Justice For Families

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2003-02-05a.299.2&s=msbp#g313.0

Zoom to 9:54pm...... Long read......

Listening to the concerns of parents and taking them seriously at an early stage is fundamental to providing the right type of help for children, but very often that simply does not happen. However, worse still, we are increasingly seeing in schools and local authorities a culture of blame against parents.

Underlying that is one of the most pernicious and ill-founded theories to have gained currency in childcare and social services over the past 10 to 15 years. The theory states that there are parents who induce or fabricate illnesses in their children in order to gain attention for themselves. The name given to it is Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, or factitious or induced illness—FII, as it is now known. It is a theory without science. There is no body of peer-reviewed research to underpin MSBP or FII. It rests instead on the assertions of its inventor and on a handful of case histories. When challenged to produce his research papers to justify his original findings, the inventor of MSBP stated, if you please, that he had destroyed them.

Yet that theory, which conjures up images of abusing, and potentially even homicidal, parents, is one that has been accepted at the highest levels in government without any caveats whatever. I do not doubt—how could I?—that dreadful and appalling cases of child abuse, and even the attempted murder of children, have been committed by some parents and carers. The case of Victoria Climbie brings home to us that abuse and murder of the most terrible kind is a very real fact of life.

That is not the issue here. My concern is that MSBP, or FII, has so deeply insinuated itself into the language and thinking of social services that it has become an all-purpose label for problem parents and children. A loving but apparently fussy mother, who, on behalf of her sick child, badgers a school or a GP to take her concerns seriously, can suddenly find herself accused of abuse. Once she has a label of MSBP pinned on her, it is very difficult to remove it. That type of case excites what is now an ingrained culture of suspicion in which the normal presumption of innocence disappears.

NRP ,

I was sent this link to a Canadian News paper recently it is easy to register :http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1197031&#postboxocal News

Country has child abuse epidemic -- (comment on this story)
Country has child abuse epidemic -- (comment on this story)

Expert tells Sudbury audience doctors must be vigilant

Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN, THE SUDBURY STAR

Updated 1 day ago

Canada is suffering an epidemic of child abuse, says a Sudbury pediatrician and medical consultant for the Children's Aid Society of Sudbury-Manitoulin.

There were 100,000 confirmed cases of child abuse in Canada, excluding Quebec, in 2003, Dr. Burke Baird told an audience at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine on Thursday.

"That's a whole lot of beat-up kids in a relatively small country," said Burke.

He referred to a study looking at 200,000 investigations into suspected child abuse, in which almost half the cases were substantiated.

"I think this qualifies as an epidemic," said Burke. "That's a whole lot of kids."

Good people sometimes do terrible things, and doctors and other professionals have to be on the lookout for it among the children in their charge.

Their job isn't to confirm child abuse, but professionals -- such as doctors, teachers and social workers -- have a legal and moral

obligation to report it to child protection authorities.

In fact, the Child and Family Services Act says anyone who knows or suspects that a child is being abused or neglected must notify a Children's Aid Society.

That also means members of the public.

Baird defined child abuse for his audience of medical students, doctors and others at the first symposium of the new school year for the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.

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Child abuse is any kind of harm to a child's body, emotional pain, neglect, using a child for sexual purposes, or inflicting injury or psychological pain.

There are four types of child abuse -- neglect, emotional, physical and sexual -- and some forms are easier to spot than others.

For instance, it's easier to connect bruises or broken bones with a child being abused than it is to pinpoint the effects of something like domestic violence.

Baird, who has practised pediatrics in Sudbury for more than a decade, urged participants not to allow the fact someone "presents well" rule them out as possible child abusers.

Child abuse occurs among people of all socioeconomic classes and you can't detect it by looking at them.

It happens among families you see at hockey arenas and soccer practices, among families led by single parents and among "intact" families headed by both biological parents.

And it often happens where you would least expect it.

"They're not necessarily bad people, but they're people who do bad things."

Signs of physical and emotional abuse are often detected when doctors are examining children for other medical complaints.

Doctors, especially, have to take every precaution not to miss them, he said.

"Sometimes these families make it so easy for you," said Baird, referring to a mother who brought in a four-month-old suffering from cystic fibrosis for medical attention for a cough and breathing difficulty.

Bruises on the infant's arms and back showed there was something else going on as well.

"You kind of do the 'Columbo' thing" and ask lots of questions to draw the truth out if you suspect something is amiss.

Be especially wary of explanations for injuries that change in the retelling, of parents who delay seeking medical attention for children's injuries or who blame "significant trauma" on young siblings.

When it comes to bruises, it's about "location, location, location," said Baird. You would expect bruises on bony surfaces, but not around necks or underarms, or on children who are not yet mobile.

Bruises with a regular pattern or shape such as a hand, belt, cord or teeth also require further investigation.

"Think like a lawyer," Baird advised in his presentation. Photograph suspected injuries and mark them with measuring devices in the picture's frame.

Brain injury is the most common cause of death from child abuse, said Baird, adding Shaken Baby Syndrome is a misnomer.

More accurately, it is inflicted neurotrauma. "Shaking is one aspect, but there are many others."

Baird said everyone in a community needs to be aware of signs signs of child abuse.

If you see them, phone the Children's Aid Society and say: "This is what I am worried about."

Rather than over investigating complaints of possible child abuse, Baird said the CAS "tends to not go out as often as I would like."

Not all complaints result in investigations, and not all investigations result in cases of child abuse being confirmed.

One time, Baird said he was at a red light and witnessed a 350-pound man in the next car smack his child in the face as the infant sat in his car seat.

He followed the vehicle, obtained its licence plate number and reported it to the Children's Aid Society.

It turned out there had been several earlier complaints against the motorist.

Action may not be taken after the first complaint, but it may after the fourth or fifth, he said.

He urged his colleagues to report new cases of suspected child abuse, even if they occur among families already being investigated by the CAS.

There is "tons of missed child abuse in this country," said Baird, although "substantiated cases are going through the roof."

Article ID# 1197031



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What an informative article, Carol. I hope people heed the advice of Dr. Baird. We as adults, do have a responsibility to help protect innocent children.

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #1 By lanny, 1 day ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

Has anyone else ever seen a child being scolded, yelled at, in a store or parking lot and you really wanted to say something to the raging parent but were afraid that the child would only get it worse later for their humiliation.

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #2 By brenda1, 1 day ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

I have witnesssed my friend's boyfriend abuse first hand his daughter and step daughter. The children's aid society must of been called over a dozen times on this family and not once did they see anything wrong with the children because the parents scared the children stating that they would go to jail if they disclosed anything to the worker. Scared for their lives the girls never said a word and so the abuse kept on going on until one day at the age of 3 the youngest daughter disclosed that she was being sexually abused by her father. I then took things into my own hands and called children's aid and only then did they do something about it; because they had a "witness" to go to court and tell the story. I lost my best friend and her two girls because of it and the CAS promised me that they would keep me in contact with them but because I am not family, i have no rights to them even though I am the ones that saved them from this physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I know that I have done the right thing; but I hate myself for doing it because without me the children's aid would of never taken those girls away and they would probably of been still in their mom's care. I just wish that they can learn to bring up their own evidence instead of tearing up friendships and the saddest part; not being able to see the kids that you have grown to love as your own.

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #3 By bebegirlz11, 1 day ago | 2 Votes | Vote:

Bebe....you have done the right thing. Imagine if something worse had happened to the children and you had not taken action. Were they not in their Mom's care while being abused by her boyfriend? If so, she might have been a friend to you, but first and foremost she was supposed to protect her children.

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #4 By brenda1, 1 day ago | 1 Votes | Vote:

It should be mandatory that teachers are trained to spot the symptoms of child abuse. I just assume they are not. Rather than working from an office building, a social worker placed in every school could also do wonders, in my opinion.
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One of my key national policies includes a Child Bill Of Rights. I believe there is no other group in human society more vulnerable than children. I think the government should be obligated to protect children from abuse and peer bullying as best they can.
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Regards,
Yves Villeneuve
Nickel Belt MP Hopeful
Foreseeable Candidate

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #5 By Yves Villeneuve, 23 hours ago | 1 Votes | Vote:

I agree with this article, and the comments added. I have had first hand dealings with the CAS and reporting abuse, and there investigation was very brief. I understand they are VERY busy, but a proper investigation NEEDS to be done. Emotional & mental abuse is harder to detect then physical, and the Society cannot "sterotype" families, and just because they present well assume the allegations are not true. CAS policy is an investigation needs to be completed within 30 days(or after 30 days moves to ongoing)- however interviewing the family once, maybe twice is not going to get the truth out. Most cases the intake workers close the file after seeing the clients/children once- children in abuse situations are afraid to disclose.
There is a DUTY TO REPORT when having knowledge of abuse. Schools, teachers need to be taught proper detections as they see the children the most on a weekly basis. There are lots of "detections" that abuse is occurring, yes physical marks is one, however absents from school, social problems, bullying etc are signs something can be going on. Child Abuse needs ATTENTION to help children- we as adults need to be there strong voices for them, and protect them!!

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #6 By kjgfam2007, 19 hours ago | 1 Votes | Vote:

Until the massive corruption within CASs is cleaned up then there will continue to be child abuse. CASs consistently blame the wrong person or blame a person for doing something wrong when they haven't done anything wrong. CASs attack parents that don't have their view of the world or their politics. It's also interesting to see the DR. insinuating that injuries that occur during sports, rough-housing or climbing trees are child abuse. Doctors need to clean up their unusually high drug abuse and all of their mistakes too in wrongly diagnosing major illnesses let alone child abuse as well.

Whenever hysteria is whipped up on any social issue then reasonable people know to ask questions. This doctor sounds a lot like that other Doctor CASs thought very very highly of ...what's his name ...Oh yeh DR. Smith !!!

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #7 By state of mind, 17 hours ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

A lot of teachers are child abusers as well so to have them report child abuse is the work of a nutbar. Perhaps it is time to prosecute CASs and Doctors that invent child abuse by way of perjury - when in fact none ever existed.

DR. Baird makes no mention that the CAS can take your children without any evidence of abuse whatsoever and get this - keep them indefinitely - the Supreme Court of Canada said so in a recent ruling and the CASs cheered that decision by Beverley McLachlin - an avowed misandrist.

Perhaps people should not call CAS - they don't investigate when they should - they investigate when they shouldn't - they engage in perjury in Court, they invent evidence to protect their undeserved reputations - and nine times out of ten their cures are worse than the disease. CASs feed exclusively off the host - children.

Confirmed child abuse cases ? I would need to see all that 'evidence' myself because if anyone completely trusts the people that run the current system of child protection they are a nutbar. Unfortunately while his intentions may be good, DR. Baird is part of that system. There is a reason CAS gangs operate in secrecy - that their reports are kept secret sometimes even to the Courts and most certainly to the accused - especially if the accused is a Dad. Shoult their 'work' ever reach the light of day there would be outrage due to corrupt practices and the insanity of autonomous CAS workers deliberately making decisions to hurt families and children because the worker doesn't like the family or parent's politics or if the parent(s) are middle class or etc... So these so called confirmed cases have not been investigated properly, if at all and the 'evidence' in these 'confirmed' caes would NOT pass any standard for evidence in the view of any sane reasonable people - therefore while DR. Baird says 'Confirmed', as a just citizen I doubt whether Government goons have ever protected children ... oh for ... the last one hundred and fifty years of Canada's brief history !

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #8 By state of mind, 16 hours ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

bebe you may have done the wrong thing .. CAS 'cures' are worse than the disease !

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #9 By state of mind, 16 hours ago | -1 Votes | Vote:

There is no excuse for child abuse HOWEVER many citizens thing everything is child abuse. I love the parents that don't think twice about correcting and chastizing their children in public. I recently put my child on a "time out" downtown because of misbehaviour and she started screaming and yelling as soon as she saw people stalking back and forth looking at me as if I was killing someone. When people are sticking their nose in your business and on the verge of calling CIS for requesting a 6 year old child to sit still for 2 minutes we're in big trouble. Really big trouble. Guess what, just look at the delinquents running around this city without basic manners and the parents in fear of doing anything in public because people who are completely out too lunch probably not having any children and if they do they are probably compliant, complacent children from which they have based their world view.

Now having said that, it is imperative that a child be raised using a Authoritative technques and zero if any forced compliance and certainly not any intentional abuse in any of the categories.

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #10 By pseudosocrates, 16 hours ago | -1 Votes | Vote:

I second everything that state of mind said having seen a friend suffer at the hands of CIS and yes CIS, doctors, teachers and general nutbars should be prosecuted for perjury in these cases (in the case of false evidence).

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #11 By pseudosocrates, 16 hours ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

CAS's have there policys and procedures like every other organization. And every worker, manager and director has a boss. If you don't like there decision you can go higher to the Ministry of Comm Social Service in Toronto. I have had to do that in the past, as this communities CAS did NOT follow procedure and do the investigation properly. If you have a complaint against the local CAS you are suppose to be ADVISED of the complaint procedure, and depending if the ministry in T.O feels you have a case, you can fight the decision of the CAS, and go as far as the supreme court. Everyone is right- there is corruption in local CAS's however not every CAS/social workers operates the same way. Parents have a right, and its up to them to fight... However, when investigations are done, sometimes parents lie, and get there children to lie to "cover up" ligitimate abuse.
State of Mind : I believe what the DR was trying to say is that Doctors need to filter abuse properly, he wasn't say children "rough housing" or playing sports is abusive, he is saying its obvious when an injury is from sports or from a person (hang marks opposed to bumps on knees). Believe me, there are ppl out there that KNOW how to hit someone the "proper" way so NO bruises show up. CAS won't punish a parent for disciplining a child properly, and by properly I mean NOT physically. THere are other forms of discipline (time outs, remove possesions etc.). Pseudosocrates you stuck to your word and I back you up 100%, you gave your child a time out that moment at that exact place, and who care what ppl think.... Unfortnatly now a days, we as a society worry about what everyone thinks.
As a person that works in a social agency that protects children, I have seen both sides as a client and a worker with CAS....and not all social agencies are corrupt-

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #12 By kjgfam2007, 13 hours ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

As anyone who’s had experiences with the local CAS can tell you, there are doctors and teachers alike who are in be with the CAS. This article nicely sums up the problem…
THIS GUN IS NOT FOR HIRE:
Clinician Slams the Expert-Witness Racket
by Cheryl Romo,
LA Daily Journal
(largest lawyer newspaper in US)
December, 1997
After more than two decades as a clinical psychologist, Dineen said she decided one day that something had gone terribly wrong with her chosen profession.
She saw therapists making big bucks by making people professional victims. Psychology, the science dealing with the mind and its mental and emotional processes, had become a billion-dollar fast-food industry. Some of her colleagues were making the really big bucks appearing as expert witnesses in courtrooms. In the process, she said, judges and lawmakers were being “seduced” into allowing these experts to influence legal decisions and verdicts.
“At a personal level, when I went into psychology, psychologists tended to have their offices near physicians because that’s where the money came from. Now psychologists are shacked up with lawyers,” said Dineen. In her opinion, new crimes are being “created” because “we need more and more clients. We both need clients.”
So four years ago the Canadian psychologist left her practice, bought a Victorian bed-and-breakfast inn in British Columbia and sat down to write a heavily foot-noted book about her misgivings. The result is a muckraking volume called “Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People,” published in the United States this year by Robert Davies Publishing of Quebec.
Dineen’s scathing attack on the industry begins with praise for 19th century pioneers like William James, but it gradually weaves its way through modern psychological approaches that resemble black-and-white generic labels in a supermarket. “Society has abandoned its moral and cultural tradition, while psychology has lost its soul and neglected, even scorned, its own scientific foundation,” she writes.
Dineen, 49, is a former treatment director for a psychiatric hospital in Ontario, where she developed a program for young schizophrenics that won an innovative-programming award from the American Psychiatric Association. She spent 12 years in private practice and now speaks regularly to judges’ groups and law enforcement. She acts as a consultant on third-party legal cases. She is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association.
During a recent interview in Los Angeles, Dineen said she deplores the marketing of violence and fear based on weak to nonexistent psychological research. The underlying message of her book is to “stop looking to psychologists as these caring people. Look at it as an industry that using fear as its appeal.”
And Dineen is convinced that her industry is targeting and diversifying its business into the justice system. “I’m an insider. I listen to what my colleagues say,” she said. “The money today is in the field of forensics, because psychologists can earn 2.5 times more than they earn from seeing patients.”
And the real growth industry, she said, is in family law, where judges often decide that everyone in a family needs counselling: “Judges refer families to counselling. We are all human. We would like to be able to make things better…But ask a judge: ‘Do you know the outcome?’ They say ‘Not really, but it might help and I’ll do anything I can to help.’ I say: ‘Show me the data. Where are the results? I don’t know where the research is.’ “
Dineen views expert witnesses as the hired guns of the industry and she contends that courtrooms have become places where one set of guns comes to do battle with another set. “What would judges do without psychologists? They might have to look at the evidence,” she said. “We have psychologised everything.
We have gone so far into looking at things that supposedly only psychologists can tell us about them. We have stopped looking at the evidence.”
www.corruptioncentral.com

Reply | Report | Page TopPost #13 By corruptioncentral, 5 hours ago | 0 Votes | Vote:

To Doctor's
Differential Diagnosis. If you want to think like the lawyers many of you fear, GO to law school. further if you want to be on TV and do the'Columbo' thing" take acting course's. Think Truth, do NOT think Dirty, for further information in the tragic truth, think dirty has caused one need's to look no further then Justice Stephen Goudge inquest, think Charles Smith!
Think refrigerator mother hypothesis of autism? think MSbP,( now debunked) David Southall, Roy Meadow ! show me the Evidence Based shredded notes on that bebunked witch hunt. Remember Cleveland Child Sexual Abuse Scandal: An Abuse and Misuse of Professional Power look it up! SBS.Opinion's please et al.


Most of the stats you throw out of your hate, ( think Sally Clarke, she is very much dead, from stats thrown into a court room) as are many children oops, and mothers that have been slandered.
Most of the stats you refer to are children that have been deemed neglected , far to often confused with families poverty, THAT doctors, we have an epi demic of in this country, what a shame!, and chronic illness in children like we have never seen before in history, think asthma food allergies, brittle bones, inborn errors metabolism, mongloian spots!...
Children being born on the Planet in Peril Think chemically Induced diseases: synergistic effects and cumulative injuries caused by Toxic Chemicals, found in childrens blood today? Swimming in the love canal in utero! phenol in the water or FAS, lead or tobacco ( and who said smoking was safe?) I will reserve the right to get smarter, you too have that same right!

BY no means DO I advocate the abuse of children, Children do have the right to his/hers natural parents, in almost all case's the childs best protecters even in the doctor's office.

(Chest physical therapy (CPT): In the past, this manual form of chest physical therapy was the only airway clearance technique available for CF patients. It goes by many names, including bronchial drainage, postural drainage, chest physiotherapy, chest physical therapy, chest clapping, and chest percussion. It usually requires assistance, though older patients can learn to do it themselves and/or mechanical aids can be used.

Postural drainage involves putting the patient in various positions so that secretions can be readily drained from specific regions of the lung and air flow to various parts of the lung can be enhanced. The lungs are drained either by gravity and/or by clapping the patient's back to dislodge the mucus and get it moving. Usually the patient is placed with their head down, so that gravity can do its job. The procedure lasts anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes for each position.
Doctors, especially, have to take every precaution not to miss them, he said.)

Could that have left the bruises? Easy for you perhaps, I am left with concerns.

"Sometimes these families make it so easy for you," said Baird, referring to a mother who brought in a four-month-old suffering from cystic fibrosis for medical attention for a cough and breathing difficulty.

Bruises on the infant's arms and back showed there was something else going on as well.

"You kind of do the 'Columbo' thing" and ask lots of questions to draw the truth out if you suspect something is amiss.

Think LIKE healers, and do no harm.

NRP I have another link MSBP debunked .......http://autism.com/families/msbp.htmhttp ... ridged.pdf