If you are at work, to return home exhausted to find your children have been apprehended by child protective services, questions that arise come at a cost more than any parent should have to pay. The lives of my children were under scrutiny. My family life was torn apart, how did I end up in that situation, I will explain that later. First the night of apprehension; it’s hard for me to even write this… In short, relevant facts of a parent already labelled incapable are not facts. Mcfd in B.C had entered my life and took my children, then 2 and 3 under temporary intern care order placing my children in a foster home on a Friday night in February. Prior to this incident I stayed at home fulltime with my children since birth, no babysitters, no weekend getaways, yes, friends and family were around, but i solely cared for my children. I had left my ex husband 3 months prior and in the drive home from my first day as hospitality manager at a well established local venue, I had lost all parental rights and lost my children. I had no idea where my children were, I was unable to contact the person caring for them to tell them my son was undiagnosed with mixed developmental delays, he did not speak and was waitlisted as are all children in our region, to every known professional service available to us. This meant I was his life life to the outside world. I was not able to tell the foster care providers of my children’s allergies or the toilet training stage we were in or give then the specific potty seat my children used. I did not know if my children were crying for me, if they are dinner or were safe, if they were in my town or were they travelling far away from me. I do not know how to explain that kind of fear and victimization. No judge would hear me for months. I was at the court house monday morning before court began demanding to see the judge. They saw me and adjourned for 2 weeks followed by another 4 weeks. 6 weeks I did not know where my children were. To arrive in court and be told if I did not plead guilty we would then start a trial scheduled 4 weeks from then. To be told at that date if i was still denying fault or disagreeing with cps removal, I would have a case conference to speak in front of a judge scheduled for 6 weeks from that date. Total of five months waiting to speak to my innocence. In that time alot happened.

I will go into detail here in this blog. I hope others will write there story as well. I learnt a lot about mcfd. One thing is truth… MCFD exploits family to fund the agency agendas. What is written in policy mandates and law are different than factually lived experience.

MCFD must be held accountable for the trauma my children and thousands of families suffered by the broken practices of social workers in child protection cases fueled by unmonitored growing authoritative power trips to meet quota.

To be continued

Jane~