Thursday, October 15, 2009

P; Praying for a troubled child (WFP article, 10.15.09)


In today's Winnipeg Free Press, Mike McIntyre wrote an article;Praying for a troubled child: Mother agonizes over decision to place daughter with Child and Family Services, about a desperate mother's plight to save her out-of-control teenage daughter, by having Child and Family Services intervene.

Though I can empathize with the mother, I believe that her candid interview with the Winnipeg free Press does nothing to help her cause. Instead, I think her open criticism of CFS served to further discredit the hard work and dedication that the majority of the over-worked case workers that are employed by CFS undertake on a regular basis.

the mother's complaint; "My daughter is in major danger in the hands of CFS" discredits the very system that she failed to thoroughly research, when she decided to place her daughter in their custody in 2007.

If you read the newspaper, or have read the newspaper in the last five years, you have probably read a story about the crippled state of the CFS system; it baffles me that she, the mother, felt that this system would be able to rehabilitate her daughter.

The system itself is on life support, and it's not a secret, but rather a bold-faced tragedy.

None the less, in 2007 the mother, in her desperate state, opted to call CFS with the hopes that they could reform her troubled daughter.

I don't get it...

Perhaps she didn't understand, or notice the fundamental issues plaguing the current state of the CFS system before concluding that they would be the most beneficial option to "save" her daughter.
CFS is a bandaid solution, it is not a rehabilitation centre.
Regardless, the woman feels as though she and her daughter are victims of the system.

In fact, she has gone as far as to state in an open letter to CFS: "If something happens to my child, I will hold you responsible. She cannot be another statistic of the children that die in the hands of CFS."
Which is extremely brazen in my opinion, since she was the one who entrusted the girl into a system that i is already overwhelmed in the first place.
Unfortunately this mother's plight will serve to further tarnish the already dirty reputation that CFS already has.
Hopefully for the sake of everyone, this mother and daughter will be able to find the help they need down another avenue...
Picture courtesy of the Daily Mail.

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