Delays harm children in care

Re: “Ministry ‘mishandled’ girl’s case: foster mom,” Jan. 23.

The story of foster parents trying to adopt a child is a classic example of conflict between the different rights of children.

Children’s rights are set out in the Child Family and Community Services Act. Children’s best interests are paramount and include the right to continuity of care and the right to kinship contact, kinship placement, timely decision-making and cultural preservation.

No individual right is paramount, but some rights become more important as time passes and conflicts can occur. It is then that a balance between rights must be sought, requiring good judgment. Unfortunately, good judgment seems to be scarce.

The Ministry of Children and Family Development will often treat one right as paramount inappropriately. It uses right to privacy to shroud everything in secrecy. Often it forms a plan, but takes so long to implement it that it becomes redundant, but the ministry does not reassess things.

As in this case, placement with siblings in Ontario might have seemed a good idea at the time, but over two years later, it was not. The right to timeliness has gone under.

Continuity of care gained importance, along with stability, security and the love that the adoption would give them. They have the cultural continuity and the kinship contact right where they are. As the foster mom pointed out, the natural parents are welcome to keep contact. The damage of emotional danger is well established in the literature.

Don’t blame the social workers. Staff turnover and little training mean that a case can get several different green social workers in a year. Ray Ferris Victoria