CAS CONDITIONS

CAS Conditions on the Mielke's family

Here, with the only modification being the replacement of our children's names with age/gender references, is the CAS's proposed list of supervision

conditions. These will likely change somewhat, and I'll document their final version, after the lawyers negotiate. Although it's not written here, the CAS

is asking for the right to impose them, and themselves, on us for the next twelve months.

(A)  Conditions applicable to all of the children:

1.)  The parents not exercise any form of physical discipline.

2.)  The parents continue to receive the services of Sharon Doucette, Behaviour Management Consultant.

3.)  The parents continue to attend the bi-monthly parenting group, offered through Behaviour Management.

4.)  David Mielke not be left completely alone to care for the children. There must be another adult present.

5.)  The parents work co-operatively with the Society.

6.)  The parents allow the Society to have access to the children individually and independently of the parents.

7.)  The parents sign consents to allow the Society to speak with the children's schools and any other involved professionals.

8.)  The parents follow through with any recommendations made by the school board personnel or other professionals.

9.)  The parents maintain a clean, healthy, and safe environment for their children.

10.) The mother, Ruby Mielke, follow up with individual counselling, to ensure there is no relapse in her mental, emotional or physical state.

(B) Specific conditions in relation to their 2-year-old son:

1.)  The mother continue to regularly attend the Crescendo play group.

2.)  The parents sign consents to allow the Society to speak with the play group leaders.

3.)  The parents consent to a referral to "First Words", to provide a language assessment and any treatment recommendations.

4.)  The parents take their son to his family doctor, initially on a monthly basis, and at intervals deemed appropriate by the physician.

5.)  The parents sign consents to allow the Society to speak with the physician.

6.)  The parents follow up with any appointments for their son at CHEO, as determined by the Child Protection Team, at CHEO.

Specific conditions in relation to their 14- and 12-year-old daughters:

1.) The conditions from 1 to 10 (A) apply.

= = = = =

Earlier message:

Hi:

My wife and I had a meeting with our social worker this morning. Our friend from work came over to observe and to take notes. The meeting began right on schedule at 9am, and lasted just over an hour.

Our 12-year-old daughter, as usual, stopped by on her way to school. At about 8:35 there was a knock at our front door. She panicked, thinking that our social worker had come early, grabbed all of her things, and escaped out the back door. The person at the front door turned out to be a friend and classmate of hers who had come to walk with her to school.

Our social worker began by doing something which I really do appreciate. She took out that ugly old service plan agreement from early September (which was scheduled to be reviewed on December 7), and flipped through it marking things "done". There were, in her opinion, only two outstanding issues:

- Dave and Ruby are to hire a cleaning service - Ruby is to have continued psychological treatment and support   (according to Dr. Groves's recommendation)

Regarding the hiring of a cleaning service: I told her that we'd contacted Molly Maid (preferring them because they bring their own supplies) back in late September and are currently on their waiting list. I told her that I hadn't pressed the issue too much since, without our children here, there'd be nothing for them to do. I told her that, as soon as I had a good idea regarding child return dates, I'd be pursuing this issue with greater fervency. She agreed that this made sense. I also told her that we had friends who'd be willing to do the job in the interim, i.e. until an official maid became available.

Regarding the continued psychological treatment and support for my wife: Our social worker raised her concern that my wife's assessment didn't contain recommendations for follow-up which would help improve her condition. I first reminded her that the assessment was good, and that the only valid concern would be for follow-up recommendations to insure that she wouldn't suffer a recurrence. I then informed her that our lawyer had the same concern, and was already pursuing that issue with the psychologist's office.

Our social worker then gave us her proposed list of conditions which should be included in the supervision order. First, here's the list, without commentary, all in one place.

- We are not to use any corporal punishment (no spanking). - We are to continue with the parenting course. - We are to maintain a clean and safe home environment. - Our social worker is to have access to the children (at school). - Our social worker is to have our consent for her to speak to others who   have access to the children (teachers, play group staff,   other involved professionals) - We are to follow up on any recommendations from the school   with regards to our children. - We are to comply with recommendations from the Ottawa Children's   Treatment Centre with respect to our 6-year-old son's care   (special needs or services) - We are to bring our 2-year-old son for regular follow-up appointments   with our family doctor (as the doctor deems necessary). - Our social worker and the parenting instructor are allowed to   make random visits to our home. - I am not to have a web site that refers to the case. - Although it cannot be ordered, it is recommended that we have no more   children.

Now, here are my comments.

No corporal punishment: I can't possibly agree to this, even though I, even with thirteen children, have hardly ever had to use it, since God Himself has declared that there are times when it is appropriate. I don't think that this condition can be enforced anyway since our supreme court has ruled that, when appropriate, and if not excessive, it may legally be used. I believe, therefore, that the supervision order should not include such a condition.

Continue with the parenting course: This would include both the bi-weekly sessions and the home visits by the instructor. No problem.

Maintain a clean and safe home environment: No problem.

Social worker's free access to the children: I'll have to accept this one, although I don't trust what goes on when social workers engage in secret discussions with children. Nothing stops them, as we've already experienced, from coercing a false confession.

Consent for social worker to speak with involved professionals: No problem.

Follow up on any recommendations from the school: I'll accept this one, with the understanding that we'll certainly listen to what they have to say, but, given that they operate within an entirely different value system, we won't blindly trust and/or obey them.

Follow up on recommendations from OCTC: While there's nothing technically wrong with this one, I don't like it because it implies that my wife and I, at least at times, have not done what is in the best interests of our 6-year-old son (the one with cerebral palsy). On this basis, therefore, I think that such a condition should not appear within the supervision order.

Bring our 2-year-old son for regular follow-up appointments: Good idea, especially since the CAS has done its level best to mess him up. We, too, would like to see him fully recover from their abuse.

Random home visits by social worker and parenting instructor: No choice.

No more web sites: This should not appear within the supervision order since it has absolutely nothing to do with our ability to raise our children. The CAS is, of course, always free to charge me with whatever law I'm breaking, should it be that I'm actually ever breaking one.

No more children: Agreeing to this would be a simultaneous declaration that we distrust God. He is responsible for each and every conception, and clearly knows better than any man when it is best to (or not to) bless a family with another child. I'm sure that the CAS will attempt to make our total trust in God appear as though it's total irresponsibility before the court. So be it. Man has mere opinions, but God knows the facts.

More and other details:

While discussing the CAS's concern that there be no more web sites, I told her that I'd check with our lawyer, and that, as a Christian, I am committed, before the God of Heaven, to obeying the law. She then tried to discredit our lawyer by claiming that he didn't know what the law was. She also said that the primary concern was that the foster parents didn't want to be exposed to public critique. Since, to the best of my knowledge, the applicable law offers foster parents no such protection, and since they don't even deserve any such protection, her concern, as stated, is, in my opinion, entirely bogus. I actually take it as kind of a compliment that, at no time, have they accused me of reporting false information, and that they appear to be so scared of the revelations.

She was very concerned that a remark apparently overheard by one of the visit supervisors hinted at the fact that my wife is already pregnant again. First, to the best of our knowledge (albeit through no effort of our own), she is not. Second, this is yet another example of poor reporting, poor interpretation, or whatever. My wife had explained that our children climbed on me more than they climbed on her because the latter has routinely been dangerous since she's been pregnant a lot of the time. This got turned into the belief that she'd cautioned the children not to be too rough around her since they might hurt the baby within her.

She considers the parenting instructor to be the family support worker, so her demand that we continue with the parenting course is sufficient and an additional family support worker won't be requested. It'll be up to the parenting instructor to decide how long she wishes to stay involved with our family. This involvement could extend beyond the end of the supervision order. She is okay, so my wife and I don't have any problem with this.

She discussed how our children should be involved in the doing of chores, and how the parenting instructor could help us organize this. This is, of course, true, and, should we need the help, we shall certainly avail ourselves of it. I told her, however, that we already have a very complete list of chores, but, without the little children being here, there just isn't that much to do, and, without all of the older children being here, it's not possible to prepare the chore assignments in their final form. I didn't elaborate during the meeting, but we believe in involving each child in the decision making process but don't want to consume our scarce and valuable visit time with such things. We do, however, use our visit times to encourage them to think seriously about committing themselves to the extra effort which will be required.

I asked her how long she thinks the supervision order will be for. She said nine to twelve months. I asked her how often the random visits would occur. She said that they'd be fairly frequent at first, and then, assuming that no problems are found, they'd become less and less frequent. She said that they might become as infrequent as once per month.

In a spirit of openness, I let her know, in light of the fact that my wife is frightened of CAS staff, that I'd be asking for an hour's notice of each random visit so that I'd have time to get home to be with my wife. She told us that she didn't like the idea since that would also give us time to do a massive cleanup, thereby concealing any problems. I told her that my sole interest was the protection of my wife's emotional state, and pointed out that one hour is hardly enough time to conceal a problem severe enough to be worth worrying about. I also told her that I, as a Christian, despised lying, and that concealing a problem is, in my opinion, lying about its existence. She acknowledged that this made sense, and added that it wasn't her job to stress out my wife.

We told her about the bruising which we've been observing on our 2-year-old son's face lately. She was surprised to hear this, gave it her immediate attention, asked questions, and took notes. We've observed bruising under his eyes and on his forehead. I failed to report it, even though my wife told me about it, so we were unable to give her a date for the first such observation.

She gave us the explanation to something we'd been wondering about for a few weeks now. Our 2-year-old son, some weeks ago, arrived for a visit with his hair nearly completely shaved off. He'd apparently been pulling his hair out so the Children's Hospital decided that removing it was the best course of action to take. This, of course, is yet another sign of just how much emotional stress the CAS has been subjecting him to. Add this to his frequent illnesses, the bruising on his face, and the behaviours which we've observed during his visits, and the CAS doesn't come out looking very innocent.

I asked her about her current take on when our children will be returning. She said that she expected our 14- and 12-year-old daughters to be returning right around the date of the settlement conference (November 23), with our other children returning two by two, from older to younger, each week after that. She thinks that our 5- and 4-year-old daughters will be returned before our 7- and 6-year-old sons, though, due to our 6-year-old son's special needs. She seems to think that we need their assistance in order to best care for him upon his return. While this is offensive, it won't make a great deal of difference which order the last two pairs of children are returned in.

Our 2-year-old son is an exception to the above. A meeting is being held this Friday (apparently the first day on which all necessary people are simultaneously available) in order to determine what to do with him. The CAS is acknowledging that he's suffering, although it's not accepting responsibility, and is apparently considering returning him sooner rather than later. We, of course, aren't invited to this meeting. I guess that's because we mere parents couldn't possibly have any useful information to contribute to it.

I told her that she must know that it's in his best interests to be returned as soon as possible, i.e. right after that meeting, and that I'd be prepared to forgive them for their abusive treatment of him should they do so. I added that, should they stall, I'd have to seriously reconsider my position since I'd know that they were more interested in playing politics. She didn't respond to this with any kind of definite statement, claiming that she wasn't in a position to control the outcome of the meeting. I, of course, knew that, but, nevertheless, attempted to deliver a very strong message to her which I hope she'll pass on to them.

She told us that she'd be looking into allowing our 14- and 12-year-old daughters to be home on weekends. Even though there are only two weekends between now and the settlement conference, it'll still be nice if she can arrange this soon. She said that she'd be looking into it before the end of this week.

In an attempt to convince us that the CAS had good reason to suspect that we didn't know how best to meet our 6-year-old son's special needs, she brought up the dispute regarding the use of his glasses. I reminded her that there was no dispute since it was a disagreement between what we knew and what his foster parents were guessing. She rejected this assessment of the situation, citing the letter from the ophthalmologist which appeared to give credibility to the foster parents' position. I told her what I think, i.e. that the doctor was trying to eliminate an issue that is so close to being 50-50 that it didn't matter all that much. I can't be sure, of course, but will ask as soon as I'm allowed to talk directly to him again.

In an attempt to put an end to all of her allegations that we don't know how to look after our 6-year-old son properly, I suggested that she go and talk to the staff of the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre since we've been dealing with them since his birth. I added that the OCTC staff don't think that what the CAS has done has been good for him. I also suggested that she consider the fact that he was nearly dead when "born", and that she should contrast this with the wonderful state which he's in nowadays.

We told her about our concern that our family doctor be sent reports from all of the other doctors which our children have been seeing while away. She agreed that this was a sensible thing to want, and told us that she'd give us a list of the other doctors, and that we should give that list to our doctor so that he can request the information from them.

She tried to ease her way back into believing the emotional abuse allegations by telling us that she was hearing from "all over the place" that our children were "elective mutes". I reminded her that this label had only been assigned by the staff of one school, and that that school provides such an unhealthy environment that our children found it necessary to withdraw from the goings on there. I suggested that she check with the psychologist's office as his staff would be able to confirm that our children were anything but quiet when they met them for the first time. I told her that she may also be misled by our children's reactions toward the social workers since they hated them. She then gave direct evidence to contradict what she herself was attempting to believe, i.e. that those of our children whom she's personally met have been very open with her.

I asked her what guarantee we have that the CAS, based on a false allegation (of which we've had our share), won't unnecessarily yank our children again. She said that there's no guarantee whatsoever, and that it would depend on the CAS's own assessment of the seriousness of the allegation. Her reminder that judges are always there to guard against CAS wrong-doing was no real comfort since we've already seen how deceitful the CAS is when providing "evidence" for that initial hearing, and since even the wisest of judges can't undo the trauma of a wrongful apprehension. She did add, however, that further developments are helping them to see things from new perspectives so they might not be as quick to react the next time.

As she stood up to leave, she concluded our meeting on a very positive (and, I hope, sincere) note. She, hoping that all is as we're claiming it to be, said that she's looking forward to our supervision visits so that she can finally meet all of our children, and so that she can sit down with us and discuss how great they are. I told her that I was deeply hoping that we could cooperate with one another.