What does Ontario's children's aid society and known corrupt corporations have in common? Or a better question might be, what don't they have in common. A lot of dead children in unmarked graves.
What kind of an organizational culture do corrupt companies tend to have? To answer this question, I conducted a study based on a review of academic literature as well as in-depth interviews with 23 prominent lawyers, investigators, scholars, and policymakers with firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of dozens of corrupt firms.
They highlighted a number of common traits often missed by standard compliance processes that might be “red flags” for organizational corruption. These traits don’t guarantee corruption within an organization, but they do point to the conditions in which it thrives.
Corruption seems most likely in organizations where growth is a fetish, insecurity is rampant, and high performance goes unquestioned.
One academic study that does focus on corruption through the lens of organizational behavior distinguishes between top-down “corrupt organizations,” where corruption is carried out by employees for the firm’s benefit, and bottom-up “organizations of corrupt individuals,” where wide-scale corruption is carried out by employees for their own benefit.
In the real world, this distinction is not always easy to draw, however. Corruption may arise that benefits both the individual and the organization, such as a company with aggressive bonus structures that unwittingly incentivize employees to engage in corrupt practices to meet high targets.
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SEE 2013: The memo notes that “our volumes continue to be lower than our projections and this will result in less funding for our organization which directly impacts our current deficit and could impact our funding in future years. Therefore the month of March is very important and we need to make a collective effort to meet our newly discussed targets.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/14/in_leaked_memo_peel_cas_staff_asked_to_keep_cases_open_to_retain_funding.html
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Another widely-referenced study discusses how corruption
becomes “normalized” in organizations through three mutually
reinforcing processes: institutionalization, rationalization, and
socialization.4 During institutionalization, a corrupt decision or act
becomes embedded in corporate structures and processes.
“No one should be surprised that agencies like Peel CAS are taking extreme steps to ensure they have the funding necessary to fulfill their legislated mandates to protect children,” said Carrie Lynn Poole-Cotnam, Chair of the CUPE Ontario Social Services sector.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/15/province_in_talks_with_peel_childrens_aid_society_over_strategies_in_leaked_memo.html
During rationalization, self-serving ideologies develop that enable
individuals to justify corrupt behavior. And finally, during socialization, embedded systems and norms induce new employees to tolerate corruption and view it as permissible.
This model helps explain why individuals engage in corruption that would otherwise violate their internal moral framework. As the authors describe in a second article, “One of the most intriguing findings of the white-collar crime literature is that corrupt individuals tend not to view themselves as corrupt.”
Another sociological study elaborates on the self-rationalizing ideologies of corrupt organizations, including denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, and an appeal to higher loyalties (such as loyalty to co-workers).
Building off of this literature, my study found a highly consistent view of how a culture of corruption manifests within an organization. Corruption seems most likely in organizations where growth is a fetish, insecurity is rampant, and high performance goes unquestioned. Rules and processes put in place to promote integrity may be selectively enforced and easily evaded, as shown in many recent cases under anti-bribery statutes.
The Growth Fetish – When the Ends Justify the Means...
READ LOTS MORE HERE:
https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/public-integrity/files/what_do_corrupt_firms_have_in_common_-_capi_issue_brief_-_april_2016.pdf
Abstract: Defining corruption as the exercise of public power for private, selfish ends, many theorists have argued that individuals can be corrupt even if their actions are legal. This essay explores the knotty question of when legal corporate action is corrupt. It argues that when corporations exercise public power, either through monopolistic control of a market or through campaign contributions and support of governmental actors, they are subject to the same responsibilities of anyone who exercises public power. Therefore, as a theoretical matter, we should call corporations corrupt when they exercise public power selfishly, in a way that puts their own interests over the public’s interests. Because they make legal corporate corruption less likely, global anticorruption campaigns should therefore emphasize antimonopoly laws and campaign finance laws.
https://www.amacad.org/publication/problem-monopolies-corporate-public-corruption
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2018: "Ontario’s child protection system fails children, again." By Star Editorial Board.
Children should, at the very least, survive the attempts of Ontario’s child protection system to help them.
What an incredibly low bar that is, Ontario’s child advocate noted. And how shocking that, yet again, Ontario has failed to meet it.
A new and rightly scathing report by Ontario’s coroner is calling on the provincial government to overhaul the child protection system that keeps failing children.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2018/09/26/ontarios-child-protection-system-fails-children-again.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/cas.html
2020: Canada’s death investigation system needs an overhaul.
https://healthydebate.ca/opinions/death_investigation_feb2020
2013: National review system needed to save lives: experts
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/edmonton/national+review+system+needed+save+lives+experts/9216992/story.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/
THAT'S 276 OFFICIAL REASONS FOR CONCERN ABOUT CHILDREN IN ONTARIO'S CARE. HOW MANY REASONS FOR CONCERN DOES THE SOCIETY NEED TO INSERT THEMSELVES INTO THE LIFE OF A CHILD?
JUST ONE..
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2019: Psychotherapist Philip Chard talks about holier-than-thou types, who judge themselves by their intentions by others by their actions.
https://shepherdexpress.com/advice/out-of-my-mind/the-many-ways-of-being-holier-than-thou/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170711220512.htm
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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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“Harmful Impacts” is the title of the Motherisk commission's report written by the Honourable Judith C. Beaman after two years of study. After reading it, “harmful” seems almost to be putting it lightly. Out of the over 16 000 tests the commission only examined 56 cases of the flawed Motherisk tests, administered by the Motherisk lab between 2005 and 2015 and were determined to have a “substantial impact” on the decisions of child protection agencies to keep files open or led to children being permanently removed from their families.
WHAT ARE THE HARMFUL IMPACTS?
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 seems to be 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 re emerge 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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Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes.
2014.. Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 percent — 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 percent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
“Why are these kids on medication? Because people are desperate to make them functional,” Baird says, and “there’s so little else to offer.
The figures are found in “Looking After Children in Ontario,” a provincially mandated survey known as OnLAC. It collects data on the 7,000 children who have spent at least one year in care. After requests by the Star, the 2014 numbers were made public for the first time.
Since the inquests into the deaths of a handful of troubled adolescents being forcibly restrained in group homes a few years ago - and the tougher regulations on the use of physical restraints that followed - she has observed a growing trend among group homes to turn to chemical restraints to control unruly behaviour.
These children have trauma of sudden apprehensions and loss in their backgrounds and, as they grow older and foster parents can no longer tolerate their behaviour, they are moved to group homes operating on a culture of strict curfews and rules. Here, too often, troubled teenagers live in close quarters, staff turnover is rapid, police visits are not uncommon, and watching television is the usual pastime.
"It's more about behaviour management than it is about intervening into mental health issues," Ms. Finlay said.
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."
The report from a government investigation into the case obtained by The Globe uncovered group home staff untrained in the use and side effects of the psychotropic drugs they were doling out; no requests from the psychiatrist to monitor the boy for problems, and little evidence of efforts to treat the boy's apparent mental-health issues other than with heavy-duty pharmaceuticals.
With close to half of Crown wards on psychotropic medication, their numbers are more than triple the rate of drug prescriptions for psychiatric problems among children in general.
With histories of apprehensions, abuse, neglect and loss, children in foster care often bear psychological scars unknown to most of their peers. But without a doting parent in their corner, they are open to hasty diagnoses and heavy-handed prescriptions. Oversight for administering the drugs and watching for side effects is left to often low-paid, inexperienced staff working in privately owned, loosely regulated group homes and to overburdened caseworkers legally bound to visit their charges only once every three months.
Since the inquests into the deaths of just a "handful" of troubled adolescents being forcibly restrained in group homes a few years ago - and the tougher regulations on the use of physical restraints that followed - she has observed a growing trend among group homes to turn to chemical restraints to control unruly behaviour.
These children have trauma and loss in their backgrounds and, as they grow older and foster parents can no longer tolerate their behaviour, they are moved to group homes operating on a culture of strict curfews and rules. Here, too often, troubled teenagers live in close quarters, staff turnover is rapid, police visits are not uncommon, and watching television is the usual pastime.
With few specialists available, growing numbers of child-welfare workers are turning to family unqualified physicians, typically with next to no training in psychiatric disorders and no expertise in the new cutting-edge psychotropic drugs.
2007: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
2014: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-children-in-crown-care-are-medicated/article687480/
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THE NEW GATEWAY 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/
Strange that an agency that is against any form of corporal punishment isn't against giving children to people that are so willing deny children their rights as they drug, restrain and label them "problem children."
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/07/03/physical-restraint-common-in-toronto-group-homes-and-youth-residences.html
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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.”
Researchers found the challenge was especially acute for Indigenous or Black youths sent to group homes far from their communities, where their culture isn’t reflected. Another researcher on the team identified the long-detained youth as a Black male.
Sixteen of the 28 Toronto youths (57 per cent) were Black. That’s higher than the overrepresentation seen in Children’s Aid Society of Toronto data. Black youth represent just 13.6 per cent of city residents under 18.
The Black youths spent longer in pretrial detention than any other racial or ethnic group tracked — 200 days, on average. White youths spent an average of 75 days; Indigenous youth spent about 40 days. The project also found that Black youth incurred more severe charges, on average, than other groups.
“Many of the Black youth the project engaged with experienced the classic ‘child-welfare-to-prison pipeline,’ ” says a report issued by the research team, which partly blames the longer detention on “institutional anti-Black racism and colonialism within the child welfare and youth justice systems.”
Researchers call the children and teens they followed “cross-over youth,” because they start in the child protection system and end up in the youth justice one.
They witnessed what numerous reports have criticized for creating that pipeline: group home staff untrained to deal with traumatized youth; youths charged for acting out their trauma; children’s aid societies refusing to act as sureties; lawyers insensitive to the struggles youths face in the child protection system; and unreasonable bail conditions that inevitably get broken, thereby triggering further charges.
“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.
In a statement to the Star, Jill Dunlop, associate minister of children and women’s issues, said the government is deep into a process of reviewing and “modernizing” child welfare. The work includes “looking holistically at the different systems children and youth may interact with, including the intersection between child welfare and youth justice systems.” The goal is to divert them from criminal behaviour through education and prevention programs, she added.
“Any time a child in care is remanded to custody, we see it as a failure,” Dunlop said, adding that reforms by the previous Liberal government resulted in a 78 per cent reduction in youths admitted to custody and detention, to an average of 150 a year. She did not say how many of those are cross-over youth.
The researchers set up pilot projects at four sites — Toronto, Belleville, Thunder Bay and Brantford — funded by the federal and Ontario governments, and the Laidlaw Foundation.
Along with tracking youths, researchers held case management conferences with key groups, including police, Crown attorneys, judges, children’s aid workers and group home staff. The goal was to have everyone change the practices that funnel youths in care deep into the justice system.
Most of the data in the team’s 208-page report, “Cross-Over Youth Project: Navigating Quicksand,” comes from 48 youths — 12 to 17 years old — tracked in the Toronto and Belleville pilot projects. Most of them — 64 per cent — had ended up in care not because they needed protection, but because they didn’t get along with their parents. That highlights the need for early intervention to resolve conflicts and keep families intact, the report notes.
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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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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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
Clustering of opioid prescribing and opioid-related mortality among family physicians in Ontario
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2016: Report shines light on poverty’s role on kids in CAS system.
The effect of provincial policies on struggling families was especially apparent in the late 1990s, when the Conservative government slashed welfare payments and social service funding while at the same time, it introduced in child protection the notion of maltreatment by “omission,” including not having enough food in the home and this after giving the society what amounted to an unlimited funding scheme. The number of children taken into care spiked as did their funding.
https://youtu.be/CG6PT3Hw568
“The ministry has been pretty clear with us that advocacy is not part of our mandate,” Goodman said speaking for the society. “It’s not like they’re asking for the (poverty) data. They’re not.” Goodman then when on to suggest the silence suited the government more than the silence suited the society's funding goals.
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/08/15/report-shines-light-on-povertys-role-on-kids-in-cas-system.html
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2020: TORONTO -- Ontario's child welfare system will be redesigned to focus on prevention and early intervention, the provincial government said Wednesday.
"Child welfare should not be the system that is feared," Dunlop said in a news conference. "No one should be scared to lose their children for speaking to a children's aid society."
Associate Minister of Children and Women's Issues Jill Dunlop said the new strategy will also work to address the over-representation of Black and Indigenous families in the children's aid system.
She said children and youth in care experience worse outcomes than those in a family setting, including lower graduation rates, a higher risk of homelessness and more involvement with the justice system.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-plans-to-redesign-child-welfare-system-to-focus-on-prevention-1.5044299
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NOT ALL SOCIAL WORKERS ARE CREATED EQUAL.
2009: Ontario CAS caseworkers come armed with vaster powers than any police officer investigating crime and shrouded in secrecy. It is an immense authority easily abused, without vigilant restraint.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/diploma-mills-marketplace-fake-degrees-1.4279513
Whether we wanted it or not, knew it or not, over time, the work of child-welfare organizations has become “parenting by the state and the imposition of their value system on other people,” says Marty McKay, a clinical psychologist who has worked on abuse cases in the U.S and Canada. Provincial agencies have the power to intervene when children are considered “at risk” of abuse or neglect — even if none has actually occurred.
http://www.nationalpost.com/children+society+workers+should+reined+critics/1690967/story.html
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You can hear former MPP Frank Klees say in a video linked below the very reason the social worker act was introduced and became law in 1998 was to regulate the "children's aid societies" and they ignored that..
FORMER ONTARIO MPP FRANK KLEES EXPLAINS "A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE."
I'M NOT A SOCIAL WORKER, I'M A CHILD PROTECTION WORKER! https://youtu.be/SA1YyWO0RTQ?list=PLsYhw09i3If44rMBDuZQ0ztayzSQU35Fy Two decades later... Without the deterrents professional regulation provides what prevents child protection social workers from being or becoming a danger to children and their families? The union representing child protection social workers is firmly opposed to oversight from a professional college and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which regulates and funds child protection, is so far staying out of it. The report Towards Regulation notes that the “clearest path forward” would be for the provincial government to -again- legislate the necessity of professional regulation, which would be an appallingly heavy-handed move according to OACAS/Cupe. http://joincupe2190.ca/files/2015/10/Professional-regulation-at-childrens-aid-societies.pdf The Special Investigations Unit is the civilian oversight agency responsible for investigating circumstances involving police (but not unregulated CAS workers with law enforcement powers even the police don't have) that have resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault of a civilian in Ontario, Canada. https://www.siu.on.ca/en/index.php ::: Former Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian wrote: “I am disheartened by the complete lack of action to ensure transparency and accountability by these organizations that received significant public funding. As part of the modernization of the Acts, I call on the government to finally address this glaring omission and ensure that Children’s Aid Societies are added to the list of institutions covered.” The only oversight for the province’s children’s aid agencies comes from Ontario’s Ministry of Children and Youth Services. "As the law stands now clients of the Ontario Children's Aid Society are routinely denied a timely (often heavily censored) file disclosure before the court begins making life altering decisions and the clients can not request files/disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act nor can censored information reviewed by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario or the federal counter-part." In her 2004 annual report, which was released on June 22, 2005, the Commissioner called for amendments that would bring virtually all organizations that are primarily funded by government dollars under FOI for the purposes of transparency and accountability: This would include the various children’s aid agencies in the Province of Ontario. Many parents and families complain about how difficult it is, if not impossible, to obtain information from children’s aid agencies. Many citizens complain that CAS agencies appear to operate under a veil of secrecy. Unlicensed and untrained CAS workers are making decisions which are literally destroying families, yet there is little or no accountability for their actions short of a lawsuit long after the damage is done.. “Hundreds of organizations that are recipients of large transfer payments from the government are not subject to the provincial or municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Acts,” said the Commissioner, “which means they are not subject to public scrutiny.” Among the examples she cites are hospitals and Children’s Aid Societies. “Openness and transparency of all publicly funded bodies is essential – they should be publicly accountable.” In my 2004, 2009, and 2012 Annual Reports I recommended that Children’s Aid Societies, which provide services for some of our most vulnerable citizens – children and youth in government care, be brought under FIPPA. I am disheartened by the complete lack of action to ensure transparency and accountability by these organizations that received significant public funding. As part of the modernization of the Acts, I call on the government to finally address this glaring omission and ensure that Children’s Aid Societies are added to the list of institutions covered. In her annual report for 2013 released on June 17 there is just one paragraph on children's aid on page 12: The Information and Privacy Commissioner is appointed by and reports to the Ontario Legislative Assembly, and is independent of the government of the day. The Commissioner's mandate includes overseeing the access and privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and the Personal Health Information Protection Act, and commenting on other access and privacy issues. 2020 UPDATE: CAS NOW REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO FOI REQUESTS THE SAME AS ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT FUNDED AND CONTROLLED AGENCY SHOULD BE. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/beef-up-information-laws-ontario-privacy-czar-says/article1120573/ http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/commissioner-cavoukian-calls-on-government-to-preserve-freedom-and-liberty-514463911.html IT'S NOT ABOUT THE STANDARDS, OR LEGISLATION, OR THE BUREAUCRACY - IT'S ABOUT ETHICS AND APPLICATION. IF YOUR GOING TO FIX WHAT'S WRONG WITH CHILD PROTECTION - START AT THE BEGINNING. IT'S NOT THE SYSTEM THAT LACKS ETHICS, MORALS AND ACCOUNTABILITY OR ACTS IN BAD FAITH - IT THE PEOPLE ENTRUSTED TO OVERSEE THE SYSTEM THAT LACK THOSE THINGS. IT'S NOT BAD SYSTEM THAT MAKES GOOD WORKERS BAD - IT'S BAD WORKERS THAT MAKE A SYSTEM THAT'S NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD, BAD. ::: 2019: Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Investigation Report: Johnson Children’s Services Inc. (Thunder Bay) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The decision to investigate Johnson Children’s Services (“JCS”) homes in Thunder Bay was sparked by a call from one of their employees, who believed the foster care staff who worked there were poorly trained and ill-equipped to meet the complex needs of the children in their care. While she was mostly concerned about the safety of the children, the “whistleblower” also identified problems with the physical condition of the homes. The subsequent investigation conducted by Investigators from the Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth substantiated these concerns. The findings in this report are based on interviews with 28 individuals including: staff and management of JCS, youth who lived during the relevant time period, representatives from the Ministry, representatives from the placing Children’s Aid Societies, and professionals from the community. Investigators also obtained documents from JCS, the three involved Children’s Aid Societies, the Thunder Bay Police Service, and community professionals. (article continues at length) https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/jcsinvestigationreporten.pdf ::: 2019: Shocking conditions at now shuttered Thunder Bay foster homes detailed in child advocate’s final report. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/04/30/shocking-conditions-at-now-shuttered-thunder-bay-foster-homes-detailed-in-child-advocates-final-report.html ::: 2019: Former child advocate's investigation finds deplorable conditions at now-closed Thunder Bay foster homes. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/irwin-elman-report-thunder-bay-1.5118129 ::: 2017: Ontario won't say where high needs youth were moved after Thunder Bay, Ont. group homes shut down. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/group-homes-closed-1.4162049 ::: 2003: A group-home agency that has housed some of Ontario's most disturbed teenagers for more than a decade is under investigation by police after an official report alleged poor conditions, inadequate supervision and sexual impropriety by staff. The Peterborough Lakefield Police Service has watched Mitchell Group Homes, which runs 21 group homes in the Peterborough area, for months. In December, an investigation by Ontario's Office of Child and Family Service Advocacy into the private, for-profit company's affairs revealed a litany of serious allegations: slack supervision of an untrained staff, filth and ill repair in some of the houses, whitewashed incident reports, the placement of known predators in homes with abuse victims and sexual improprieties by workers. Sources say the houses were dirty, holes in the walls were left unrepaired, youngsters were sleeping on mattresses on the floor and residents spent most of their time watching television because they had no programs. Some children were in unlicensed homes, and ratios of staff to residents in contracts signed with children's aid societies were being violated. Since the advocate's report, CAS bodies have increased monitoring of the group homes. The Children's Aid Society of Toronto, the agency's biggest customer with 21 children in its care until recently, sends a worker to inspect the group homes at least once a week. "If we felt the safety of the kids was not secure, we would not have left them there. Absolutely not," said Mary McConville, executive director with the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto. "By the same token, we want to see the problems resolved." Mitchell Group Homes grew quickly as it tapped into a booming market of providing homes for troubled children. Children's aid societies had 17,463 children in their care as of last September, a 55-per-cent jump from five years earlier, when the Ontario government began an overhaul of the child-welfare system that lowered the bar for taking youngsters into care. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-group-homes-agency-faces-probe/article4127323/ ::: 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. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/12/10/teens-death-raises-questions-about-secrecy-surrounding-kids-in-care.html ::: 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 ::: 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 ::: OACAS: The duty to report. It is not necessary to be certain that a child is or may be in need of protection to make a report to a children’s aid society. “Reasonable grounds” refers to the information that an average person, using normal and honest judgment, would need in order to decide to report. This standard has been recognized by courts in Ontario as establishing a lower funding friendly non profit corporate threshold for opening files and billing the taxpayers. http://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-protection/duty-to-report/ The Special Investigations Unit is the civilian oversight agency responsible for investigating circumstances involving police (but not unregulated CAS workers with law enforcement powers even the police don't have) that have resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault of a civilian in Ontario, Canada. https://www.siu.on.ca/en/index.php ::: 2016: Frontline worker Nancy Simone, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local representing 275 workers at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, argues child protection workers already have levels of secret all internal corporate oversight that include unqualified unregistered workplace supervisors with decades of on the job experience, family courts that reverse the burden of proof, public coroners’ inquests bypassed by internal reports and annual case audits by the ministry (whatever that means). “Our work is already regulated to death.” (Children are dying in care and they're the ones being regulated to death?) https://www.waterloochronicle.ca/news-story/6437856-children-s-aid-societies-launch-major-training-reforms/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-coroner-s-report-highlights-need-for-changes-to-child-welfare-system-1.4109439 http://thecaribbeancamera.com/training-for-childrens-aid-societies/ https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/09/25/coroners-panel-calls-for-overhaul-of-ontario-child-protection-system.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/03/childrens-aid-societies-launch-major-training-reforms.html ::: 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/ ::: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/homeless-youth-foster-care-1.4240121
