2019-2020 OMBUDSMAN'S FIRST ANNUAL REPORT: DEATH AND SERIOUS BODILY HARM..
Children’s aid societies and licensed residential service providers are legally required to inform the Ombudsman’s Office within 48 hours of any death or serious bodily harm of any child who has sought or received services from a children’s aid society within the past 12 months. Because they must be filed within 2 days of the incident, these reports may involve preliminary information and not findings of investigations by the police, child protection authorities or the coroner.
From May 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, we received 1,663 reports about 1,433 incidents (some reports were duplicates, from multiple agencies reporting the same incident). These reports related to 122 deaths and 1,473 cases of serious bodily harm (defined as any situation where a young person requires treatment beyond basic first aid, including for physical, sexual or emotional harm). The Ombudsman will report in more detail on our analysis of these statistics in future reports.
TOP CASE TOPICS
1,458 Children’s aid societies
240 Youth justice centres
139 Residential licensees
26 Secure treatment
https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/resources/reports-and-case-summaries/annual-reports/2019-2020-annual-report
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On Ontario Dress Purple Day, we partner with boards of education, schools, and child care to speak up for every child and youth's right to safety and well-being in all spaces and to celebrate the community that cares for kids. This year Ontario Dress Purple Day will take place on Tuesday, October 27, 2020.
http://www.oacas.org/dresspurpleday/
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2020: NDP call on ombudsman to launch ‘emergency’ investigation into child welfare deaths.
https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/ndp-call-on-ombudsman-to-launch-emergency-investigation-into-child-welfare-deaths/
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2020: 11 Indigenous children died in last four months connected to Ontario’s child welfare system.
https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/11-indigenous-children-died-in-last-four-months-connected-to-ontarios-child-welfare-system/
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2019: Ontario coroner getting data for massive analysis of child and youth deaths.
TORONTO – An Ontario youth court judge has granted the coroner’s office access to justice records that will be reviewed as part of a pilot project looking into thousands of deaths of children and young adults in the province.
Chief Coroner Dirk Huyer told Justice Sheilagh O’Connell on Tuesday that more than 7,000 people aged 10 to 24 years old have died in Ontario between 2007 and 2018. He said the project was an effort to better understand the factors at play.
“It’s very important research, so I commend you for this,” O’Connell said as she granted the coroner’s office access to the records.
READ MORE: More needs to be done to protect kids in Ontario’s child welfare system, coroner says
Huyer said outside court that one area of focus for researchers will be the more than 3,000 children and young people who died due to suicide or gun violence.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6249678/ontario-coroner-child-youth-deaths-data/
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IS BEING A COMBATANT IN A WAR ZONE SAFER THAN BEING A CHILD IN ONTARIO'S CARE?
“It is stunning to me how these children... are rendered invisible while they are alive and invisible in their death,” said Irwin Elman, Ontario’s advocate for children and youth. Between 90 and 120 children and youth connected to children’s aid die - every year...
A TOTAL OF 158 CANADIANS SOLDIERS DIED IN AFGHANISTAN BETWEEN 2002 AND 2011.
Canada in Afghanistan - Fallen Canadian Armed Forces Members.
One hundred and fifty-eight (158) Canadian Armed Forces members lost their lives in service while participating in our country’s military efforts in Afghanistan. You can click on the names to explore their entries in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/canadian-armed-forces/afghanistan-remembered/fallen?filterYr=2009
“There are lots of kids in group homes all over Ontario and they are not doing well — and everybody knows it,” says Kiaras Gharabaghi, a member of a government-appointed panel that examined the residential care system in 2016.
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2015: Teen’s death raises questions about secrecy surrounding kids in care.
“It is stunning to me how these children... are rendered invisible while they are alive and invisible in their death,” said Irwin Elman, Ontario’s former and last advocate for children and youth. Between 90 and 120 children and youth connected to children’s aid die every year.
CHILDREN ARE DYING IN ONTARIO'S CARE AND THE FRONTLINE WORKERS ARE THE ONES BEING REGULATED TO DEATH?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/12/10/teens-death-raises-questions-about-secrecy-surrounding-kids-in-care.html
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2015: Shedding light on the troubles facing kids in group homes.
The Star obtained the reports in a freedom of information request and compiled them according to the type of serious event that occurred — something the ministry does not do.
They note everything from medication errors to emotional meltdowns to deaths.
Restraints were used in more than one-third of 1,200 serious occurrence reports filed in 2013 by group homes and residential treatment centres in the city, according to a Star analysis.
At one treatment facility, 43 of the 119 serious occurrence reports filed to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services include a youth being physically restrained and injected by a registered nurse with a drug, presumably a sedative.
How is a society that's against spanking isn't against tying children to their beds and drugging them?
The language used by some group homes evokes an institutional setting rather than a nurturing environment. When children go missing, they are “AWOL.” In one instance in which a child acted out in front of peers, he was described as a “negative contagion.” Often, the reasons for behaviour are not noted. Children are in a “poor space” and are counselled not to make “poor choices.”
Blame is always placed on the child.
Their stories are briefly told in 1,200 Toronto reports describing “serious occurrences” filed to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services in 2013. Most involve children and youth in publicly funded, privately operated group homes.
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/07/03/kids-in-toronto-group-homes-can-be-arrested-for-being-kids.html
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2016: The ministry doesn’t know how many children are being cared for in Ontario’s 389 licensed group homes. It’s working on a system that will eventually allow it to collect the information.
At the end of September 2017, the group homes had 2,914 beds, almost one-third of them operated by private, for-profit companies. The rest are run by non-profit agencies such as children’s aid societies.
Another 2,005 beds were in foster homes run by companies, where the limit is four kids to a home. A growing number of kids are also being placed in unlicensed homes with live-in staff.
“You know your system is based on the flimsiest of foundations when you have absolutely no standards on who can do this work,” adds Gharabaghi, director of Ryerson University’s school of child and youth care.
https://www.mykawartha.com/news-story/7974974-kids-are-going-through-trauma-staff-are-getting-assaulted-we-are-all-in-the-trenches-together-/
https://www.mcgill.ca/socialwork/channels/news/report-calls-better-oversight-residential-services-young-people-ontario-260997
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2017: Youth homelessness linked to foster care system in new study.
The study, to be released Wednesday, found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population.
Of those with a history in the child welfare system, almost two of every five respondents eventually "aged out" of provincial or territorial care, losing access to the sort of support that could have kept them from becoming homeless, the study found.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121
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2009: Open child-death files: NDP.
Queen's Park is "stonewalling" the provincial child advocate in his bid to get more information about 90 children in Ontario's child welfare system who died in 2007, says New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton.
"We are talking about children under the control of children's aid societies. These are troubled children, vulnerable children who are dying," Hampton said in the wake of Irwin Elman's annual report to the Legislature yesterday, which highlighted the deaths.
"As he says in his report, the government is stonewalling him, making it difficult for him to do his job," Hampton said.
Elman, who became the province's first (and last) independent child advocate last summer, said the government's refusal to share detailed information about the deaths with his office limits his ability to act.
"I'm not talking about doing investigations," he said yesterday. "I'm talking about having the information about my children and youth so I know what's going on with them."
He said he will "vigorously pursue" the issue by proposing an amendment to the provincial Coroner's Act to give him full access to all reports concerning the death of children and youth involved in the child welfare system.
In his report, Elman notes that the 90 deaths represent less than a quarter of all children who died in the province in 2007 and are a fraction of the 26,260 open cases of children's aid societies. But the number of deaths is "too high by any standard."
A sombre Premier Dalton McGuinty said the deaths are "troubling."
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/02/24/open_childdeath_files_ndp.html
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2009: Why did 90 children die? TORONTO - Ontario's advocate for youth and children says it's unacceptable that 90 children known to child protection services died in 2007.
Irwin Elman, who was appointed to the post last July, says the 2008 Coroner's report suggests most of these deaths were preventable.
Sixteen deaths were accidental, nine were suicides, four were homicides, eight were from natural causes and 22 causes were undetermined.
Another 17 deaths are still to be classified and 14 were not considered appropriate by the Coroner for investigation.
Where the manner of death is known, 45 per cent of the children who died were under one year of age and 32 per cent were between 12 and 18.
In his annual report, Elman says it could be argued that 90 deaths in a small number compared with the 26,260 cases at Children's Aid Societies, but he rejects that, saying the figure is "too high by any standard."
Elman says in his report that "blaming some individuals is not helpful" and that society needs to say that it "cannot accept this."
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/02/23/why_did_90_children_die.html
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ninety-kids-known-to-ont-child-services-died-in-2007-1.373012
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/90-kids-known-to-ontario-s-child-services-died-in-07-1.373008
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2013: A CHILD IN CARE IS A CHILD AT RISK.
Between 2008/2012 natural causes was listed as the least likely way for a child in Ontario's care to die at 7% (only 15 children) out of the total deaths reviewed while "undetermined cause" was listed as the leading cause of death of children in Ontario's child protection system at 43% (92 children) of the total deaths reviewed over a four year period. The rest of the deaths were categorized as homicide, suicide and accidental.
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/DeathInvestigations/office_coroner/PublicationsandReports/PDRC/2013Report/PDRC_2013.html
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/sites/default/files/content/mcscs/images/195633-19.jpg
Undetermined means those 92 children had no pre-existing medical conditions and there was no rational reason for them to have died.
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2013: The inquest into Jeffrey Baldwin's death was supposed to shed light on the child welfare system and prevent more needless child deaths. Baldwin's inquest jury made 103 recommendations.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/inquest-into-boy-s-death-to-shed-light-on-child-welfare-system-1.1699846
Watch: Failing Jeffrey -Aired April 12 2006 on the fifth estate.
https://youtu.be/-jF2p_dAYFA
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2016: Nearly six months after the inquest into the death of Katelynn Sampson began, jurors delivered another 173 recommendations.
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/inquest-into-death-of-7-year-old-girl-emphasizes-duty-to-report-abuse/article29798749/?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theglobeandmail.com
THAT'S 276 OFFICIAL REASONS FOR CONCERN ABOUT CHILDREN IN ONTARIO'S CARE.
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2020: Canada’s death investigation system needs an overhaul.
In a medical examiner system, like in Alberta, all suspicious deaths are investigated by a medical examiner who is a trained forensic pathologist. Medical examiners review the deceased person’s medical information and the circumstances around the death, complete autopsies, and synthesize all of this information into their opinion on cause of death.
In the coroner’s system, a coroner is assigned to oversee death investigations and decides on the additional testing required before formulating an opinion as to an individual’s cause of death.
In Ontario, coroners are required to be physicians, usually general practitioners, and work closely with local forensics units to further delineate an individual’s cause of death.
In BC, coroners in charge of death investigation are not required to have formal medical training but they decide whether an autopsy by a pathologist is necessary. Ultimately, coroners make conclusions about cause of death based on the best information available to them. Given the lack of formal medical training, it is difficult to be confident that the accuracy of these conclusions will always be sound. And accurate information surrounding death has important implications for the living.
https://healthydebate.ca/opinions/death_investigation_feb2020
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2013: National review system needed to save lives: experts
Each province has a separate system for failing to collect or hide data on child deaths in care, which makes it impossible to track trends across the country and undermines attempts to learn from tragic deaths.JOHN LUCAS / EDMONTON JOURNAL
Leading advocates from across Canada say children’s lives could be saved if governments implement a national death review system that is independent, transparent and staffed with experts.
Currently, each province has a separate system for collecting data, which makes it impossible to track trends across the country and undermines attempts to learn from tragic deaths.
Gord Phaneuf, executive director of the Child Welfare League of Canada, said only comprehensive historical analysis can create the foundation for targeted, evidence-based system change that will actually prevent child deaths.
“Any province can lead on that,” Phaneuf said. “What has happened historically, in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, is they deal with the tragedy of the moment. On a personal level we can understand that, but on a governmental level that’s completely inadequate. We need to move past being reactive.”
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/edmonton/national+review+system+needed+save+lives+experts/9216992/story.html
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2011: Disgraced pathologist Charles Smith stripped of medical licence.
Dr. Charles Randal Smith was long regarded as one of Canada's best in forensic child pathology. A public inquiry was called after an Ontario coroner's inquiry questioned Smith's conclusions in 20 of 45 child autopsies.
In 1992, the Ontario Coroner's Office created a pediatric forensic pathology unit at Hospital for Sick Children and Smith was appointed director. He had become almost solely responsible for investigating suspicious child deaths in Ontario including the deaths of all children in Ontario's care.
In 1999, a Fifth Estate documentary singled him out as one of four Canadians with this rare expertise.
For more than a decade, Mr. Smith enjoyed a stellar reputation as the country's leading pathologist when it came to infant deaths giving lectures to law enforcement, medical students and other coroners. Several complaints about his work had little effect.
https://youtu.be/f5-53FhGQ5A
In this period he conducted hundreds of autopsies and testified in court multiple times. He conducted training sessions for lawyers on how to examine and cross-examine expert witnesses, and training for law-enforcement and medical staff on detecting child abuse.[5]
The inquiry, led by Justice Stephen Goudge and concluding in October 2008, found that Smith "actively misled" his superiors, "made false and misleading statements" in court and exaggerated his expertise in trials.
Far from an expert in forensic child pathology, "Smith lacked basic knowledge about forensic pathology," wrote Goudge in the inquiry report.
While at Sick Children's Hospital, Smith lived on a farm in Newmarket. His marriage collapsed around the time that his pathology work at Sick Children's received heavy scrutiny.[4] Smith was briefly relocated to Saskatoon and since 2007, he has lived in Victoria, British Columbia, with partner Dr. Bonnie Leadbeater, director of the Centre for Youth and Society at the University of Victoria.
A 2008 inquiry on Smith’s work condemned his “flawed approach” and noted the he “lacked the requisite training and qualifications” to work as pediatric forensic pathologist.
Smith’s findings had helped convict more than a dozen people, some of whom spent years in prison and lost access to their children.
For 24 years, Smith worked at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. In the hospital's pediatric forensic pathology unit, he conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies and never found anything strange about hundreds of children in care or having some contact with the children's aid society dying every year in Ontario.
But Smith no longer practices pathology. An Ontario coroner's inquiry reviewed 45 child autopsies in which Smith had concluded the cause of death was either homicide or criminally suspicious.
The coroner's review found that Smith made questionable conclusions of foul play in 20 of the cases — 13 of which had resulted in criminal convictions. After the review's findings were made public in April 2007, Ontario's government ordered a public inquiry into the doctor's practices.
"Smith was adamant that his failings were never intentional," Goudge wrote. "I simply cannot accept such a sweeping attempt to escape moral responsibility."
"Dr. Smith expressed opinions ... that were either contrary to, or not supported by, the evidence," Ms. Silver told the hearing Tuesday, reading from an agreed statement of facts.
Smith had been in search of his own personal truths. He was born in a Toronto Salvation Army hospital where he was put up for adoption three months later. After years of looking for his biological mother, he called her on her 65th birthday. But she refused to take his call.
Smith's adoptive family moved often. His father's job in the Canadian Forces took them throughout Canada and to Germany. He attended high school in Ottawa, and graduated from medical school at the University of Saskatchewan in 1975.
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"Workers found human tissue in disgraced pathologist's office, inquiry told." Tom Blackwell, CanWest News Service Published: Monday, December 17, 2007.
TORONTO - A secretary who worked alongside Dr. Charles Smith for years says she found a bag of dried human tissue, a dish containing bones and a child's hospital bracelet during one of her frequent searches of the pathologist's ramshackle office.
Maxine Johnson, an administrative co-ordinator at Sick Children's Hospital, told a public inquiry on Monday she once had pictures taken of the chronically messy office to try to prod Smith to keep his quarters neater. It did not work, she said.
It was during a 2005 audit of tissue samples requested by the chief coroner's office that Johnson and a colleague made the unusual discoveries in the pathologist's room.
"We found some dried-out tissue in plastic bags ... skeletal bones in another little dish," she said.
As well, they discovered a bead bracelet of the kind given to young patients at hospital.
Court of Appeal Justice Stephen Goudge is leading the inquiry into how the use of faulty forensic pathology evidence by Ontario prosecutors may have led to as many as 13 people being wrongfully convicted of killing children.
Johnson also related her attempts to get him to issue reports on surgical cases and autopsies more quickly, as doctors, coroners, police and relatives called incessantly for results. In one case, doctors had waited more than a month for pathology results on a biopsy of a live patient, urgently needed to help determine whether the child should receive radiation treatment.
Smith complained to others that he did not have enough secretarial support, but that was not the case, Johnson testified.
"We were always available and if Dr. Smith would simply give us the work, we would get (the reports) out," she said. "He loved to type them himself ... He wouldn't give them to us."
The consequences of Smith's cluttered existence at the hospital came to the fore as lawyers sought to review what is known at the inquiry as the Valin case.
William Mullins-Johnston had been convicted of murdering his niece largely on Smith's evidence. His conviction was overturned last month.
Defence lawyers were looking for tissue samples from the case so their pathologist could examine them. They were traced to Smith, but he did not know where they were.
Johnson and others set about scouring his office for them, found one on the first day, then another 20 two days later, in the same spot in the office where she had looked earlier.
She said Monday she assumed they had been placed there by someone after her first search, something she found "kind of strange."
Despite it all, however, Johnson called Smith a "great guy" with whom all the secretaries liked to work.
National Post
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/porchlightcanada/dr-charles-smith-inquiry-t2479.html?t=2479
http:// (DEADLINK) www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=09ff97ef-b41b-4352-b535-636da8a5ee9a&k=16571
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/29/like-a-god-dr-charles-smith-left-poisoned-trail-behind-him_n_9350124.html
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/disgraced-pathologist-charles-smith-stripped-of-medical-licence/article578634/
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2019: SOMETHING STILL STINKS IN THE CORONER'S OFFICE...
Christie Blatchford: 'Bullying' Ontario chief forensic pathologist accused of interfering with cases.
Dr. Jane Turner, who worked almost two years at the Hamilton Regional Forensic Pathology Unit, made the allegations in a letter to the Solicitor General
Dr. Michael Pollanen, Chief Forensic Pathologist for Ontario. "No one is allowed to challenge his views." a former colleague says.Geoff Robins/Postmedia/File.
In a case that parallels a scathing judge’s decision about Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist two years ago, Dr. Michael Pollanen has been accused of interfering in the work of the province’s other forensic pathologists, pressing them to change their findings in suspicious deaths and undermining those who disagree with him.
Dr. Jane Turner, a forensic pathologist who worked for almost two years at the Hamilton Regional Forensic Pathology Unit and is now working as a consultant in St. Louis, Mo., made the allegations in an Aug. 12 letter to Ontario Solicitor General Sylvia Jones.
“My complaint against Dr. Pollanen is not that I am always right and Dr. Pollanen is always wrong, but rather that his interference, bullying and insistence on compliance threaten the integrity of the system of death investigation,” Turner told Jones.
“No one is allowed to challenge his views.”
READ MORE HERE:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-bullying-ontario-chief-forensic-pathologist-accused-of-interfering-with-cases
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2020: A shocking report details how Ontario’s most vulnerable youths are shuttled from child protection to the justice system.
Ontario’s most vulnerable youths are being “retraumatized” by child protection and justice systems that set them up to fail and leave them languishing for months in pretrial detention, according to researchers who tracked kids in the care of foster parents and group homes.
The research team — co-led by Judge Brian Scully of the Ontario Court of Justice and Ryerson professor Judy Finlay — followed youths in care who were also involved with the justice system, including 28 youths in Toronto.
During the project’s two-year period, the Toronto youths spent an average of 138 days in detention awaiting trial, due to systemic barriers that make obtaining bail difficult and reoffending easy. Nine of the 28 youths spent one to six months in pretrial detention; eight spent more than six months.
The longest pretrial detention suffered by one youth was 455 days served in two stints, including one of 401 consecutive days. The youth was already in detention for an unknown amount of time before researchers began their tracking.
Project researcher Jessica Salerno followed the youth, whom she referred to with the pronoun “they.” She co-ordinated conferences with key players involved in the case and witnessed a system that broke the youth’s spirit.
“Towards the end, they were really sad,” Salerno says in an interview. “They just didn’t care anymore … They didn’t care about life and they didn’t care what happened to them.”
“Once they’re in the justice system, they go deeper and deeper into it,” says Finlay, a professor at Ryerson’s School of Child and Youth Care. She was Ontario’s child advocate from 1991 to 2007, an office Premier Doug Ford’s government abolished.
Often, a new placement for a detained youth must be found because the group home where they lived won’t take them back or a bail condition makes their return impossible — for example, if police decide a youth can’t have contact with another resident they’re accused of assaulting.
“In that case, there’s no possibility of the group home taking him back even if they want to,” Judge Scully says in an interview, adding police have so far largely refused to consider ways of ensuring a victim’s safety without making the accused youth homeless.
The youths sit in detention during the slow process of finding a new home.
When they finally emerge from detention, bail conditions can sometimes deprive youths of needed services. Bail often imposes counselling sessions and, with charges like assault, prohibits contact with the victim. But small communities might have only one psychologist, and if the victim also needs the service, both youths can’t be accommodated.
Researchers also found that freedom on bail is short-lived. Typical bail conditions order youths to respect rigid group home rules, which caregivers zealously uphold.
“Often, group homes would call the police when their youth, on bail or probation, were even a minute late for curfew,” the report states.
“Group care operators and staff indicated that they felt bound by the Children’s Aid Societies’ policy that required them to call the police. They felt they would be held liable if they did not report a ‘missing’ youth immediately. Police expressed frustration with this policy, but almost always charged the youth when they were called to respond.”
In an interview, Finlay says much would change if police, child protection workers, group home staff and lawyers recognized the trauma and vulnerability of cross-over youth.
“These young people get hardened,” she says, “because people look at them as criminals.”
Article continues:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/01/19/a-shocking-report-details-how-ontarios-most-vulnerable-youths-are-shuttled-from-child-protection-to-the-justice-system.html
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MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCESS A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHILD WELFARE EXPERT?
See: Robert D. Hare, C.M. (born 1934 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a researcher in the field of criminal psychology. He developed the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-Revised), used to assess cases of psychopathy. Hare advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services.
He describes psychopaths as 'social predators', while pointing out that most don't commit murder. One philosophical review described it as having a high moral tone yet tending towards sensationalism and graphic anecdotes, and as providing a useful summary of the assessment of psychopathy but ultimately avoiding the difficult questions regarding internal contradictions in the concept or how it should be classified.
Hare received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at University of Western Ontario (1963). He is professor emeritus of the University of British Columbia where his studies center on psychopathology and psychophysiology. He was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada on December 30, 2010.
Hare wrote a popular science bestseller published in 1993 entitled Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (reissued 1999).
http://www.psychology-criminalbehavior-law.com/2015/01/hare-psychopath/
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2019: Executive director Elaina Groves does say it's important for the public to know that child protection workers investigate differently than police. (NO SIU)
Decisions are made on a "balance of probabilities" which often means there's not enough evidence for criminal charges let alone a conviction which is probably why child protection social workers in Ontario refused to comply with the social worker registration act claiming there are no practical benefits for them agreeing to register with a college of social work that also uses a "balance of probabilities" to determine the "facts.."
The College of Social Work takes reports about concerns from the public and applies their own standard for investigating complaints as does the society and the same "balance of probabilities" making a ruling.
Groves says some may think that sounds "subjective" but she says rulings on abuse are based on the "impressions" of the unqualified unregistered social worker, the opinions of questionable medical professionals, as well as other evidence like the fraudulent Motherisk Test.
Balance of Probabilities Definition: Burden of proof in civil trials.
The common distinction is made with the burden of truth in a criminal trial, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil trial, one party's case need only be more probable than the other.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/cas-daycare-operator-dowling-sudbury-child-abuse-1.4826325
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/home-daycare-lawsuit-cas-police-investigation-1.4537023
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2019: There’s no rule on who can write assessments that ‘effectively decide’ if an Ontario parent loses their child. Experts say that must change.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/02/theres-no-rule-on-who-can-write-assessments-that-effectively-decide-if-an-ontario-parent-loses-their-child-experts-say-that-must-change.html
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9552213-ontario-psychologist-used-obsolete-tests-in-expert-opinion-calling-for-parents-to-lose-their-kids-judge-says/
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Expert Evidence and Assessments in Child Welfare Cases. Queen's University Legal Research Paper No. 063. Nicholas Bala Queen's University - Faculty of Law. 33 Pages Posted: 23 Dec 2015.
Jane Thomson University of New Brunswick, Faculty of Law; Queen's University, Faculty of Law Date Written: December 8, 2015.
Abstract:
Expert evidence from mental health professionals and medical doctors can play a central role in child welfare cases, and this evidence needs to be carefully scrutinized before it is relied upon in making critical decisions about the future of parent-child relationships. In Ontario, concern about the reliability of expert evidence in child abuse and neglect cases was heightened by the 2014 decision of the Court of Appeal in R v. Broomfield, where a mother’s conviction on criminal charges related to giving her infant child cocaine based on testimony by an expert from the Motherisk Drug Testing Lab at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. In overturning the conviction, the Court of Appeal noted that “the trial judge made her decision unaware of the genuine controversy among the experts about the use of the testing methods relied upon by the Crown expert at trial to found a conclusion of chronic cocaine ingestion.” In the months following the Court of Appeal decision in Broomfield, the Attorney General of Ontario appointed a former justice of the Court of Appeal, Susan Lang, to undertake a Review to assess the adequacy and reliability of hair analysis evidence used in child protection and criminal proceedings (report to be released Dec. 15, 2015).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2700906
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2010: Psychologist got degree from U.S. 'diploma mill'
A psychologist with the Durham Children’s Aid Society has pleaded guilty to professional misconduct for misrepresenting himself and for making multiple unqualified diagnoses of mental illness.
Gregory Carter, 63, appeared before the College of Psychologists of Ontario’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday. He and the college agreed on the terms of the penalty, which includes a three-month suspension, a recorded reprimand and one year of supervised practice under an approved practitioner.
In his practice with the Children’s Aid Society, Mr. Carter’s expertise was used to determine child custody cases.
https://nationalpost.com/posted-toronto/psychologist-got-degree-from-u-s-diploma-mill
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2016: Nov 24, 2016 - Although the Ontario Risk Assessment was a “state of the art” clinical tool at the...
The purpose of the Child Protection Standards in Ontario (dated February 2007) is to promote consistently high quality service delivery to children, youth and their families receiving child protection services from Children’s Aid Societies across the province.
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/professionals/childwelfare/protection-standards-2007/childprotectionstandards.aspx
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2019: Expert who gave more than 100 assessments in Ontario child protection cases lied about credentials for years, judge finds.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/07/31/expert-who-gave-more-than-100-assessments-in-ontario-child-protection-cases-lied-about-credentials-for-years-judge-finds.html
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2019: Ontario psychologist used ‘obsolete’ tests in expert opinion calling for parents to lose their kids, judge says.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/15/ontario-psychologist-used-obsolete-tests-in-expert-opinion-calling-for-parents-to-lose-their-kids-judge-says.html
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2019: Province orders children’s aid societies to review credentials of experts used in child welfare cases
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/23/province-orders-childrens-aid-societies-to-review-credentials-of-experts-used-in-child-welfare-cases.html
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2017: Motherisk hair test evidence tossed out of Colorado court 2 decades before questions raised in Canada
A U.S. court laid out extensive problems with how hair-strand tests were being done at the Motherisk Drug Testing Lab at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto more than two decades before similar issues were uncovered in Canada.
But the lab's work continued to be used in Canadian courts and relied upon in thousands of child protection cases, including ones in which children were permanently removed from their parents.
From 1991 until 2015, Motherisk was performing what have now been determined to be unreliable and inadequate drug and alcohol tests on thousands of members of vulnerable families across Canada, with the results in some cases leading to child welfare decisions to separate children from their parents AND TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FILES BEING LEFT OPEN OR REOPENED AT WILL.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/motherisk-colorado-court-case-1.4364862
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2017: Motherisk tests 'felt like junk science,' says lawyer in Colorado case
Colorado prosecutor Eva Wilson exposed flaws in Motherisk's testing methodology and analysis during a murder trial in 1993.
https://youtu.be/WIJqYz91ceU
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Confronting Motherisk co-founder Dr. Gideon Koren.
Fifth Estate co-host Mark Kelley confronts Dr. Gideon Koren, the founder and former director of Motherisk, at a medical conference in Windsor, England this month.
https://youtu.be/3POTUUN2tXU
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2018: What separation from parents does to children: ‘The effect is catastrophic’
This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.
Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain.
“The effect is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”
Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say — and causes irreversible, lifelong damage even when there is no other choice.
“Being separated from parents or having inconsistent living conditions for long periods of time can create changes in thoughts and behavior patterns, and an increase in challenging behavior and stress-related physical symptoms,” such as sleep difficulty, nightmares, flashbacks, crying, and yelling says Amy van Schagen - California State University.
The Science Is Unequivocal: Separating Families Is Harmful to Children
In news stories and opinion pieces, psychological scientists are sharing evidence-based insight from decades of research demonstrating the harmful effects of separating parents and children.
In an op-ed in USA Today, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (University of Delaware), Mary Dozier (University of Delaware), and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Temple University) write:
“Years of research are clear: Children need their parents to feel secure in the world, to explore and learn, and to grow strong emotionally.”
In a Washington Post op-ed, James Coan (University of Virginia) says:
“As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, I study how the brain transforms social connection into better mental and physical health. My research suggests that maintaining close ties to trusted loved ones is a vital buffer against the external stressors we all face. But not being an expert on how this affects children, I recently invited five internationally recognized developmental scientists to chat with me about the matter on a science podcast I host. As we discussed the border policy’s effect on the children ensnared by it, even I was surprised to learn just how damaging it is likely to be.”
Mia Smith-Bynum (University of Maryland) is quoted in The Cut:
“The science leads to the conclusion that the deprivation of caregiving produces a form of extreme suffering in children. Being separated from a parent isn’t just a trauma — it breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas.
Forceful separation is particularly damaging, explains clinical psychologist Mia Smith-Bynum, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, when parents feel there’s nothing in their power that can be done to get their child back.
For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. “Not all of them — some kids never recover,” Dr. Dozier said. “But I’ve been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they’re able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward.”
The effects of that harm may evolve over time, says Antonio Puente, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who specializes in cultural neuropsychology. What may begin as acute emotional distress could reemerge later in life as PTSD, behavioral issues and other signs of lasting neuropsychological damage, he says.
“A parent is really in many ways an extension of the child’s biology as that child is developing,” Tottenham said. “That adult who’s routinely been there provides this enormous stress-buffering effect on a child’s brain at a time when we haven’t yet developed that for ourselves. They’re really one organism, in a way.” When the reliable buffering and guidance of a parent is suddenly withdrawn, the riot of learning that molds and shapes the brain can be short-circuited, she said.
In a story from the BBC, Jack Shonkoff (Harvard University) discusses evidence related to long-term impacts:
Jack P Shonkoff, director of the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, says it is incorrect to assume that some of the youngest children removed from their parents’ care will be too young to remember and therefore relatively unharmed. “When that stress system stays activated for a significant period of time, it can have a wear and tear effect biologically.
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2007: Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated.
The researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis.
A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street.
"A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily."
'whole range of disorders'
Nowhere is concern greater than in Ontario, where the provincial government recently appointed a panel of experts to develop standards of care for administering drugs to children in foster care, group homes and detention centres.
The move was made after the high-profile case last year of a now-13-year-old boy in a group home outside Toronto came to light. The boy was saddled with four serious psychiatric diagnoses, including oppositional defiant disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and doused daily with a cocktail of psychotropic drugs before his grandparents came to his rescue. Now living with his grandparents, he is free of diagnoses and drugs.
Marti McKay is the Toronto child psychologist who, when hired by the local CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians to the boy, discovered a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs.
"There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses.
"There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-children-in-crown-care-are-medicated/article687480/
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2014: Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes.
In almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 per cent — are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications.
In group homes, the figure is even higher — an average of 64 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
“The medication problem is huge,” says Raymond Lemay, who retired this summer after 32 years as executive director of the Prescott-Russell children’s aid society. “It’s catastrophic.
“We should be doing other things than medicating these kids,” he says, adding his agency discourages the use of psychotropic drugs. “Medication is inappropriate in many circumstances and will do these kids long-term damage.”
MEET THE PUSHERS...
At the Brant CAS, drugs make up 52 per cent of expenditures on health insurance claims. The top five drugs prescribed and paid for by insurance are all used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Concerta, Strattera and Adderall.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
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2019: These Are The Most Dangerous & Heavily Promoted Prescription Drugs.
What’s worse is that the number of children prescribed dangerous drugs is on the rise. Doctors seem to prescribe medication without being concerned with the side-effects.
Worldwide, 17 million children, some as young as five years old, are given a variety of different prescription drugs, including psychiatric drugs that are dangerous enough that regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia, and the US have issued warnings on the side effects that include suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior.
According to Fight For Kids, an organization that “educates parents worldwide on the facts about today’s widespread practice of labeling children mentally ill and drugging them with heavy, mind-altering, psychiatric drugs,” says over 10 million children in the US are prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for alleged educational and behavioral problems.
In fact, according to Foundation for a Drug-Free World, every day, 2,500 youth (12 to 17) will abuse a prescription pain reliever for the first time (4). Even more frightening, prescription medications like depressants, opioids and antidepressants cause more overdose deaths (45 percent) than illicit drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and amphetamines (39 percent) combined. Worldwide, prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death.
https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/
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2016: A psychologist explains the top factor con artists use to choose their victims.
The chosen: Con artists choose you very carefully. They are only interested in those people who can be turned around to believe in them without question, who can be manipulated to believe in their illusions. They don't merely seek out the greedy or the weak or the stupid. Not at all. They seek out the needy. They sniff and snuffle around until they find someone who has an unfulfilled desire that even you yourself may be unaware of until the carrot is dangled in front of your face.
Con artists will stalk anyone whose weaknesses or strengths can be used to advantage. Scan through the character traits below, and you will see the con artist's menu. As far as he is concerned any character trait can be exploited and manipulated once your needs have been established. No one is immune.
Character traits: Pride, Ego, Anxiety, Ignorance, Ageing, Youth, Dreams, Security, Insecurity, Fear, Greed, Loneliness, Popularity, Assumed knowledge, Success, Failure, Illness, Self-Confidence, Desperation, Vulnerability, Ambition, Laziness, Wisdom, Hateful, Loving, any trait will do.
Scam victims: Yuppies, Volunteers, Attorneys, Wannabes, Stars, Do-gooders, Malcontents, Authority Figures, Politicians, Law Enforcement Officers, Single Moms, Students, Officials, Bankers, Sports Figures, Professors, Psychologists, Scientists, Psychologists, Blue Collar Workers, Unemployed, Doctors, Nurses, Physically Challenged, Elders, Children, Corporate Executives, Insurance Agents, Accountants, Real Estate Agents, ... You name it!
Right from the start: From the very moment a con artist targets you, his entire arsenal of psychological manipulation is brought into play. You are moved from a position of control to one of no control over anything at all. The con artist moves into the position of supreme power, regardless of how powerful you may be in real life.
How can this be? Because you are the only character in the play who hasn't a clue as to what is really happening. No one has given you a script to follow. The only choice given you is to react to what the other players are saying and doing.
Reality is gone, you just doesn't know it - your real world has been completely and effectively replaced with that of the con artist and his cronies. Smoke and mirrors.
You know the game is over when he starts using fear tactics to keep you off balance: how scammers stay out of jail
http://www.fraudaid.com/backstage/why_scammers_dont_go_to_jail.htm
http://www.fraudaid.com/backstage/victims_con_artists_look_for.htm#:~:text=Con%20artists%20choose%20you%20very,to%20believe%20in%20their%20illusions.&text=Con%20artists%20will%20stalk%20anyone,can%20be%20used%20to%20advantage.
"There's one thing in particular that makes anyone, intelligent or not, a good victim," she told Business Insider. "And that isn't a personality trait. It's not a demographic trait. It's a situational kind of thing: Where are you at this point in your life? People who are going through life transitions become more emotionally vulnerable and con artists can spot that."
These can be negative: The victim can be experiencing the sadness of a divorce, getting fired, or the death of a loved one. These can be positive: The victim can be experiencing the joy of a new marriage, a job promotion, or the birth of a child. What's common among all these is that they are periods of upheaval.
Con artists, as predators, love to pounce on these opportunities of emotional vulnerability.
During these periods, "we become a little bit uncomfortable because humans don't really like uncertainty and ambiguity," Konnikova said. "We like things to kind of be meaningful. Everyone really wants black and white answers. It's really hard to deal with when everything is kind of shifting around you."
"Con artists can spot that and they can take advantage of it because what they sell is meaning and certainty. They're going to tell you the story that makes sense, that actually makes you say, 'Ok, now I have something that makes sense in this particular moment in my life.'"
https://www.businessinsider.com/psychologist-explains-how-con-artists-choose-victims-2016-3
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