A
LETTER
Thursday,
January 30, 2003 3:09 AM
Re: Childrens Aid Society
A Letter to Aylmer Family Web Site
And All Concerned:
My name is John Dunn. I am a former Crown Ward of the Catholic Childrens Aid Society of Metropolitain Toronto, (Exec. Dir. Mary McConville)
I would like this letter to be published in any location you wish it to, as long as it holds true to it's original form.
I would also like to request an exchange of web site links
I do not personally support using objects to punish a child.
I do however believe the following.
I John Dunn, after living in the foster care system in Ontario for sixteen years of my life, along with my brother Ron Dunn for most of those years, feel that a life in foster care, can be absolute terror, and torture for many of the kids who end up in the system.
My brother and I were moved through 13 foster homes before we were 18.
My brother and I suffered abuse in foster care, by foster parents.
My brother and I suffered neglect by the foster care agency known as the Catholic Children's Aid Society.
My brother and I lost more friends than can the human spirit can handle while under the authority of the Catholic Childrens Aid Society Of Metropolitin Toronto.
My brother and I went through more schools than most Canadian citizens.
I am going to give some examples of what I have suffered while in foster care, and only for a four year period in the same home.
I used to wet the bed, and as a punishment for wetting the bed, I would be taken down into the basement by a foster father, and sat repeatedly on a wood burning stove until my pajamas would sizzle.
I was also pushed head first into that same wood burning stove, while the coals were glowing inside.
I had the foster parent kneel down in front of me and put plyers on my penis in order to scare me out of wetting the bed.
I also one day had my head stuffed into and flushed in the bowl of the toilette because I made it over flow with a large bowel movement. I remember thinking I was going to drown and die.
We had our hands burned by matches for playing with matches in the Cement basement of the house.
(Potentially reasonable punishment with the severity of potential outcome of playing with matches)
I am not going to go on about other things I have seen, but I just wanted to give you what I have had happen to me.
As a result of those punishments, I now have a severe fear of fire, gas (explosives) and anything flamable which makes me fear engines, ovens, compressed gas canisters and the like. These fears directly impede my ability to obtain employment in many areas of work due to my terror of fire such as welding, engine / auto work etc.
Also, growing up, I was so scared to use a toilette, I ended up trying to hold my bowel movements much longer, causing me to soil my clothes until my late teens.
This caused me incredible emotional trauma at school as kids found out, because I tried to take my bowel movements at school in the forest, or behind the school getting caught and ridiculed, spat on, and kicked, simply to avoid using a toilette which might flood, making me absolutely terrified.
I also used to take bowel movements into a shoe box and throw it out the window at the age of 12, almost six years after the fact, for fear of flooding a toilette.
Even to this day, I get a panic when I flush a toilette. This is something I know will not happen to me today, but I still feel a terror when I see the water rising in the bowl.
As a result of the constant moving from foster home to foster home, I have ...
never been able to have constant friends growing up always been the new kid in school never was able to form any hobbies or skills as they were always being uprooted and interupted have my life frozen in 13 time periods where almost anything triggers memories of those places, and people such as smells, sights, songs, and movies did not meet my mother until I was 10 years old did not meet my two sisters until I was 10 years old was separated from my only brother who was my whole family most of my life when I was 13 years old These are just some of the results of moving through multiple foster homes that i can whip off the top of my head while writing this email.
I have written this letter as a show of support in some, but not all issues with your Family Aid Initiative.
Even to this day, the Catholic Childrens Aid Society and other Child Protection Service Agencies, are keeping quite busy hiding all of the abuse that has been inflicted upon far too many of the innocent children in foster care which is documented in the files that were kept on these children who were abused in the system, or neglected in the system by their "legal guardians".
I know
this as a fact, because I have been trying for two years to obtain simple
photocopies of the files they kept about my life in foster care with absolutly
no success what so ever.
The Catholic Childrens Aid Society of Toronto, and more specifically, Mary McConville, the Executive Director of this said agency, claim that the reason for not ever allowing the files or copies of the files to leave the secure confines of the CCAS building itself are to ensure the "physical and emotional" well being of third parties mentioned in the files.
This is a blanket statement as far as I am concerned which descriminates against all former foster kids calling them violent, and malicious people with intent to hurt anyone from their past.
There is nothing farther from the truth. As everyone who knows me today would testify, I have no anger towards those who have abused me. I do have the abuse as issues in my life, but no anger towards the individuals themselves.
What I do have, is torture and anger over the agency keeping my life and the life of my mother, whom I loved very much since I met her, at age 10 until she committed suicide from the overbearing guilt of having her four children stolen from her, and dragged through an abusive system mounting in me as they refuse to give me copies of the files I have been requesting for two years now.
They claim that the files will potentially harm myself in reading them as another excuse. But I have since pushed to the point of being allowed to go into the building and view copies of some of the files with names blanked out of all dentists, psychiatrists, teachers, foster parents, and anyone else who is a part of my past, but even still, they will not let me take them off the property of the CCAS.
The reason they are not letting people have copies of the files, outside of the building is because of one thing, and one thing only.
The files, are written, documented proof of abuse and neglect administred by the foster care agencies them selves. In those documents I read about the abuses I had done to me. Do you think they would ever let that out of the building on their letter heads, and forms? Never. Would you if you were them?
I can only imagine the public outcry if those files were able to be made public without peoples names even. The public would not beleive the horrible attrocities being committed to families who are of low income, and mental disorders, or falsly accused, as well as the life long tortures of being dragged throught the foster care system, labelled as a foster kid, trouble maker, someone who's family did not want them (untrue) and so on and so on.
I admit I have anger and hurt inside from the agencies not allowing me to have copies of MY life. And I also admit to having a clean criminal record, not being voilent, and no matter how angry i may become on this issue, I would never commit a violent act upon any member of the agency or against any one in my past.
These files are the only connection I have to my past, as I do not have any association with anyone before my age of 18 years old. This is the only reason I want to have copies of the files of MY life and of my Mothers life before she killed herself.
I am ready and willing to go public on my life in foster care, and if you ever need to get hold of me, please contact Jane Scharf at dn701@ncf.ca or myself at afterfostercare@yahoo.com
I have so much more to say, but this has been enough for now.
But I do have a motto for my own life, and only my life, which anyone can quote me on anywhere, that says...
"If you are going to be abused, it might as well be at home"
John Dunn Foster Care Survivor Webmaster of:
Canadian After Foster Care Web Site http://afterfostercare.tripod.com
Foster Care Internet Radio (have your say on public internet radio) http://afterfostercare.tripod.com/contest.html