ANDRE: Adoption and foster care

Here is an excerpt from a Reader's Digest online debate in 1999. Visitors to the site were invited to give their opinion about the following question: "At what point do you think a child should be taken permanently from his or her parents and placed in foster care or adopted by others?"

The case presented to them concerned Robert, a 2.5 years old boy found wandering the streets in Vancouver, his mom a drug addict. Robert was brought back home and left with his mother for another 6 years with the obvious results that he suffered terribly. His mother was ordered to attend "parenting courses" but of course, crack does not help you study and be attentive to your life and those around you.

"A second parenting course didn't help: One night in August 1988, his mother kicked Robert out of her apartment. "I can't go home because my mom has company," Robert told the social worker who investigated. He went into care briefly but was returned to his mother in early September."

And so the result was more confusion, more hurt.

"From October 1988 to June 1989, Robert lived in four different foster homes and went to three different schools. The chaos and uncertainty took their toll: He became unruly and difficult to manage. Regarded as a troublemaker, he was placed in a group home with kids as old as 14, although he was just six."

Says the couple who finally adopted him: "Robert was eight when he became available for adoption. He didn't find a family until he was almost 12. Why did he sit there for four years? Why the heck did they drag it out like that?"

Here is a case where the CAS acted, but the family-court judge and the ensuing crowd of judicial officials handled his case in a way that does not address the particular nature of family bonds and life development. Something was definitely wrong.

"Maggie, a Toronto foster mother of three young children, says: "Canada should be ashamed of itself for the way it is treating its children. They should be getting the best of everything there is in this country. Instead they get the scraps. I hold society responsible for not knowing what's going on, for not being outraged that children are living in these conditions."

In many cases, children at risk are helped by the intervention of the CAS. And it seems that here is the suspended bridge over the abyss. Once a child has entered the "system" and is being "processed" (yikes) there seems to be very little the CAS or the parents can do. The "process" has to run its course, independantly from the laws of nature and bonding. And the "process" has everything to do with the judicial system.

"After reading the article "Canada's Foster Care System" I felt I needed to contact you to relay some of my concerns with the article. First of all I feel the title is very misleading, as the tragedy doesn't lie with the C.A.S. or the Foster Care System, but with the judicial system. It is there that decisions are made as to what happens to these children and whether they should be returned home or not, not in the office of the C.A.S. or the home of the Foster Parents."

So here is the thing: Once a child is into the processing channels of the CAS apparatus, he/she disappears from view. The child is an anonymous person, the case is secret and protected by the Privacy Act, and nobody in the public (families, friends, supportes) can know what's happening with that child. The only instances that can do anything at this point to either return the child to his/her family, or take that child to the next step of custody, are the judicial ones.

So what happens in the case of errors, where the child was not at risk, had never been, and the order actually concerns "fears of future harm," a preemptive abduction by CAS workers? The answer is that it's too late. We can only hope and pray that there would be a good and quick inquiry done to determine the validity of the apprehension of a child, and that the judicial personel will be thorough and impartial to reputation, religion, race, gender, social status.

In the case of a mistake by CAS workers or the judge, the child will still be swallowed out of view by the judicial system, placed in foster homes, eventually even adopted. The time frame for the proceedings is very precise and restrictive. You are encouraged to find a lawyer that has YOUR best interest at heart, because the judicial system has ITS own best interest at heart: to apply the law as legalistically as possible. And every CAS office seems to have their own legal team as well. It's VERY protected.

Once you're in, YOU'RE IN. It is impossible to get out. The best interest of the child then becomes to find a temporary home (foster care) and ultimately a good and loving family. But always by using the best interest of the law, not of the child. Even if it has been found that children have been taken away from their families without proper cause, the law cannot seemingly be changed. The child will remain out of his/her family.

It would be interesting to have data that would show us the number of children taken from their families each year, and out of that, how many actually went back to their families. And measure that across age groups.

Because there is a bigger demand to babies and toddlers, when a child is introduced into "the system," will he/she be prepared for adoption much quicker than other age groups? Some could feel offended at that suggestion and I would understand. However we have to ask, because if that is the case, then that motivation could possibly blind the administration of justice and open the door to abuse on the part of judicial and family-court personal.

When one listens to the stories told by parents concerning their ordeal with the CAS and family-court, a reform of family law seems to be badly needed in Canada. I'm sure the same-sex marriage issue will bring this to the fore pretty soon when they apply for adoption.

Finally, consider abortion: judges sign apprehension orders under the present Family Laws allowing the apprehension of babies by the CAS while the baby is still in the mother's womb.

Those who support abortion say the fetus is not a human being until "it" is born. The judge signs an apprehension order to prevent future harm to a human being, not an "it." At that point, doesn't the fetus become ward of the State? How can the fetus be treated as a ward of the State if "it" is not human yet?

I'm just processing this idea, not sure how far I'll be able to go with it, but it's certainly an interesting dilemma...

Andre