PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (1): "It is enraging to reflect on these stories. Enraging to realize that there is no justice available, or even possible, in most of these cases where a child has already been adopted out, based on junk science filtered through a junk legal process."
PASSAGE OF THE DAY (2); "In one case, the society’s materials described a parent as having excellent parenting skills and reported that she consistently attended for access. Notwithstanding this encouraging evidence, when a positive Motherisk test appeared to show low levels of cocaine and marijuana, the court made the child a Crown ward, without access, after a summary judgment hearing.” We now know that Motherisk testing was unreliable. A summary judgment means that the decision was made by a judge without a trial. “Excellent parenting skills.” Yet she had her child taken away from her forever by one faulty test.
PHOTO CAPTION: "The
flawed Motherisk tests, administered by SickKids Hospital between 2005
and 2015, were determined to have a “substantial impact” on the
decisions of child protection agencies. We need to make a fundamental
shift in child protection actions and provide families with the things
they need, Edward Keenan writes."
GIST: "Among the many dozens of pages of terrible stories and horrifying details contained in the Motherisk Commission report released this week, one case referred to in passing jumped out at me as exemplifying the problem. “In
one case, the society’s materials described a parent as having
excellent parenting skills and reported that she consistently attended
for access. Notwithstanding this encouraging evidence, when a positive
Motherisk test appeared to show low levels of cocaine and marijuana, the
court made the child a Crown ward, without access, after a summary
judgment hearing.” We now know that Motherisk testing was
unreliable. A summary judgment means that the decision was made by a
judge without a trial. “Excellent parenting skills.” Yet she had her child taken away from her forever by one faulty test. “Harmful Impacts” is the title of the commission report
written by the Honourable Judith C. Beaman after two years of study.
After reading it, “harmful” seems almost to be putting it lightly. The
56 cases the commission examined in which the flawed Motherisk tests,
administered by SickKids Hospital between 2005 and 2015, were determined
to have a “substantial impact” on the decisions of child protection
agencies, led to children being permanently removed from their families. Lives were ruined. Parents’ lives,
and quite possibly children’s lives. Siblings and grandparents and
other family members’ lives, too. Irreversibly ruined. And in many
cases, it seems this was allowed to happen primarily because people were
poor. It is hard to think of anything more harmful than that. The Motherisk lab was shut down in 2015
— too long after the problems with it were known, exposed in part due
to the reporting of my Star colleague Rachel Mendleson, after far too
much damage was done. But reading the report, it becomes clear that
shutting down the lab solves only one small part of the problem. The
entire system needs to be overhauled. The
problems detailed in the report’s 278 pages are too numerous to go into
in detail. They document the many problems with the SickKids lab’s
testing and with the child protection system’s overreliance on those
results. The hair testing process produced inconsistent and
untrustworthy results despite being perceived as carrying the
unimpeachable weight of scientific authority. That much we pretty much
knew because of earlier reporting, though the detailed breakdown of it
and the specific case references make the injustice of it sickeningly
vivid. But much of the report also points to the larger problem
that allowed the Motherisk lab to cause so much damage: the system
unfairly targets poor families — especially, the report details,
Indigenous and racialized families; the legal deck is stacked against
those families, denying them due process to a staggering degree; and
authorities are too quick to take children from their parents in the
absence of evidence of severe abuse or neglect. Indeed, the
Motherisk results — faulty as they were — would not have caused so much
damage if children’s aid workers were not relying on evidence of alcohol
and drug use, in and of itself, as proof of dangerously incompetent
parenting. Millions of parents across this province, and around the
world, drink alcohol or use drugs like marijuana socially. If they are
not on the radar of Children’s Aid Societies, this is not considered a
big problem — not by them, often not by their children, and generally
not by their communities. Yet, “In many of the cases we reviewed,
when a Motherisk hair test came back positive, CAS (Children’s Aid
Society) workers focused solely on the apparent substance use instead of
considering any actual effect on parenting,” Beaman writes. Use was
considered proof of addiction, and addiction was considered proof of “an
inability to parent.” That, sometimes in the absence of any other
meaningful evidence at all, led to children being taken away from their
parents. Removal from the home — permanent removal — is not
supposed to be a move taken lightly. The report goes over the legal
principles, laying out that it should be a last resort. It is the
“capital punishment” of child protection, according to one citation,
absolutely devastating to parents, and for children it is “often the
beginning of a life sentence.” Yet in the cases reviewed here, it
is imposed, often apparently cavalierly and without even a trial, for
reasons that amount to a punishment for being poor. Rich parents who are
alcoholics, after all, are not having their children taken from them
after a single relapse. Few rich parents, in fact, are having their
children taken from them at all. “The underlying issue in many
child protection cases before the court is poverty,” the report says.
Much of the time, Beaman writes she heard what families most needed was
help with groceries or babysitting, counselling or mental health
treatment, help providing safe shelter.What these parents and children needed, in other words, was help. What
they got instead was the irrevocable breakup of their families. The
loss for life of any contact at all with those in the world they loved
most, and those who loved them most. They got harm, permanent harm. There
are often no good solutions available or apparent to children’s aid
workers and judges in cases where families are struggling. They are
charged with looking out for the best interests of the child, but it is
often not clear how those interests will be best served. However, as
becomes clear reading the Motherisk report, a fear of becoming a case
study in the event of a child’s death may have tilted the scales too far
in the other direction in some case workers’ minds. After high-profile
cases where Children’s Aid workers were blamed by the press after
children died in their parents’ care, they may be erring too much on the
side of intervention. It is enraging to reflect on these
stories. Enraging to realize that there is no justice available, or even
possible, in most of these cases where a child has already been adopted
out, based on junk science filtered through a junk legal process. Justice Beaman provides 32 recommendations for reform that may go a long way to helping prevent such injustices in the future. “These
stories highlight how important it is that everyone who plays a role in
the child protection system act extremely cautiously in making
decisions to remove children from their parents’ care, away from their
families and their communities,” Beaman says in her conclusion. It
seems to me that is what is most needed in implementing reforms: a
fundamental shift in the emphasis of child protection actions toward
providing parents and families with the things they need to succeed.
Many will say that is already supposed to be the emphasis, but this
report shows it hasn’t been, or hasn’t been emphasized enough. Helping
struggling families takes resources, obviously. And it doesn’t come
easy. But the alternative, as we see all too clearly, is the systematic
ruination of people’s lives."
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/02/motherrisk-reforms-show-struggling-families-dont-need-to-be-split-up-they-need-our-help.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
