topics surrounding the theme of Aboriginal parenting. It seeks to contribute to a larger conversation about the relationship between child protection services (CPS) and Aboriginal peoples. The focus is on how parents are considered and assessed by CPS. In this report, the authors raise the notion that the foundations of assessment have not been rooted in Aboriginal cultural and their world view of family and parenting.

It is one step in challenging how child protection looks at First Nations parents. It is rooted in a Blackfoot view and thus the work requires extension and adaptation to other Aboriginal cultures. But it is a place to start.

The tragedy of the Jian Ghomeshi case but it's not about the judge

The acquittal of Jian Ghomeshi on four counts of sexual assault has rightly caused an uproar in Canada. But the focus of the debate is not about what the judge did unless you want to congratulate him for doing precisely what we ask judges to of. He assessed the evidence and the credibility of it against the appropriate standard of whether or not there was a reasonable doubt. He concluded there was.

The real lessons come from what evidence was put in front of the judge which led to the decision. One might also criticize the theatrics of the defence counsel. One might go further and ask whether or not the case was presented in the light of what we really know about the victims of sexual assault.

In Canada, only about 6 per 100 cases of sexual assault are reported to the police. It's a pathetic statistic but there are many reasons why it exists:

• There is fear of how the victim will be judged - certainly we saw good reason for that fear based on how the victims were dealt with by Ghoneshi's lawyer. That lawyer will no doubt state that she was doing what she was supposed to do - vigorously defend her client. Yet, should a victim leave a cross examination more damaged when she came into the court? The Macleans magazine interview with one victim, Lucy DeCoutere illustrates the high price she paid.
• Witnesses are often not believed. My own experience with victims is that telling the story is a huge risk as the victim is not often seen that way. They are probed for evidence that they led the perpetrator on, failed to make clear they were not offering consent or had allowed themselves to become too impaired to properly protect themselves. It's called victim blaming and it's real.
• There is much shame arising from being a victim. This arises from some of the same victim blaming forces. There are also some communities and cultures who will also see the victim as forever "damaged goods". 

There are many other reasons but these are some of the most powerful. But there is one even greater reason - women are vulnerable to the societal structures that allow men to dominate, control and demand. We are still socializing boys to believe that somehow they "deserve" what they want which includes sex. 

The judge was missing some clear evidence that helped the court fully understand the behaviours of victims. What the women described on the stand (at least as reported by the media) is quite typical of victims of sexual assault. This includes believing that they were somehow at fault. This leads to further contact with the perpetrator. Victims are also often caught up in the enmeshed dysfunctional relationship were they feel they are responsible for making it better. Courts need expert evidence on these types of behaviours. The effects of sexual trauma also distort memory, impact decision making and influence the cohesiveness of the story. Traumatic memory can compartmentalize the story such that when it is told, it is told incompletely. The court also needs expert evidence to explain the neurobiology of traumatic memory and behaviours that arise from that. 

Children who have been sexually abused are just as likely as an adult not disclose, particularly given that the perpetrator is most often someone they know and trust. As Esposito (2015) notes:

Sadly, disclosure of childhood sexual abuse is often met with disbelief, anger, or rejection. This leaves a child feeling isolated, unnoticed and unsure. Children say they don’t disclose because they are afraid of the consequences to themselves and others, they feel ashamed or in some way responsible for the abuse, they are unsure whether an abuse has occurred, or they do not know where to turn to for help. Children therefore make calculated decisions about disclosing; they consider who they will tell, whether they will be believed and how much detail they should provide. (p.1)

We have an urgent conversation in Canada which is how to encourage disclosure and make it safe to do so. We must also speak about how these cases are managed in the courts. The Ghomeshi trial will have a chilling effect on the willingness and ability of victims to disclose. The real lesson from the trial: "You will not be believed; You will be attacked and vilified; Your perpetrator will get away with with it, so why try".

As a nation, we need to change these messages but we also need to change the message that sexual assault is ever permissible. The cultural position of boys and men needs to change (and yes, males are  by far the most common perpetrators). They need to truly understand that consent is a necessity.

Our non-judicial institutions also need to protect victims far better than they have been. There has been an avalanche of media coverage about sexual assault on post secondary campuses. These stories have, unfortunately, also highlighted how victims in post secondary are not protected. This is an example of how institutions can play a role in prevention but also in supporting victims.

The story of sexual assault needs changing. Ghomeshi's case took us further away from protection and prevention. The message is loud and clear - even if you are found out and charged, your chances of being convicted are poor. The odds are stacked in favour of perpetrators in this country. How truly sad!

Reference: Esposito, c. (2015). Child sexual abuse and disclosure: What does the research tell us? New South Wales: Office of the Senior Practitioner, Family and Community Services. Available at this link

Child Death Reviews - An American imperative?

Youth Today is reporting on a recommendation from a US Federal Commission that:

wants the states to examine all child abuse and neglect fatalities from the past five years as part of a national strategy to end such deaths.

The notion is interesting. Trying to understand what has gone wrong in the past is often seen as a way to help prevent further deaths. Looking into deaths has become common in many countries. For example:

• Serious Case Reviews in the UK are used as a way to find leanings from deaths that might help the child protection system do a better job protecting children
• Large scale formal public reviews are used by politicians to look into high profile cases. In Canada, there has been the Phoenix Sinclair review which published its report in 2015 after months of public hearings. Another example is the Victoria Climbe case in the UK.
• The Jeffrey Baldwin case saw a high profile Coroner's Inquiry which received national media attention.
• There are inquiries by agencies that represent children and youth such as the Child and Youth Advocate in Alberta which this week issued a report on the death of Lily. These reviews offer an independent lens on what might have gone wrong.

There are other methods as well such as aggregate reviews by third parties along with internal reviews. The latter are not typically made public. The advantage of many review processes is that they are public allowing citizens to feel that there is a sense of accountability.

There are downsides however. There is somehow a feeling that all deaths can be prevented. That is not the case as it is not possible to predict with any certainity who will or will not kill a child. There is also the negative impact that these stories have in child protection practice. In particular is the impact on worker's decision making - they tend towards bringing more children into care in order to not be the worker with the next case on the front page. That may not serve children well.

The recommendation in the United States may not be the best use of resources. There are literally hundreds of inquiries in the western world that show oft repeating patterns of practice errors that contribute to poor outcomes for children. A better use of resources might have been to analyze and learn from those inquires. A next step might be to set up a way to use that knowledge while also setting up methodologies to learn from new cases. Going back over a 5 year period will use a lot of resources and be unlikely to yield information that is different from the existing knowledge base.

By using existing data, there has been an opportunity to reframe how child protection is delivered. This is an opportunity missed. Doing it differently has more promise than spending time looking backward especially when a large database of such learning already exists.

Jeffrey Baldwin: A thematic analysis of media coverage and implications for social work practice

ABSTRACT

Jeffery Baldwin died in 2002 in the care of his maternal grandparents. The case received intense media attention at various times over an almost eight-year period. Along with other public documents, the media coverage permits an analysis of the practice errors by Child Protection Services that are related to the failure to protect Jeffrey. Nine key themes emerged around core child protection practices: opening a file; the role of prior knowledge; issues related to assessment; knowing the child and their needs; the role of culture; case supervision; the child as the client; the enmeshment of child abuse; and the role of stability and healing. This analysis offers key lessons to be learned from such cases.

This article has been published in Child Care in Practice

Sexual assault - two worrisome public events

The Canadian media has been buzzing with the trial of Jian Ghomeshi. He is a former broadcaster with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). There were women who came forward to tell of their allegations that sexual activity with Ghomeshi was not consensual. He was fired from the CBC and charged with several offences.

The trial has been high profile. It is perhaps the way that the women have been treated in the court that is the most sensational story. Their behaviour has been dissected in salacious detail. The women have been on trial as opposed to Ghomeshi who did not testify in his defence. The challenge is that victims of sexual assault suffer from memory distortions, enmeshed relationships, shame and guilt and a tremendous amount of fear about how they will be treated by friends, family and the community. The intense cross examination they received in court will have only added to these fragile emotional states. Stories from victims are typically disjointed and often have inconsistencies in them.

Jian Ghomeshi

We await the decision of the court in March.

However, the real lesson here is for other victims. There is little value in coming forward with your story. You will be treated badly. Your story will be challenged in a way that will go to the heart and will be discredited.

A good look at the memory issue can be found in this CBC story. What is important as a take away, is that traumatic memories are not formed and recalled in cohesive, through ways but more as the essential essence of what took place. By comparison, cross examination in courts will focus on minute details, inconsistencies, contradictions and things forgotten. In other words, cross examination will use the very weaknesses of traumatic memory as the basis to discredit the witness.

The second story comes out of the Vatican. As Time magazine reports (as do many other news outlets)

The Catholic Church is allegedly telling newly ordained bishops that they have no obligation to report child-sexual-abuse allegations to law-enforcement officials, saying instead that the decision to take such claims to the authorities should be left to victims and their families.

Given that the Roman Catholic church has been plagued with sexual abuse scandals for decades now, this announcement is somewhat incredulous. The Church is shifting responsibility off to the victims. Many victims will find that obligation onerous. It takes tremendous courage to come forth with sexual abuse allegations but now the victims are being told they must carry the burden further and make a separate decision to bring in the police. That is a lot to ask of victims. Again the Church is failing its victims.

However, there is a story here that is getting missed which is the obligation in many parts of the world to involve the authorities via child protection. A common theme through much child protection legislation in the developed world is that of mandatory obligation to report when a child may be at risk of harm. Most often that is thought of as a caregiver but priests, nuns and brothers often act in roles of parents in schools, orphanages, athletics and so on.

We see in Canada how the Church engaged in sexual and physical abuse of First Nations children in the Residential Schools for decades. Those children and their families lacked the capacity to get action. This should be remembered. The obligation to act should rest with the institution on whose behalf the cleric acts.

Both of these cases highlight how society continues to fail in their obligation to protect people from sexual abuse and assault. The clear messages are that victims will have to struggle to be heard, believed and protected from further abuse.

The graphic above shows very clearly that we have not created an environment where sexual assault can be spoken about. These two stories add to the power of silence. Even if Ghomeshi is found guilty, the trial has sent a clear message to victims, telling the truth is very hard to do and the way in which the case will be managed may do you a lot of harm.

UPDATE

The Associated Press reports that, since the course noted above for Catholic clerics:

Pope Francis' top adviser on clerical sex abuse says bishops have a "moral and ethical responsibility" to report all cases of suspected rape, molestation and other abuse to police — even where local laws don't require it.

A statement released by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley goes beyond the Vatican's current guidelines for bishops. Those 2010 guidelines say bishops and superiors must report suspected cases where civil reporting laws require it.

O'Malley, who heads the pope's abuse advisory commission, issued the statement after a recent course for new Catholic bishops on handling abuse cases featured a French monsignor who reportedly said bishops don't have to report cases. He said it is up to families and victims to do so.

Child protection and the refugee crisis

It is impossible to read or listen to the news without the subject of the Syrian refugee crisis coming up. It is a displacement of people in mass numbers. Millions of people are internally displaced within Syria and externally displaced, particularly in the Middle East and Europe. Canada is in the process of taking in around 25,000 refugees.

The images show how terrifying and tragic the reality is for most of the refugees. Leaving the war zone has not lead to secure placement as they search for stability, acceptance, jobs, homes and the recreation of life for their family. Those watching the current refugee crisis will remind others that the world has faced such crisis before and will likely again.

For child protection in Canada, the vast majority of these newcomers will not become involved with that system. Some will for typically predictable reasons for the most part - challenges with coming to terms with parenting approaches, children whose trauma makes adjustment to school difficult leading to behavioural problems and emerging mental health concerns. We may hear about those stories as the media seeks to highlight families struggling.

Child protection and mental health services do have an important role. Helping families to understand Canada and the services available for the transition is top of mind. But there are also some important other steps - helping families connect with new communities; supporting economic connections; integrating children into schools; providing mental health supports at informal levels such that the emotional upheavals and challenges are normalized. Another role will be to help Canadians come to understand the newcomers and their experiences before arriving here.

Perhaps most importantly, is helping everyone realize that Canada has been accepting refugees for decades and done so successfully.

There will also be the challenges of ensuring that we do not lose our focus on vital public policy issues for child protection that need government funding and attention. Examples are the impact of homelessness and mental health for families of our veterans; ensuring that we implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and working with communities to reduce poverty that too often leads to neglect and child protection involvement. There is room for all of these agendas in Canada. The very worthy plight of the refugees has a prominent place on our national agenda but so do these other issues and yet others not mentioned here.

Psychometrics in Parenting Capacity Assessments: A problem for Aboriginal parents

My colleague Amber McKenzie and I have just had an article published on the use of psychometrics in parenting capacity assessments with Aboriginal parents. We raise a number of concerns

Abstract Parenting Capacity Assessments (PCA) are used by child protection workers to assist in determining the ability of a parent to care for their children. They may be used at various stages of the case management process but these assessments serve as powerful tools for decision making by these workers. They can also be introduced in court as part of expert testimony. Most PCAs utilize psychometric assessment measures to elicit data in respect to personality, parenting knowledge, as well as mental health and addiction issues. The authors argue that the norming of these measures has insufficient inclusion of Aboriginal peoples to be used for assessments with this population. They further argue that different approaches need to be developed as current approaches, including assessment measures, are based upon the constructs of the dominant culture, which is individualistic as opposed to the Aboriginal collectivistic approaches to parenting.

If you would like to read the article, here is a link to the First Peoples Child and Family Review

 

Learning from the death of Alex Gervais

This CBC story about the death of Alex Gervais helps to continue our needed conversation of how we can learn from the deaths of children in care.

Alex Decarie-Gervais' tragic life in the care of B.C's ministry of Children and Family development is the result of a series of missed opportunities by child protection officials, according to his family and at least one expert in social work.

"The system let him down by refusing my aunt the capability of adopting him," said Christopher Decarie-Dawson, Alex Decarie-Gervais' half-brother, from his home in Hull, Quebec.

Alex Gervais arrives in Quebec in 2008 to visit his half brother Chris and Aunt Line Decarrie, who tried twice to get custody of him. (Line Decarie)

Decarie-Dawson remembers a week long visit with his younger brother in 2008 when Alex was just 10 years old.

Social workers arranged for the boy to leave his foster home in B.C. to visit their aunt's lakefront home in Quebec.

Missed chance at a normal childhood

"I spent the week with him. He was very nice but very on edge and very jittery … he was very fidgety and anxious," remembered Decarie-Dawson, who, eight years earlier, was born to the same mother as Alex. 

It's not clear how many foster homes Alex had been in by then.

Christopher Decarie-Dawson says he tried to reach out to his little brother, Alex Gervais, for years, but social workers would not help. (Christopher Decarie-Dawson)

His placement, at age 18, at the Super 8 motel in Abbotsford, where he jumped, or fell from a 4th floor hotel room Sept 18., was his 16th in B.C.'s child protection system.

"The system let both of us down because I've gone through the exact same thing. I was abused by my mother as well, but I got lucky that I was taken by my father who was not sick," said Decarie-Dawson, who says his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was unable to care for him or Alex.

Aunts attempts to get custody failed

The elder brother credits his aunt, Line Decarie, for saving him and helping his father gain custody.

A then ten year old Alex Gervais enjoys an afternoon tubing during a visit prior to Aunt's failed adoption attempt home in 2008. (Line Decarie)

He is angry her attempts to adopt Alex were blocked by B.C. officials who "refused to give custody to (her) because his father was still around, still alive."

Line Decarie first tried to gain custody of her nephew years earlier, when Alex was four.

She says police called her to tell her he'd been thrown down a flight of stairs by his father but an Ontario judge decided to give Alex's father a second chance.

Alex Decarie-Gervais (seated), then 10 , enjoyed riding his cousins's boat and spending time at his Aunt's lakeside home in Quebec in the summer of 2008. (Line DeCarie)

"Alex's father had mental health issues. Why they gave him full custody of Alex I don't understand up to this day," said Decarie, who lost touch with her nephew for several years when his father took him to B.C., where he ended up in foster care.

The Decarie family didn't see him again until he visited their home.

At the request of CBC News, Decarie dug through boxes to locate photos of that trip.

Images of a timid child tubing on his uncle's boat, bonding with the aunt who wanted to be his adoptive mother, and being embraced by relatives paint a picture of a childhood that could have been much different.

Family lost contact

The family says it was more than willing to adopt Alex, so long as it had assurances his father would have no contact.

B.C. social workers refused, and the Decaries lost all contact with Alex.

The next time child protection officials called the family would be to notify them of his death says Decarie-Dawson.

"Because he was in the foster system, so we couldn't get a message to him; we couldn't even find out if he was still alive until we found out that he died," said Decarie-Dawson, angry his brother was placed alone in a motel for nearly three months.

"I'm appalled about what has happened to him.  He should have had help. He should've had someone to call."

B.C.'s Ministry of Children and Families would not answer specific questions about the adoption attempt citing privacy law.

Bias towards biological parents says expert

"There might be some missed opportunities," said Dr. Peter Choate, professor of social work at Mount Royal University in Calgary, who has testified as an expert witness in more than 100 child protection cases.

He says social workers are trained to preserve families, but some give too much preference for parents over aunts and uncles.

Family preservation sometimes means social workers are biased toward parents in custody decisions says Peter Choate, professor of social work at Mount Royal College in Calgary. (Mount Royal University)

"We can be too biased at times towards biological parents and not contemplate what other opportunities may be there that would serve the best interests of the child," said Choate.

He believes there is a lot to learn from reviewing Alex Decarie-Gervais's case.

"Why did we want to keep Alex in contact with his biological parents as long as we did?"

"Did we do enough assessment to see the impact of mental illness on the capacity to parent?"

Choate hopes an independent inquiry will answer those questions, though he warns against a "witch-hunt" against social workers, who have a tough job.

"You are working with the unpredictability of human behavior … the public has to recognize that these are human beings engaged in very human work."  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/alex-gervais-s-tragic-life-defined-by-missed-opportunities-1.3372859 

The effects of parental incarceration on children

I have written in the past about the impact on chidlren of incarcerating parents. A couple of new reports in the United States highlight the concerns.

The first report Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to the their Children? really emphasizes that the impact of incarceration on children is not a central part of the conversation. This means that, as a society, we are not talking about the fragmentation of families, the loss of the parent figure, the deterioration of economic and social position and the costs to society when the children are marginalized in this way.

The report is reminiscent of the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies when the authors note:

Previous research has found connections between parental incarceration and childhood health problems, behavior problems, and grade retention. It has also been linked to poor mental and physical health in adulthood 

After accounting for effects associated with demographic variables such as race and income, we found that parental incarceration was associated with: • a higher number of other major, potentially traumatic life events—stressors that are most damaging when they are cumulative; • more emotional difficulties, low school engagement, and more problems in school, among children ages 6 to 11; and • a greater likelihood of problems in school among older youth (12 to 17), as well as less parental monitoring (pp.1-2)

The report suggests that looking at why and how we incarcerate is important but also says that we must begin to think more carefully about the ways that we support and intervene with the children. There is very little research (and perhaps even less evidence based programming) on how to work with this vulnerable population.

The second report, Removing Barriers to Opportunity for Parents with Criminal Records talks about the implications of having a criminal record.  The report notes that the United States leads the world in arrests and incarceration so their experience can act as an important source of learning for us. The report notes:

While the effects of parental incarceration on children and families are well-documented, less appreciated are the family consequences that stem from the barriers associated with having a criminal record, whether or not the parent has ever been convicted or spent time behind bars. A child’s life chances are strongly tied to his or her circumstances during childhood. Thus, these barriers may not only affect family stability and economic security in the short term but also may damage a child’s long-term well-being and outcomes.

The report also helps us to see the effects across all important domains in a family's life:

Income. Parents with criminal records have lower earning potential, as they often face major obstacles to securing employment and receiving public assistance. • Savings and assets. Mounting criminal justice debts and unaffordable child support arrears severely limit families’ ability to save for the future and can trap them in a cycle of debt. • Education. Parents with criminal records face barriers to education and training opportunities that would increase their chances of finding well-paying jobs and better equip them to support their families. • Housing. Barriers to public as well as private housing for parents with criminal records can lead to housing instability and make family reunification difficult if not impossible. • Family strength and stability. Financial and emotional stressors associated with parental criminal records often pose challenges in maintaining healthy relationships and family stability (p.2)

 It's a topic that deserves more attention particularly focusing on helping families and children manage the changes, stay connected and build resiliency to face the impacts of involvement in the criminal justice system.

 

Termination of Parental Rights

I have just had this article published. It discusses some of the very real challenges we face when trying to address issues if Termination of Parental Rights

Termination of Parental Rights: A Commentary

on Ben-David

PETER W. CHOATE

Child Studies and Social Work, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada

Ben-David (this issue) introduced us to the complexity of the factors

that courts consider in termination of parental rights (TPR).

It is an opening to understanding which factors are taken into consideration

and how courts make these challenging determinations.

Yet there are other questions that must be asked before we truly

understand the TPR decisions made by courts across a variety of

legal jurisdictions. This commentary argues that we must take the

inquiry deeper, asking questions that will unpack the complexity

assisting researchers and clinicians. Thus, we will want to know

how courts weigh such important issues as the credibility of the evidence.

What is it about such factors as parental competence, failure

of remediation, and other issues identified by Ben-David that cause

courts to determine TPR is the best choice? Consideration is given

to how Ben-David’s work might be extended using a Canadian

perspective.

Journal of Family Social Work, 18:243–252, 2015

Make life "everyday" for foster children

I am fascinated by a study from the University of Leicester in the UK which looks at the value of simple everyday activities for children in care. It seems that engaging children in the kinds of typical day to day activities can positively impact the sense of well-being. This can be what seems mundane - take the children shopping; play games; help care for pets; get involved in fun activities like going swimming.

These various types of activities engage children with the family system and also expose them to low stress and rewarding experiences. It socializes the child in a different way than may be quite different than experiences prior to coming into care. These sorts of activities, the researchers note, help the children to find their place within the social environment. By being successful and belonging, they can then develop a sense of empowerment in their own world - they be become actors who can create positivity in their life and are not driven by protective reactivity.

This can also lead children into finding comfort and reward in activities that link them to prosocial environments and connections.

In the world of increasing budget constraints, ins't it wonderful to think of the power of these everyday types of activities when a child is included in them with the foster family and other peers. This can also mentor children into learning how to manage free time more constructively.

The report notes:

• The participation of young people growing up in care is constructed in binary ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ terms. This research has found that this perception can lead to facilitated activities being overvalued and everyday participation being undervalued. The self-expression found in some forms of everyday participation feeds into young people’s sense of autonomy, yet this is not always recognised. 

• Participation facilitated by the corporate parent and foster carers of young people in care has a positive influence on the choices young people make regarding their own everyday participation. But this works both ways and what they choose to do in their free time in turn influences their decision to engage with the types of participation on offer. 

•  Safeguarding the well-being of young people in care is a priority for social services and carers. Ensuring and upholding this priority affects and takes precedence in different aspects of the young persons everyday life, including their participation. The requirement to safeguard can interrupt or even prevent participation inside and outside of the home. This leads to young people in care being treated differently and at times can lead to their exclusion.  

• Participation for young people exists in different geographical locations. However, when a young person in care moves placement, participation can be disrupted or even discontinued. 

The latter point speaks to the need for stability so that children can make connections that they can then hold onto allowing them to expand their sense of place, belonging and worth.

If you would like to look at the report go here and follow the links.

BC Child welfare system broken?

The Representative for Child and Youth in British Columbia, Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond, suggests that the child welfare system in her province is broken. She made the comments in a report presented by the ATPN media. One issue that she raises is that, for Aboriginal children, too often funding is linked to the child being in care versus prevention efforts to keep children out of care. Turpel-Lafond has many case examples to back up her worry.

Prevention needs to address issues that child welfare is not set up to manage. Poverty is the main reason that Aboriginal children are in care. Child welfare cannot solve that. They can only respond to the effects of poverty which are typically seen in the form of neglect.

As a new federal government takes shape in Canada, now is the time for at least three core  Aboriginal child welfare issues to be tackled:

1. Start fully funding child welfare on reserves across this country;
2. Implement prevention programs to keep children out of care; and
3. When it is necessary to provide protection to child keep the child within the community and family system by providing needed supports for kinship care to be successful.

In my view, these are priorities. We should be getting them on to the agenda of this new government.

To view the ATPN report, go here.

The British Columbia Representative for Children and Youth Nails it Again

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is the Representative for Children and Youth in British Columbia. She has just issued a report, The Thin Front Line that analyzes staffing and related problems in the province's child welfare system. It's a read that is relevant to child protection authorities across Canada and likely elsewhere.

She states that "The problems are systemic and have accumulated over time, worsening and not improving." She adds that the complexities of working in child protection have increased over time but there are fewer workers to manage these caseloads. This should sound familiar in many places.  She notes that workers have had to struggle with budgetary cuts, staff shortages, high turnover and pressure to meet strict timelines.

The government of B.C. says she is working with old data. Perhaps so, but the issues that Turpel-Lafond raises are hardly new. Thus, there may be some improvement but one doubts that the picture is much out of focus given what is seen in scrutiny of child protection throughout the Western world. Indeed, her themes very much mirror my own research on child protection errors. Her conclusions also strongly mirror reviews done by many authors.

Where she gets the story quite straight is in her major themes:

• Workloads are high and complex;
• Processes change and are not necessarily clinically focused;
• The issues that must be dealt with are often connected to long standing inequities that may be beyond the capacity of a worker to solve. An example is the legacy of the Residential Schools and the Sixties Scoop which decimated the parenting and family structure in Canada's First Nations communities;
• Bureaucracy is a burden that takes many hours away from clinical work;
• It's tough work so people leave and it's hard to get replacements quickly;
• The geography of Canada (in this case B.C.) means that many rural and remote communities get spotty services;
• Clinical supervision is required regularly but there are not enough supervisors to manage the needs;
• She found too many offices operating in crisis mode which tends to lead to "band aid" social work, as she put it.

Turpel-Lafond offers several recommendations which include:

• Sufficient budgets to address the staffing and workload issues;
• Improve the management systems to reflect the complexity and volume of cases;
• Track performance and respond to gaps or poor results;
• Get more First Nations workers in place.

She notes that there have been some positive steps such as the introduction of the Family Development Response to help support families with lower intensity issues. 

These are not new issues so perhaps the one question she did not ask that needs asking is "Why do these issues keep happening, time and again, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction?" In other words, we are consistently getting it wrong. So how can it be done better. Public reviews need to start talking about that versus repeating themes and recommendations we have seen so often --- or is that governments are not really committed to child protection beyond the band aids? Is that governments don't really want to tackle the complex socio-economic factors that lead to children being at risk - poverty, inter-generational trauma, mental health and addictions and so on?

Investigation in British Columbia may be asking the wrong questions

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced in B.C. what has been hailed as a groundbreaking investigation. They will look into the actions of care workers who were involved with a First Nations youth, Paige, who died as a young adult from a drug overdose. Paige's case was the subject of a scathing report by the B.C. Representative for Children and Youth, Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond.

Paige as an infant, child and youth

In that report, social workers are noted to have failed to properly assess her needs; failed to communicate between regions as she moved around the province; didn't persist in trying to work with her as she became more challenging to engage; allowed her to live in some of the most dangerous, drug addicted areas of the province and often saw her without arranging further contact with child protection authorities. She died at the age of 19. She had many problems including Marfan syndrome which left her with very challenging eyesight, medication and cardiac health issues along with her addiction, trauma history and likely mental health issues.

As the CBC reported on September 18, 2015, "Paige as taken to hospital or detox at lest 17 times after being found unconscious or incoherent; she changed schools 16 times; and she featured in more than 40 police files, mostly for public intoxication." Yet, these incidents generally did not result in filing a report to child protection in accordance with provincial legislation. Like most Canadian provincial child welfare legislation, B.C. requires professionals to contact child protection whenever they suspect that a child is in need of protection.

It is the failure of authorities to make these reports that is the subject of the police investigation. But are they asking the right questions? It's tempting to be satisfied that the police may hold these workers accountable for their failures. That may make many professionals more aware although that might also lead to flooding the system with reports and more children coming into care. There can be a "fear chill" arising from such police efforts.

Despite the merits of a police investigation, it may be that the wrong questions are indeed getting asked. I find myself wondering (as I have with virtually all of the over 900 child welfare practice reviews I have read) what structural conditions lead to these kinds of failures.

• What causes professionals to believe that a report should not be done?
• What allows workers to believe that hard to reach youth are so challenging that you let them be in dangerous situations?
• What circumstances lead workers to fail to gather data from others who have worked with a youth?
• What did professionals believe would make a call to child welfare not worth doing?
• What is that professionals did not understand about their duty to report or has past experience caused them to believe that such calls are not worth doing because they cannot see any changes occurring?
• What kinds of supervision exists to support these decisions?

Yes, it is worth asking why these workers did not do what should be done but the questions are much broader. There has never been a prosecution under this section of the B.C. legislation. Turpel-Lafond hopes that this will be a turning point. I fear it may not be the one she wants. How many professionals will now decide that working with child protection cases should be avoided, for example.

Taking a resiliency approach

One of the challenges in child protection, is being faced with an onslaught of significant problems. There is the daily dose of abuse, neglect, addictions and violence. It is not hard to become overwhelmed with the repeated stories of tragedy. Case loads, when high, also make it challenging to get out from under.

Workers faced with this, have a natural tendency to see deficits as the story of the client or the family. Further, the majority of assessments tend to emphasize those issues. Many of the mental health and psychometric tools are largely focused on the deficit or identification of problems. Mental health practitioners look for diagnostic clues which can skew their perspective to a symptom based analysis.

I have become interested in the notion of resiliency in child protection as a way to shift not only our view of the client but also the nature of the relationship that we have with them. There is research that tells us that the relationship is the most powerful tool that we have in our work. I am reminded of the work of Maiter, Palmer & Manji which notes:

Parents appreciated workers who were caring, genuine, empathetic, exceptionally helpful, non-judgmental, and accepting. Negative qualities of workers identified by parents were being judgmental, cold and uncaring, poor listeners, critical, and insincere.(from the abstract, 2006)

To gain trust and be effective, we also need to have patience and begin to understand the ecological reality of the client - including their strengths. What got me thinking about that is a TedTalk by Dr. Gabor Mate speaking about addiction. He suggests that we ask the question "What is right about it?" Imagine asking that question with our clients. We begin then to explore the value of what the client has been doing even when we can easily see it as harmful. 

The power of the relationship can also be seen in a Canadian study in 2012 by Gladstone et el.:

 A relationship was found between workers' perception of parent engagement and parents' perception of their own engagement, as well as between the perceptions that workers and parents had around their own respective engagement. Workers who were satisfied with service outcomes were significantly more engaged than those who were unsatisfied. Parents thinking that their children were safer as a result of intervention were significantly more engaged than parents who thought that their children were less safe. The strongest reason given by parents for positive change was being able to trust their worker (p < .001) and believing that their worker was knowledgeable about parenting (p < .01). (again from the abstract)

I reflected further on this when working with a client recently who has a substance abuse problem, mental health issues and self harming behaviours. It is quite easy to get focused on the problems. But when I went to Mate's question, I began to see how she had survived and coped with a long list of traumas in her life. Her support system had collapsed and her internal resources were overwhelmed. She had found a way to exist. Reframing the behaviours in this way changes how she is seen but most importantly, how she reacts to the relationship.

One of the barriers to change can be what we believe is possible. If we do not see that it can be done, then it takes a strong client to prove us wrong. Not to be mistaken, there are clearly situations where clients resist change or it is just too much for them.

There are also now indicators that, just as trauma can pass between generations through DNA (e.g think of the study of epigenetics) there is also data that suggests that recovery, resilience and strength can pass as well. For an interesting brief read on this, you might look at Dr. Laura Kerr's blog. 

There is also research out of the United Kingdom suggesting that it is worth looking at the child's well-being. The Children's Society has recently published the 2015 Report, The Good Childhood. I like this report as it invites us into a broader and richer view of seeing how a child is doing. The report starts by noting:

Though it is easy to slip into a shorthand of happiness, well-being is about so much more than this. It is about how young people feel about their lives as a whole, how they feel about their relationships, the amount of choice that they have in their lives, and their future. Wellbeing matters as an end in itself, but also because it is correlated with other outcomes in life such as physical and mental health...

In essence, what this all begins to tell us that there are very good reasons to be hopeful in many of the cases we work with - not all - but many. It is also worth remembering that our goal is not perfection but good enough (Choate & Engstrom, 2014).

References:

Choate, P.W. & Engstrom , S. (2014) The “Good Enough” Parent: Implications for Child Protection, Child Care in Practice, 20:4, 368-382, http://dx.doi.org.10.1080/13575279.2014.915794

Gladston, J., Dumbrill, G., Leslie, B., Koster, A., Young, M. & Ismalia, A. (2013). Looking at engagement and outcome from the perspectives of child protection workers and parents. Children and Youth Services Review, 34 (1), 112-118. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.09.003

Maiter, S., Palmer, S. & Manj, S. (2006). Strengthening social worker-client relationships in child protective services: Addressing power imbalances and 'ruptured' relationships. Qualitative Social Work, 5(2), 161-186. doi: 10.1177/1473325006064255

Pople, L. The Children's Society, Rees, G., Main, G. & Bradshaw, J.. (2015). The Good Childhood Report 2015. London: The Children's Society.