2Y OLD RETURNED

Meeting after the return of the 2y old

Hi:

Our social worker and our 2-year-old son's social worker came to our home for a meeting yesterday at 12:30pm. Our friend from work was also present, coming early so as not to be late. Our son's social worker came next, and chatted with our friend until her colleague arrived. Our social worker came last, at which point I informed both of them that my wife had still not returned from the play group.

The door bell rang a couple of minutes later. We all wondered who was coming to interrupt our meeting, and I commented that it wouldn't be my wife since she'd just walk in. I was wrong, of course, discovering both my wife and our son standing there when I opened the door.  I then realized what she had done, i.e. let our son ring the bell, and told our social worker. She seemed to approve. This little totally unstaged event gave her an opportunity to see two things: our son being happy with his mother, and my wife letting her child have some fun.

Both social workers asked us how our son's behaviour had been. They asked specifically about how he was on his first day back home, how he was at the play group, and how he slept at night. I, in response to such direct questions, had to tell them about his awful nightmare experience. They told us that it would probably take him a while to get used to the change.  I told them that that was nonsense, since he's been to our home several times now, and that it was obviously a symptom of how he'd been suffering while being forceably kept away from us. She reassured me that his foster home was a good one. I agreed with her, telling her that I held the CAS solely and wholly responsible.

Our social worker told me that they couldn't stop us from suing them. I told them that I hated having to always use the law to try to impose change from the outside. I told them that I was hoping to encourage them to try to change their system from within, declaring that I was calling them to repentance. I then explained how repentance not only includes apologizing, adding that I haven't yet heard an apology, but also includes doing everything in ones power to turn away from the sin and insure that it won't ever happen again.

I explained how it's worth the trade-off, even though there's a negative impact, when a child is taken out of a bad home, but that taking a child out of a good home destroys him. I declared that their abuse of our son was a terrible sin, and, therefore, that their repentance is essential. I told them that I, therefore, want to see tangible evidence of steps being taken by the CAS to insure that the possibility that it'll ever inflict such harm on a child again is minimized. I explained to them how, at work, we regularly have special meetings, called post mortems, at which we analyze how a task was done with the hope that we can pin-point flaws, eliminate them, and, in so doing, perform it much more smoothly and effectively the next time.

They then launched into the real reason for the meeting (documented earlier and not repeated here), i.e. to raise with us their concerns regarding his health and behaviour while in foster "care". Although we kind of knew, we then finally found out just how tortured our youngest child has been for the last four months. If they still think I'm abusive, then they ought to be seriously wondering why I didn't lop off their heads after hearing what they had to say. If they still think my wife can get easily depressed, then, too, they ought to be seriously wondering why she, rather than plunging into despair upon hearing of her baby's tremendous suffering, was able to remain completely coherent.

I asked why it took the CAS so long, especially given what they knew regarding his extreme suffering while in their "care", to return our son, and was told that they felt it necessary to check out every single detail before deeming it safe to return him. I told them that, as far as I could tell, no real effort had been made until the situation became so bad that there were many public witnesses to severe physical evidence of his suffering. They kept trying to assure me that this wasn't true, and that his return was part of an on-going process.

We were told that one of the reasons for the long delay in our son's return was that the child protection people in the Children's Hospital wrote up some kind of a report which the CAS felt obligated to use as evidence against us because it made us look awful. How can they do this when we've never taken him there, and when they've made no effort to contact us? They only ever saw our son when he was brought there by his foster parents for whatever ailments he was suffering while in their home.

They refused to tell us what is in that report (although I'm certain that it'll remain in the CAS files to be potentially held against us again at some later date). I kept trying, but they kept saying that medical reports should only ever be interpreted by medical people (so why are the social workers interpreting them), and that our doctor, therefore, would have to get it and reveal its content to us.  They further explained that they just wanted us to know, in advance, the nature of the report so that we wouldn't be "lambasted with the information" when our doctor shared it with us.

While talking with them about long process delays, they admitted that the in-take people just swoop in, take children, hand the case over to the on-going people, and get out of the picture. I asked why it took two whole months, then, before we were transferred from in-take to on-going.  They responded with their standard answer, i.e. that there aren't enough workers to adequately handle the load. They then explained how the government has given them so much more work to do but hasn't kept its promise to give them more workers to do all of that work.

Assuming, for the moment, that this is true, why then doesn't the CAS internally prioritize cases by perceived severity, and only intervene in as many cases as it can realistically handle? Without managing their own internal resources as effectively as possible, they, in their zeal to rescue every single child from any potential risk, are knowingly employing a process which risks destroying good homes. This makes the CAS no less than a profound and seasoned hypocrite, haphazardly charging everyone else with what it itself is guilty of.

Our social worker told us that there was one more item which she would be adding to our supervision order, i.e. that our 4-year-old daughter, even though we don't believe that junior kindergarten is a good thing, attend school. She explained that she believes this should be imposed because our daughter is already attending school (against our express wishes) and, in the CAS's opinion, is "thriving". I told her that we might register her in the local school since it offers an afternoon joint junior/senior kindergarten class if our 4- and 5-year-old daughters could both be registered in that same class. This is yet another example of the CAS deliberately imposing its own value system simply because it believes it has the power to do so, and in spite of the fact that it has no legal right to do so.

I mentioned that we were glad that our children were now to be registered in a school which is much better than their previous one. Our social worker, with a tone of amazement in her voice, told me that that was the first time she's ever heard me say that something good has come out of this. Our friend told her that she's heard me say good things before. I then added that we probably wouldn't have moved if this hadn't happened. Not wanting her to go too far astray, however, I told her that she should never begin to think that the end ever justifies the means, explaining that that would be like saying that sin is a good thing because it enables God to demonstrate his grace.

She asked us if we'd contacted the local school yet. I told her that we would have except that we don't yet have a firm child return schedule. She insisted that we should contact the school anyway, especially since there are so many children, even though we don't know yet for sure when each child will be back. She pressed this point, perhaps still wanting to try to force us to register our 4-year-old daughter without having more time to think about it, by explaining that this is particularly necessary if we wanted to insure that our two youngest daughters are registered in the same class. Perhaps she's right, but I hate asking people or organizations to make commitments with nothing firm to go on.

When pressed for a tentative child return schedule, they proposed that the other eight children be returned, starting right after Thursday's settlement conference, two by two each two weeks. They also said that they foresaw all of our children being home before Christmas. They clearly didn't check the calendar since November 23 plus three times two weeks lands on January 4.

I asked them why they were looking at a two week interval between the return of each pair, and was told that it was to allow for the resolution of any problems which might develop. Not expecting any more problems except, perhaps, with our 5- and 4-year-old daughters, I asked if any given two week interval could be shortened if there are no problems. They answered "yes", and said that it would be up to the parenting instructor since she's the "expert" who's routinely in our home. I asked if the schedule could be reworded to return the pairs in one week intervals, allowing for an added delay if a problem does develop. They seemed to accept this proposal. I told them that I'd be in complete agreement with them should such a change be made.

They rightly believe that our 2-year-old son will require a lot of special care and, in light of that, were originally wanting to delay the return of the first pair, i.e. our 14- and 12-year-old daughters. I explained to them that those children are older, are helpful, and don't create the same attention demand conflicts as would, say, our 5- and 4-year-old daughters. They agreed, and finally said that they saw no problems with the older girls coming here on Friday, as they already do for their weekend visits, and then staying.

I asked them about our placement on the provincial child abuse registry. They asked if we'd received any written confirmation of this yet. I said "no". They then gave us some more insight into the process. The in-take people sent a recommendation to the ministry. The ministry sent back a request to the CAS that an individual report be written up for each child. Since our case is now being handled by the on-going people, rather than by the in-take people, this request was directed to on-going.  They, not wanting to do all of that work, sent it back to in-take, telling them that, since they originated it, they should do the work associated with it. That's all they knew.

Seizing a potential opportunity, I asked them to check back with in-take and, if they haven't done the work yet, to try to put a stop to it. They told us that there's only one way to reverse the process, i.e. for a listed person himself to go through the expungement process. I asked if there really was no way for them to declare that they've erred, and was told "no". I told them I didn't believe that, and asked again if they'd try to ask in-take to cancel the process. They tried to avoid me by saying that that wasn't their job since in-take had initiated the process.  I insisted. They said they'd look into it, but wouldn't give any guarantees.

I told them that I was asking them to cancel the abuse registry process because I didn't need yet more work. She then said something, which I can't remember, indicating that she thought I was admitting to reaching my endurance limit. I assured her that I was in no danger of cracking, but, since the CAS has returned to us a damaged child, I wasn't looking for extras. She chuckled. I'm not sure why, but suspect it was because she was able to relate my statement to her, probably high, work load.

I asked our social worker why our only problem, i.e. our letting the physical state of our house decline so extremely, warranted our being put on the abuse registry. She asked our son's social worker, whose job (foster care, not protection) wouldn't even require her to know such things, whether or not neglect of the family was considered an adequate reason. Our son's social worker, of course, had no answer. I then sternly reminded both of them that we are guilty of having neglected our house, but that we're not guilty of having neglected our family. This time, neither of them argued the point.

Our social worker shed some more light on her repeated claim that we had no food in our house on the day that our children were apprehended. I challenged her on this point, telling her yet again that our fridge was empty but that our freezer was full. She asked me if I'd shown them that. I said "yes", explaining how I personally led them to our freezer and forced them to look into it. She finally acknowledged that she did have a picture of our full freezer, but then added that she also had pictures of our empty kitchen cupboards. I acknowledged this, explaining that we kept all of our food downstairs.

After some further discussion, she finally gave me her reasoning for telling everyone, including judges, that we had no food in our house.  Although she saw plenty of food which required preparation, she saw no snack foods. What a preposterous misrepresentation of the truth! Where, after all, does proper nourishment come from ... from snacks or from meals? The fact is that we probably didn't have a lot of snack foods because we don't stock up on junk food. It was the middle of the summer, and our children, especially during hot times, thrive on fruit and juice. We might even have been low on fruit since it was the last day of our bi-weekly grocery shopping period.

This discussion led me to hold a lecture on how the in-take people had been very deceitful, and on how she was naively trusting their deceitful reports. I continued by recounting how the in-take people had said several deceitful things and made several deceitful claims that day. I continued, telling her how I'd confronted the in-take supervisor very directly about this, and about how that supervisor had responded by telling me that that's why we have a lawyer to refute their claims.

I told her that I did feel sorry for her, since she really has no other way to do her job, and that I was only hoping to enlighten her regarding the type of work which they do so that she'll have more insight when dealing with the next family. At this point, my wife added that she overheard them planning to take weighted pictures. Our social worker asked her if she confronted them about it. My wife said "no". Our social worker said that she'd be upset if she heard that too.

I told them that one of the big differences between them and myself is that I, when having a problem with someone, first go directly to that person in hopes of reaching a resolution. I explained that this, in fact, is the approach which Jesus has commanded, and that the CAS, which almost never does this but almost always talks behind people's backs, is, therefore, acting in direct disobedience to the God of the universe. Our social worker, clearly getting the point but missing its spiritual aspect, asked me if I meant that she held her cards closer to her heart than I do. I said "yes". She justified her position by saying that it was because she hates the legal process as much as I do. She seems to be missing the inconsistency, i.e. just why is it that we use diametrically opposed approaches to resolve the same problem.

My wife told our 2-year-old son to stop throwing cars from the table to the floor. He responded rather extremely to this, running out of the living room, into the kitchen, throwing himself face down onto the floor, and crying. Our social worker, probably because she was so intently talking with me, seemed to have missed what actually happened. She, probably trying to extricate herself from our discussion, asked me if he was acting that way because of the intensity of our conversation. I, not being able to resist taking full advantage of the situation, calmly, quietly, and firmly told her that there was no need for our discussion to continue since I'd already told her everything she needed to hear. She, realizing her dilemma, just sat there quietly for about ten seconds and then began to talk about something else.

While leaving, they asked us if it's okay or not for our children, when returning, to bring with them the things which they've acquired at their foster homes. I asked for clarification, and was told that they were referring to things like clothes and toys. We said "yes", adding that the only exception would be if there were some particular toy which we fundamentally disagreed with. I then asked why they would even ask such a question, wondering aloud if it was because some parents don't want any reminders of their children's foster homes. They didn't refute this, but, perhaps, in a unique moment of consideration for our Christianity, said that they were concerned that we might not want to import too much materialism. I told them that we were thankful for whatever our children have received, and that whatever is brought back will end up being shared by all anyway.

As they left, even our 2-year-old son said "good-bye". There was no "me go with you".

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