As we’ve written about many times before, services to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families are in severe crisis in BC, through the actions of the BC Liberal government. It is a travesty, gross negligence and a human rights violation of epic proportion, which brings shame to the BC government. Remember, they are the ones who wrote this:
Goal #3 - Build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, those with special needs, children at risk and seniors.
A recap. One of the brain trust involved in devolving Community Living services (part of MCFD) was Doug Walls, Gordon Campbell’s relative by marriage. Mr. Walls and his Liberal appointed Steering Committee created the blueprints for the Crown agency Community Living BC. Mr. Walls was awarded taxpayer money, which, by the way, has never been located, nor is it clear whether he provided the government any of the services he received the contract for. The audit by PriceWaterhouse Cooper has of course disappeared from the government website, but they of course they didn't find anything of a criminal nature, just that he had some "influence" on government officials. Hey, interesting, they're the same auditors for the ICBC scandal and a whole lot of others ones we've never even heard about.
At the time MCFD gave him the contract it was known to government officials he was being investigated by the RCMP in Prince George (since 1998) for fraud over $5000 against the CIBC. Gordon Hogg, then Minister of Children & Families resigned over this & Chris Haynes, Deputy Minister was fired, but I'm sure he received a sweet parting package. Walls was also quite close with Shirley Bond and was the former BC Liberal riding association president in Prince George. He pled guilty to fraud and was given a conditional discharge, isn't that meaningful? Has anyone checked to see whether he's gotten any new MCFD, or CLBC contracts since he was caught out? That might be an interesting Freedom of Information & Privacy request. Geeze, at one time all he had to do was write his own cheques and submit them to his buddies in the BC government and life was all good.
No jail for former B.C. official over bank fraud
Last Updated: Friday, March 9, 2007 11:57 AM ET
CBC News
A former senior provincial government adviser with close ties to the B.C. Liberals has been handed a conditional sentence after pleading guilty to bank fraud.
He admitted he defrauded the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce of more than $5,000 in a scheme that included writing bad cheques.
Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government later hired Walls to revamp B.C.'s interim Community Living Authority.
***
Another Special Prosecutor means More Questions for Campbell
David Schreck. Strategic Thoughts. January 17, 2004 .
Late on Friday afternoon, the time for "taking out the garbage", the Campbell government announced the appointment of another special prosecutor. This time the investigation involves Doug Walls, the Premier's relative by marriage, a former President of a provincial Liberal constituency association, and the acting CEO of the Interim Authority for Community Living.
Read more about the BC Supreme Court ruling against Walls, his relatives, his co-accused and all of the little companies they set up.
***
BTW, Rick Mowles, CEO of CLBC also wears the hat of chief bargaining agent for Community Social Services Employers’ Association (CSSEA). He was appointed by CEO, wait for it…by the BC Liberals to help devolve CLBC. Some of us might be forgiven for thinking he might have been in just a teensy little CONFLICT OF INTEREST when he was involved in negotiating infrastructure and operational funding for the new agency AND being an Employer representative. Doesn’t seem to have bothered Mowles, or the Liberals much, which kind of speaks volumes.
The parent in this media story hits the nail on the head about the ass backwards way child welfare is administered in BC (and other provinces). Instead of being proactive, providing adequate respite, in-home support and an adequate living wage to parents on income assistance (not this family) MCFD & CLBC pay foster parents thousands of dollars a month (which they deserve) but deny parents adequate financial, or caregiver support until the caregivers burn out and have no choice but to put their children in very, very expensive foster, or institutional care. It’s fiscal incompetence and systemic negligence and frankly stupidity which keeps the child welfare system in a crisis-driven state. Any business person reading this, or anyone with common sense would recognize that this is the kind of financial management that leads to businesses going under rapidly. CLBC's budgets are often shot at the beginning of their new fiscal year and we understand they may be cutting even more corners to keep afloat. If this was a business, it would have been bankrupt within a year of operating.
CLBC has been asked to keep waitlists since they began operating, July 2006 and here we are in 2008 and they are still unwilling to do so at all for some services and spotty ones at best for others. It is an unmitigated public services disaster and a gross failure of the governments' fiduciary duty to our most vulnerable citizens. This isn't even getting into the many, many systemic problems facing the agencies who recieve buckets of
Community Living discussion paper
The BCGEU, the union that “represents” CLBC workers held a forum and released a discussion paper, on the state of Community Living services in BC which was written with a great deal of stakeholder input.
Apr 7 '08
"Despite a strong mandate and shared vision, the system is failing."
That's one of the findings in a discussion paper on the state of community living services in the province of British Columbia that was produced by the BCGEU.
The paper, "Exploring Solutions," was prepared as a result of interviews and two separate dialogues bringing together workers, employers, advocacy groups, and family members to discuss their experience of community living services in B.C.
A key part of the paper was an analysis of the current situation involving people with developmental disabilities:
"The provincial authority (Community Living BC) provides support and services to only 28% of the 36,000 adults British Columbians with developmental disabilities. There are more than 1,300 eligible individuals on waitlists."
***
Community Living Forum - May 4, 2007
Representatives from unions in the community social services sector, family groups and employers attended this forum to look at issues around Community Living BC.
Click here for webcast.
***
B.C. cuts respite for family of severely disabled child:
Parents say Campbell government biased against families who look after their own
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 10:01 AM ET
By Kathy Tomlinson CBC News
The parents of a severely disabled B.C. girl are accusing the provincial government of neglecting the needs of disabled children and their families....
There is no way to tell how many parents are waiting for government help, because Community Living B.C. doesn't compile its waiting lists provincially. "We don't have any of that information," said Mowles. "The waiting lists would be kept in a local office — or local contractors would keep that — so we don't track that information."
****
Interestingly, David Schreck was calling on the Auditor General to review CLBC back in 2004. It doesn't look like that has ever happened and they are even in worse fiscal conditions these days. I hope stakeholders consider making a formal complaint and request for investigation into the fiscal and operational management of this Crown agency. I'm quite sure there are some interesting things to find that would be in the public's interest to have brought out into the open.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 05, 2008
Liability Issues for MCFD: Placements with Relatives & Others
I suppose the public would be shocked to know that these kind of placements of children take place all the time. In 2004, when this child was initially placed with the grandmother, according to the media story, MCFD was doing virtually anything they could to prevent children from coming into care. There were way too many children "on the books" (over 10,000) and they needed to reduce the numbers in care and of course meet budget cuts set by the BC Liberals.
Out of Care Placements, Kith & Kin agreements, placement of children under Child in Home of Relative (CIHR) through the Ministry of Employment & Income Assistance became the goals of placement. And why not, MCFD doesn't have to pay a dime of the measly funds portioned out to relatives. Due diligence is often not really a factor, nor are issues of liability considered much at all. I don't think they are even really understood from an organizational risk assessment perspective. Lets face it, the BC government has "gotten away" with providing substandard child protection for decades, not just in the last 7 years, where it has been markedly worse and strategically defunded, deskilled and torn apart in the name of "alternative service delivery."
I agree that strong efforts should go into placing all children, not just Aboriginal, with relatives or others who the child knows, rather than foster care. However, there came a certain point where clinical judgment no longer mattered. Or, which sadly may have been another issue is that capacity within the system was so "dumbed down" that MCFD was unable to even recognize high-risk when it was staring them right in the eye. There is a lack of general experience in child protection throughout the organization now. I don't know too many industries, or fields where workers-in-training, or within their first year of employment are training brand new workers, or even students. Or, have been promoted to supervisory positions after two years. Or, managers who have never actually worked as frontline workers in child protection, or have any familiarity with the complexities of child protection (law, practice standards, policies, procedures, risk assessment, pesky little details like those). "Management" is often treated as a generic skillset, but a missing subtext to many of these tragic cases, is that management in child protection is not generic. The knowledge required is specific, crucial and can be a matter of life and death, or great harm that might be experienced by a child who has no-one else to watch out for their safety, or to protect them. In MCFD, once you've decided to play the "career track" game, more often than not, you will be willing to turn a blind eye and do what you're told, bring the numbers down etc. etc. It's a piece of the puzzle of the dysfunctional culture in MCFD that those outside rarely understand and it all leads to a general de-skilling of the entire workforce & culture.
It may be the case MCFD did not know the kind of harm that would come to this child, but I suspect this grandmother probably had her own child welfare file from her own years as a parent.
It's not common to do risk assessments, or dig very deep when there is anyone else around who might take the child off the system's hands. And I'm sure this grandmother really does love the child and wanted the best for her. The childhood trauma of many grandparents, especially those who were impacted by residential schools, is re-triggered when they are put into parenting situations beyond their capacity to deal with and provided little support, or resources.
For one home visit, a couple of references, a criminal record check & a check of the MCFD database, any individual can have a child placed in their home. For CIHR, none of that happens.
The parent/legal guardian (who has been deemed to have sufficiently poor judgement to retain care themselves) signs a paper, hands it to welfare & bam, that child is now in that relative's home, forever sometimes. See the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren legal research project for more details and to fill in their online survey.
This story, and so many others that have tragically come to light, is also about the responsibility and liability of MCFD in placing a child with a number of special needs with a family member who may not have what it takes to parent the child. One of the most difficult lessons of working in child protection is that just because a family member (parent, grandparent etc.) loves a child, does not mean they have the capacity, skills & knowledge to adequately (& in this case) to safely parent a child and provide them what they need for their health & wellbeing.
MCFD knew they were setting up some high-risk placements for children when they brought these alternative placements in. There were enough people at MCFD HQ who had the years of experience to know what was going to happen. It's no mistake the regions and MCFD in general did not and probably still don't keep statistics on child apprehensions from out of care, kith & kin & CIHR placements. Most family members offer the children a home out of love, but then find themselves with little financial, emotional, or parenting support, increased costs (food, medical, dental, clothing etc.) and a child who taxes every parenting bone in their body.
In the worst types of these placements, relatives, or others, are simply doing it for the money. It happens more than MCFD will admit. And the joke is on them, as they discover it's harder work than they thought and then they resent the child and if they can, get MCFD to take the child out so they don't have to deal with it anymore. More so, MCFD either outright refuses to provide funding for the children, or in some cases, they renege on that initial commitment and give families the run around.
Another issue in this situation is that I find it very, very difficult to believe that with this level of abuse occurring that other relatives, neighbours, friends and community members did not have some idea of what was happening for some time. Kudos to the anonymous reporter who finally did report, but everyone else who knew & kept silent should be very ashamed of themselves for allowing this to continue for so long, had they intervened earlier, this child would not have experienced this profound abuse, which will have additional lifelong impacts on her. It's not enough for anyone to turn a blind eye anymore. All of us are responsible, in every community,
for keeping children safe.
In some ways, MCFD is always in a Catch-22. They try to place with relatives, sometimes are even pressured and threatened into do so (think of the optics of a loving grannie threatening to "go to the media" if a child isn't placed with her). It happens and MCFD has so much bad press and can't speak to specific cases, so the threat and risk management is in overdrive when faced with these situations. So, sometimes in spite of the reservations, or even in the face of outright opposition, MCFD caves and places children with unsuitable, or inappropriate caregivers. It is often only a matter of time before the results are seen in those situations, sometimes so tragically.
I think it is important to understand that many times workers in the systems advise supervisors and managers they don't believe placement with particular relatives is a good idea and provide the reasons why, based on their clinical judgment. But, in the politicized child protection culture, workers are often pressured to place children in unsafe situations. It happens all the time in the interests of keeping kids out of care. Got to keep those numbers down. If this sounds callous & cynical, it is, because keeping the dollars down is the name of the "game" in the money pit that is MCFD. They don't cut corners on management breakfast & lunch meetings, retreats for the executive "leadership" team, but do what you can to keep those kids off the books.
With respect to internal case reviews, if they are even completed, they are vetted through the regional director of Child Protection office and pertinent details that impact practice and decision-making are not going to end up in the report. Things like workload, staffing and whether a manager actually made the decision to place a child into a situation like this. Frontline workers have so little discretion anymore, yet are the first to be scapegoated by their superiors, who are looking out for number one, too many bad things coming out is bad for their careers. And, I'm not sure if they train management in this, but they know not to right a lot down, wouldn't want things to be available under Freedom of Information requests, or to show up in the media. Bad optics and not "career enhancing." At least in theory anyways. I think if the truth were known, you would find far more frontline workers scapegoated, punished and even run out of MCFD than you will ever find a supervisor, or manager held to account. It's how things work. The attrition and illness leave rates in MCFD for frontline workers would astound most people, but it doesn't seem to phase the BC government one little bit.
I honestly don't think that the BC government is going to "get" their fidicuary responsibility, obligations & duty of care towards the thousands of children & youth they are supposed to be protecting, until they start to pay the price for their negligence and be held accountable in ways beyond public reporting. There have now been years worth of media and advocacy reports and they haven't made a damn bit of difference and in fact, things have never been worse inside the beast. I think there is very little understanding that the Best Interests of the Child legal and fidiciary duty extends across a child's life and circumstances.
******
Public still in dark 2 years after horrific abuse case
4-year-old girl was battered, starving after placement with unstable relative
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist. Published: Monday, May 05, 2008
Two senior social workers said the four-year-old girl was the most abused and traumatized child they had ever seen. A doctor said she would have died if she'd remained in the care of her grandmother much longer. And a judge said child welfare officials probably shouldn't have placed such a high-needs child with a woman who drank too much, suffered from panic attacks and worked a night shift.
Yet, two years after the battered and starving girl was hospitalized in Prince George, the public still has no clear idea how such a travesty could happen, or what the B.C. government has done to prevent it from happening again.
"It was a situation which, with any involvement of professional people, [they] would have seen that there was something going to go wrong," defence lawyer H. Bruce Kaun said.
The horrific story only came to light after the Prince George Citizen reported on the provincial court case in January. The 47-year-old grandmother pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm to her granddaughter and was placed on three years' probation.
The Times Colonist has since obtained court transcripts and other internal documents from the Ministry of Children and Family Development in an effort to piece the case together.
Those records indicate that the girl was moved from a foster home into her grandmother's care in 2004 with the assistance of both the ministry and Carrier Sekani Family Services. The girl remained there until April 2006, when the ministry, acting on an anonymous tip, discovered that she was being horribly abused.
Reports from that time state the girl had two black eyes, which had been covered with make-up. There were bruises, old and new, all over her body. She had ligature marks on one forearm that suggested she had been bound. She was suffering from pneumonia, had severe head lice and was so malnourished that she ate until she vomited and had to spend more than a week in hospital. There was also evidence that she had, at times, been locked in the basement and possibly had her mouth taped shut.
"But for the fact that some anonymous complainant brought this child's plight to the attention of the authorities ... [the doctor's] prognosis would be that this child would have ended up dead," Judge Michael Brecknell said at the sentencing hearing.
He added: "These events have to be shocking to any member of the community that believes that children are entitled to be treated with love and respect."
The court case, however, offered the public little insight into how child welfare officials could have mishandled the file so badly.
The judge said he found it "unusual" authorities "didn't do much in the way of due diligence, once they assisted in the placement of the child."
Kaun, who defended the grandmother, added that his client "didn't get much help" from child welfare officials in caring for the child, who was born with a heart defect, has suspected Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and was developmentally delayed.
"There wasn't anyone visiting or helping out, so I would think when you're alerted to a high-needs child like this ... that if you're going to do that kind of placement, there should be ... some type of follow-up," he said.
Instead, the grandmother stopped taking the child to her medical appointments because she was afraid of "them seeing marks on her body," court was told. No one seemed to notice.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=170a3e7e-e0d0-4357-8380-07c91579d101&k=68049
*******
Child abuse case lacks answers
Lindsay Kines, Canwest News Service. Published: Sunday, May 04, 2008
Vancouver Sun.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ec858586-2765-4738-95a0-acd54bacbbf8&k=63161
Out of Care Placements, Kith & Kin agreements, placement of children under Child in Home of Relative (CIHR) through the Ministry of Employment & Income Assistance became the goals of placement. And why not, MCFD doesn't have to pay a dime of the measly funds portioned out to relatives. Due diligence is often not really a factor, nor are issues of liability considered much at all. I don't think they are even really understood from an organizational risk assessment perspective. Lets face it, the BC government has "gotten away" with providing substandard child protection for decades, not just in the last 7 years, where it has been markedly worse and strategically defunded, deskilled and torn apart in the name of "alternative service delivery."
I agree that strong efforts should go into placing all children, not just Aboriginal, with relatives or others who the child knows, rather than foster care. However, there came a certain point where clinical judgment no longer mattered. Or, which sadly may have been another issue is that capacity within the system was so "dumbed down" that MCFD was unable to even recognize high-risk when it was staring them right in the eye. There is a lack of general experience in child protection throughout the organization now. I don't know too many industries, or fields where workers-in-training, or within their first year of employment are training brand new workers, or even students. Or, have been promoted to supervisory positions after two years. Or, managers who have never actually worked as frontline workers in child protection, or have any familiarity with the complexities of child protection (law, practice standards, policies, procedures, risk assessment, pesky little details like those). "Management" is often treated as a generic skillset, but a missing subtext to many of these tragic cases, is that management in child protection is not generic. The knowledge required is specific, crucial and can be a matter of life and death, or great harm that might be experienced by a child who has no-one else to watch out for their safety, or to protect them. In MCFD, once you've decided to play the "career track" game, more often than not, you will be willing to turn a blind eye and do what you're told, bring the numbers down etc. etc. It's a piece of the puzzle of the dysfunctional culture in MCFD that those outside rarely understand and it all leads to a general de-skilling of the entire workforce & culture.
It may be the case MCFD did not know the kind of harm that would come to this child, but I suspect this grandmother probably had her own child welfare file from her own years as a parent.
It's not common to do risk assessments, or dig very deep when there is anyone else around who might take the child off the system's hands. And I'm sure this grandmother really does love the child and wanted the best for her. The childhood trauma of many grandparents, especially those who were impacted by residential schools, is re-triggered when they are put into parenting situations beyond their capacity to deal with and provided little support, or resources.
For one home visit, a couple of references, a criminal record check & a check of the MCFD database, any individual can have a child placed in their home. For CIHR, none of that happens.
The parent/legal guardian (who has been deemed to have sufficiently poor judgement to retain care themselves) signs a paper, hands it to welfare & bam, that child is now in that relative's home, forever sometimes. See the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren legal research project for more details and to fill in their online survey.
This story, and so many others that have tragically come to light, is also about the responsibility and liability of MCFD in placing a child with a number of special needs with a family member who may not have what it takes to parent the child. One of the most difficult lessons of working in child protection is that just because a family member (parent, grandparent etc.) loves a child, does not mean they have the capacity, skills & knowledge to adequately (& in this case) to safely parent a child and provide them what they need for their health & wellbeing.
MCFD knew they were setting up some high-risk placements for children when they brought these alternative placements in. There were enough people at MCFD HQ who had the years of experience to know what was going to happen. It's no mistake the regions and MCFD in general did not and probably still don't keep statistics on child apprehensions from out of care, kith & kin & CIHR placements. Most family members offer the children a home out of love, but then find themselves with little financial, emotional, or parenting support, increased costs (food, medical, dental, clothing etc.) and a child who taxes every parenting bone in their body.
In the worst types of these placements, relatives, or others, are simply doing it for the money. It happens more than MCFD will admit. And the joke is on them, as they discover it's harder work than they thought and then they resent the child and if they can, get MCFD to take the child out so they don't have to deal with it anymore. More so, MCFD either outright refuses to provide funding for the children, or in some cases, they renege on that initial commitment and give families the run around.
Another issue in this situation is that I find it very, very difficult to believe that with this level of abuse occurring that other relatives, neighbours, friends and community members did not have some idea of what was happening for some time. Kudos to the anonymous reporter who finally did report, but everyone else who knew & kept silent should be very ashamed of themselves for allowing this to continue for so long, had they intervened earlier, this child would not have experienced this profound abuse, which will have additional lifelong impacts on her. It's not enough for anyone to turn a blind eye anymore. All of us are responsible, in every community,
for keeping children safe.
In some ways, MCFD is always in a Catch-22. They try to place with relatives, sometimes are even pressured and threatened into do so (think of the optics of a loving grannie threatening to "go to the media" if a child isn't placed with her). It happens and MCFD has so much bad press and can't speak to specific cases, so the threat and risk management is in overdrive when faced with these situations. So, sometimes in spite of the reservations, or even in the face of outright opposition, MCFD caves and places children with unsuitable, or inappropriate caregivers. It is often only a matter of time before the results are seen in those situations, sometimes so tragically.
I think it is important to understand that many times workers in the systems advise supervisors and managers they don't believe placement with particular relatives is a good idea and provide the reasons why, based on their clinical judgment. But, in the politicized child protection culture, workers are often pressured to place children in unsafe situations. It happens all the time in the interests of keeping kids out of care. Got to keep those numbers down. If this sounds callous & cynical, it is, because keeping the dollars down is the name of the "game" in the money pit that is MCFD. They don't cut corners on management breakfast & lunch meetings, retreats for the executive "leadership" team, but do what you can to keep those kids off the books.
With respect to internal case reviews, if they are even completed, they are vetted through the regional director of Child Protection office and pertinent details that impact practice and decision-making are not going to end up in the report. Things like workload, staffing and whether a manager actually made the decision to place a child into a situation like this. Frontline workers have so little discretion anymore, yet are the first to be scapegoated by their superiors, who are looking out for number one, too many bad things coming out is bad for their careers. And, I'm not sure if they train management in this, but they know not to right a lot down, wouldn't want things to be available under Freedom of Information requests, or to show up in the media. Bad optics and not "career enhancing." At least in theory anyways. I think if the truth were known, you would find far more frontline workers scapegoated, punished and even run out of MCFD than you will ever find a supervisor, or manager held to account. It's how things work. The attrition and illness leave rates in MCFD for frontline workers would astound most people, but it doesn't seem to phase the BC government one little bit.
I honestly don't think that the BC government is going to "get" their fidicuary responsibility, obligations & duty of care towards the thousands of children & youth they are supposed to be protecting, until they start to pay the price for their negligence and be held accountable in ways beyond public reporting. There have now been years worth of media and advocacy reports and they haven't made a damn bit of difference and in fact, things have never been worse inside the beast. I think there is very little understanding that the Best Interests of the Child legal and fidiciary duty extends across a child's life and circumstances.
******
Public still in dark 2 years after horrific abuse case
4-year-old girl was battered, starving after placement with unstable relative
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist. Published: Monday, May 05, 2008
Two senior social workers said the four-year-old girl was the most abused and traumatized child they had ever seen. A doctor said she would have died if she'd remained in the care of her grandmother much longer. And a judge said child welfare officials probably shouldn't have placed such a high-needs child with a woman who drank too much, suffered from panic attacks and worked a night shift.
Yet, two years after the battered and starving girl was hospitalized in Prince George, the public still has no clear idea how such a travesty could happen, or what the B.C. government has done to prevent it from happening again.
"It was a situation which, with any involvement of professional people, [they] would have seen that there was something going to go wrong," defence lawyer H. Bruce Kaun said.
The horrific story only came to light after the Prince George Citizen reported on the provincial court case in January. The 47-year-old grandmother pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm to her granddaughter and was placed on three years' probation.
The Times Colonist has since obtained court transcripts and other internal documents from the Ministry of Children and Family Development in an effort to piece the case together.
Those records indicate that the girl was moved from a foster home into her grandmother's care in 2004 with the assistance of both the ministry and Carrier Sekani Family Services. The girl remained there until April 2006, when the ministry, acting on an anonymous tip, discovered that she was being horribly abused.
Reports from that time state the girl had two black eyes, which had been covered with make-up. There were bruises, old and new, all over her body. She had ligature marks on one forearm that suggested she had been bound. She was suffering from pneumonia, had severe head lice and was so malnourished that she ate until she vomited and had to spend more than a week in hospital. There was also evidence that she had, at times, been locked in the basement and possibly had her mouth taped shut.
"But for the fact that some anonymous complainant brought this child's plight to the attention of the authorities ... [the doctor's] prognosis would be that this child would have ended up dead," Judge Michael Brecknell said at the sentencing hearing.
He added: "These events have to be shocking to any member of the community that believes that children are entitled to be treated with love and respect."
The court case, however, offered the public little insight into how child welfare officials could have mishandled the file so badly.
The judge said he found it "unusual" authorities "didn't do much in the way of due diligence, once they assisted in the placement of the child."
Kaun, who defended the grandmother, added that his client "didn't get much help" from child welfare officials in caring for the child, who was born with a heart defect, has suspected Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and was developmentally delayed.
"There wasn't anyone visiting or helping out, so I would think when you're alerted to a high-needs child like this ... that if you're going to do that kind of placement, there should be ... some type of follow-up," he said.
Instead, the grandmother stopped taking the child to her medical appointments because she was afraid of "them seeing marks on her body," court was told. No one seemed to notice.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=170a3e7e-e0d0-4357-8380-07c91579d101&k=68049
*******
Child abuse case lacks answers
Lindsay Kines, Canwest News Service. Published: Sunday, May 04, 2008
Vancouver Sun.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ec858586-2765-4738-95a0-acd54bacbbf8&k=63161
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