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 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?

Attachment parenting, resilience but sometimes things go very wrong

There are some very good resources to help parents offer their children good parenting. Virtually every parent I have ever met, even abusive ones, have loved their children even if they didn't know how to love them well. But what leads children who have had good parenting into trouble?

Resources:

Dr. Sears website for attachment parenting

Dr. Michael Unger's resiliency project

Dr. Gabor Mate's website

Soaring rates of childhood poverty should wake up child protection policy makers

Reports out of the United States this week speak about soaring rates of children living in poverty, too often accompanied with homelessness. The National Centre on Family Homelessness states that there are 2.5 million children who were homeless for at least part of the year in 2013.

Neglect, one of the most common issues that child protection faces, is driven in very many respects, by poverty. The reasons are many, but include:

• inadequate shelter places children at risk of illness;
• many families are forced to find space in high crime, high risk areas;
• parents may be forced to leave children with inadequate caregivers while they try to hold on to marginal wage jobs;
• homelessness makes it hard to get kids to school;
• there is a lot of stress on parents trying to manage homelessness increasing risks of various forms of maltreatment;
• children may be recruited into petty crimes like shoplifting as a way to try to get food and other necessities;
• children lose connections to friends and community programs as families wander from place to place;
• parents find it hard to meet the emotional needs of their children.

It would not be hard to add to this list. When child protection becomes involved, parents are seen as neglecting children. However, this is not the kind of neglect that typically is related to a parent's lack of desire to do the right thing for their child. Rather, it is the reality of living without resources.

Taking children into foster care may be the limited solution available in many cases but it is a poor solution. It adds unnecessary pressure to the child protection system in the form of increased case loads and heavier demands on placements.

The National Centre on Family Homelessness points out that there are solutions. These can include increasing access to low cost housing; subsidized day care so parents can work; feeding programs; improving educational opportunities for parents. There can also be family oriented shelter programs (such as the Inn from the Cold program in Calgary, Alberta). 

The long terms costs of homelessness are seen in the children not being able to get an education and themselves entering the cycle of poverty. Homelessness adds to that cycle and the cost to society is long term. Chronic homelessness can be tackled. The City of Medicine Hat in souther Alberta has reported that they are on the brink of accomplishing this. But it took targeted efforts.

10 Thoughts about Child Protection

I was asked by a group of students to offer some ideas about things that social workers should think about as they consider entering child protection work. Here is the video that raises some questions - I don't expect that everyone will agree with all of these ideas. These are issues that require conversations as we think about child protection.

I would welcome any thoughts you may have.

When it happens in your own family

A couple of recent discussions with social workers reminds me that, despite our profession, it is possible to have family become involved with child protection systems (CPS). This is a cause for embarrassment if colleagues become aware of the family connection. However, there is also the need to find a way to deal with this reality. In my discussions, a few themes came out strongly.

1. Being a family member means you are not the professional - no matter how much experience you have, you cannot be the family advisor on a child protection case. You will not know the case or the reasons why CPS is involved and why they are taking the actions that they are. Thus, you are a family member and not a social worker.

2. That being said, you can then act as a family member offering appropriate support.

3. As a social worker, we often learn to turn our emotions down. We keep a degree of professional detachment. When we start to see the "facts" of a case, that turns on. What we need to turn on is our personal emotions that allow us to be a member of a family.

4. We are not the confidant of the social work professionals who may turn to us to act as a go between - after all, they might say, we understand what needs to be done - could we explain it to the family? Well no, we can't. That places us in an untenable position of walking a bridge between the social workers and the family. It's not our role.

5. We are also therefore, not the advocates for the family. The best advocates are those who are not in the family system. Therefore, you should not be attending meetings in such a role.

6. We also need boundaries. We tell our clients this all the time - this is a point in which to heed our own advice.

7. Trying to be a social worker in your own family system means that you are likely to alienate colleagues and family members alike.

There are things you can do. You can be a family member who supports, acts as a shoulder to lean on if appropriate and listen. You can use your skills at reflective listening to help family members process. You can also point people to the sorts of resources that can professionally assist. Most importantly, you can also feel. There may be other ideas but knowing when to step back from the social work role with your own family system is important.

Child protection must present an unbiased view

A recent judgment in Nova Scotia raises some crucial issues for social workers and their lawyers who are presenting applications in court. The Honourable Justice Mona M. Lynch in the case of Ministry of Community Services v. F.B. noted some significant concerns with the bias of the presentation to court by the Ministry. She noted that the mother in this case was a difficult client. At paragraph 41, Justice Lynch notes:

There is no doubt that the mother was a difficult client to deal with, however, a parent’s failure to cooperate with the MCS does not equate to their child being in need of protective services

This matters a great deal. Difficult clients are hard to manage. They can seem to be "unworkable" when they are simply feeling powerless against the greater force of child protection. Justice Lynch appears to take the position that difficult should not be used as the basis for determining whether a child is in need of protection.

Justice Lynch goes on to make a much more crucial point - how invested should workers be in the outcome of the case. At paragraph 47, she states:

Witnesses for the MCS should not be personally invested in the outcome of a proceeding.   The proceeding is about the best interests of children, not who wins or loses. 

When a worker has been putting many hours into a case, has formulated a case plan and has aimed at succeeding with that plan, it is natural to want to achieve what one has set out to achieve. Being invested in that plan may hinder the view that one has to a case. Research has shown that this can create a information bias filtering out new information that contradicts the case plan. This is known as confirmation bias. Justice Lynch became concerned as she notes later in that same paragraph:

The court expects balance.  The court expects that the witnesses from the MCS provide evidence of both the good and the bad that they have witnessed.  The court expects that they will just relay the facts without attempting to colour the evidence in a negative light.  Sadly in this case, with few exceptions, the witnesses who work for the MCS were not impartial or unbiased.  They appeared to be so invested in the outcome of the case that it has affected the weight the court can give their evidence.  They appeared unable to say something positive about the mother even when there were positive things to say.   The evidence of many of the access facilitators can be given little weight.  This is unfortunate because the access facilitators spent the most time with the mother and the children of all of the witnesses.  

In essence, the bias was such that the credibility of the evidence was in question. If a case has merits, then it does not need workers to filter out data that may not support their preferred position. What this case shows is that when a judge becomes concerned that the data has been selected to support a position as opposed to offering the court the data it needs to weigh the merits, then the usefulness of the child protection witnesses wanes.

It is rare that a parent is totally without merit. By putting both the strengths and the weaknesses before the court, the judge can then weigh the balance. If the worker feels that they must do that ahead of time, then the worker is beginning to take the place of the court. That is dangerous.

Justice Lynch's comments are a good reminder that courts are ultimately responsible for determining the best interests of the child when child protection takes matters before them.

 

Texas child death story highlights prevention need

A story appearing this week in San Antoni, Texas talks about continuing concern with the effectiveness of child protection to prevent the deaths of children from abuse by caregivers, mainly parents. The importance of the story is really the piece that does not get highlighted in the headlines. It is twofold - the impact of the economic failures in the past several years and the failures to properly fund prevention services.

When we look at the economic crisis that has been prevalent in the world economies, the abuse, neglect and maltreatment of children appears to be one of the consequences. Families most directly hit by the downturn find themselves struggling to put food on the table and provide shelter. These pressures create poverty induced effects on families that can bring child protection into the household. As a society, we need to face the crisis not as a family failure but rather as a failure of society. Too often, the marginalized populations find themselves involved with CPS. Social workers must respond to what goes on in the family, but when will we as a society be willing to address the root causes?

This leads to the second issue which is the underfunding of prevention services. When social policy is driven by the most recent child protection fatality, it is response services that get the funding. Certainly good funding is needed here so that caseloads are not out of control and CPS response times are reasonable. But good social policy is also about preventing problems through things like home care nursing, teen pregnancy supports, domestic violence interventions and so on. These programs help to reduce the need for child protection and will also aid in preserving family units which is the goal of most child protection legislation.

Too often, children are involved in child protection programs because of the pressures in families that arise from larger social issues that society is not addressing.