The Children’s Advocate Director was quoted in a headline in the Leader Post (May, 2014) described the state of the Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services (Protection)

“It’s a Disaster…”.

I could not agree more. In fact I took them to court because of the personal hardship, pain & suffering, yes, disaster they created for me and my family because a family should never have to endure such ‘political abuses’.

The following is a SNAPSHOT of what and who is at the ‘heart of’ this lawsuit, Part Two.  Part Two was my seeking justice for my grandchildren and indirectly for their mother. In 1993 and thereafter I more clearly saw the in-depth needs of my adopted daughter?as a single mother.

I further appreciated her inability to care for her children unless she and those like her received intensive long-term ‘holistic’ rehabilitation. Not only was she ‘at risk’ because of the violent abuse she suffered (pre-adoption) as an infant (found frostbitten, left in freezing temperatures with her siblings and being burnt with cigarettes), she was also diagnosed with Environmental Deprivation & Developmental Lag.

Now Destiny was having babies and?was not?well-equipped to care for them.  I did my best to be able to assist her as family and friends would attest to, but she was ‘falling between the cracks’ of our society where her needs and ours were not being met. By 19 years of age, Destiny had been diagnosed with a mental illness known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).

Yet a protection worker assigned to the file told me that they (Protection Services) never believed she had MPD, even though the Director of Saskatchewan Mental Health, Dr. Colin Smith (retired), suspected she had this and referred her to a specialist in this area, Dr. Colin Ross to confirm this. He told me that he was 150% certain she had this disorder. They knew her diagnosis was confirmed.

Due to the history of Destiny as an infant being burnt with cigarettes all over her body, I was told she’d have easily dissociated as an infant to handle the pain of that. Thereafter she would dissociate more easily adapting to stressors in her life. For any infant/child who has never experienced this severe abuse the same stressors would be processed normally but not Destiny.

Other details of this are in the Claim. In Destiny’s late teens she was ‘hanging out’ with others ‘at risk’. She was no longer with Charlene’s dad and seemed to be doing better, so we had no immediate concerns.

We never knew the others who apparently were involved in her life or anyone who would be ‘a risk’ to her children. After she had Jonathan I worried she may not cope too well. I was frequently in contact with her during the week trying to be sure Charlene and Jonathan were alright. With my help Destiny seemed to be managing.

Each Sunday Destiny and the children spent with us. In the fall of 1996, on one such Sunday, I noted a definite change in Charlene’s behavior. She was almost 4 years old by this time. She’d put crayon marks on my walls; dump Jonathan’s powdered formula on the floor and follow me everywhere.

This went on for a few months and my concerns were reported to an apathetic Regina Children’s Justice department. One Sunday, the beginning of March, 1997, as I was helping Charlene on with her boots, I noticed unusual bruising around her ankles. When I asked her where she got these marks, Destiny having heard me ask her this, arrived in the kitchen providing me with an explanation.

She claimed that when Charlene was playing with her cousins and another boy, this boy had a skipping rope wrapped around her ankles and was dragging her around in the house, stating they were just playing. When we took the children home to Destiny’s apartment, my husband carried Jonathan (7 months old) in his car seat to the door, while Destiny opened her door. I noted that Charlene would not go inside.  Instead she walked all the way back to me as I sat in the car.

I opened the car door to ask her why she didn’t go inside the apartment with Jonathan and mommy, and she answered me by saying, “I love you grandma”.  After reassuring her that I loved her too and hugging her, I encouraged her to go inside with mommy and Jonathan. She walked slowly back to the apartment and went in.  After a sleepless night and doubting Destiny’s story about the marks about her ankles, I called the Protection Worker. The worker never called me back.

A week later I called the Protection Worker again, having just learned from Destiny that a relative of her birth family, a convicted pedophile, had been released from prison and was staying at her home. I was told by the Protection Worker that she told Destiny to not allow him around her children as he was court ordered to not be around children 14 years of age and under.

Later I found out that she had not listened. When I finally knew the horrific trauma and abuse that Charlene and her brother would be facing when she went back into the apartment to her mom that Sunday evening, I felt sick and still do.

I later learned that Destiny was involved with a gang and that her now husband was involved in a gang and further that they were doing horrific things to children. Their abuse of them was ritualistic, what one would see in occult practices.

One of the therapists who was contracted by this ministry and saw Charlene a couple of times, disclosed to me that protection services knew that Destiny and those whom she was involved with, were involved in occult practices and suspected that they abused children as part of their rituals. I was mortified.

This therapist who was with Regina Family Services, had me promise her that I’d never share this disclosure as she’d be in trouble if the ministry ever knew she’d told me this. I promised her that and was so very glad to have someone validate both Charlene and I. Protection Services set-up supervised visits even before police services had completed their investigations.

Charlene was going for supervised visits with her mother and was being re-traumatized waking up in the night screaming and crying and remembering.  Dr. R. Hatfield told us to stop the visits and I did, against the wishes of this ministry, who ignored my accounts of what was happening.

This same therapist, along with Charlene’s protection worker, telephoned me on a conference call, where both of them demanded that I bring Charlene to the department for these supervised visits with her mother threatening me that if I did not comply they’d apprehend the children from our care. I had to cooperate as I had no choice.

These two women also did a teleconference with Dr. Hatfield telling him that he did not have the expertise to assess whether Charlene was being re-traumatized or not. After another couple of visits garnering the same results I told them I would not be taking her anymore and I threatened them with legal action.

At that point I got a lawyer, Mary Lou Senko and the details of what happened are in the Claim Part Two. I had many sleepless nights when she’d experience nightmares or when I got up to check on her, only to find her sleeping in her brother’s crib or on the floor by his crib.

The times I checked on her and did not find her in her room I’d go looking for her, finding her either parked in the bathroom or in the hallway or behind furniture, staring ‘out into space’, in a catatonic stupor and unreachable. I would sit by her an softly talk with her and rub her arm or back and she’d come around and I helped her back to bed.

For Charlene’s story (now an adult) go to: http://www.voicesofthebruised-reeds.com

This picture reminds me of when I first asked Charlene questions about how she got hurt or where she got her injuries. Any attempt to get information on her injuries elicited an hysterical response with her sobbing and saying “Grandma don’t make me tell”. “Grandma they’ll kill you-they really will!”

In the first two days of having Charlene and Jonathan I discovered injuries on both of their bodies (which the examining doctor at the emergency missed on Charlene’s body the day we took her to the emergency from Mobile Crisis).

* I promptly telephoned both the Corporal assigned to investigate and the assigned protection worker, requesting they have them examined right away before these wounds healed. Further I told them what Charlene was telling me and what I was observing with her.

I called again at the end of March when I did not hear back from them. Finally, at the beginning of April, 1997 I was reached by phone, informing me that they now had an appointment for the children with the ‘integrated sexual abuse team’ and to go to the Regina General Hospital on April 14, 1997. Instead of their ensuring they were seen within 24 hours of their receiving my report, or within 72 hours at the outside as per their policy, they took 21 days or a whopping 504 hours.

STALLED – Even though I called these two members a couple of more times it took 21 days to have them examined by the ‘integrated sexual abuse team’ (April 14, 1997) operating under the Ministry of Social Services and the Department of Justice, namely Regina Children’s Justice. 

This stalling was purposeful for this ministry and the justice system. A Regina, Saskatchewan urologist (now deceased) whom I knew personally, told me that when he was called to the emergency to examine a child who’d been sexually abused and torn-up (down there), that it would be no time until he saw the same child back-in the emergency.

He claimed that seeing them time and time again he was at a loss as to why they weren’t being protected. We should all be at a loss!  Dr. S. Leibel, who served on this ‘integrated sexual abuse team’ provided an explanation for this delay in seeing children citing that if children are chronic users of the system (like Charlene) they’re not seen within the 24 to 72 hours.

This rationale is truly ludicrous and makes no sense even to a lay person. Stalling is gross professional malpractice when it comes to protecting babies and children as in our case. Children and babies need to be apprehended to protect them when they are injured and state who did it, and not be put back with their abusers with some mindless parental agreement that will NEVER be followed without a serious and successful rehabilitation process being accomplished.

At times, some ‘hard-time’ behind bars is needed to ‘get their attention’ first!  How Regina Children’s Justice operated in our case was incredibly scary!

‘blame game’

As I see it, this ‘dragging their heels’ was so that the injuries would hopefully ALL be healed by now; and if they were not, they could place the ‘healing time-frame’ occurring in the middle of these 504 hours, which would point blame to my husband and I [as the children were in our care within this time-frame].

* Note: that the first degree burns on Jonathan and Charlene were gone because they were superficial.

Thick scabs still remained on Charlene where there were third degree burns and she has the scars left to confirm this.? Only the deep ligature [rope] marks that caused deep tissue bruising were still visible, though now very faded.

Regina Protection Services in our case, and I know in many other cases, has been a ‘DISASTER’.

It was also a disaster for my grand-children’s infant sisters who died during the course of this lawsuit. Autumn died in the care of Regina Protection Services and Lily died ‘under their watch’.

‘pull your head out of the sand!’

Obviously the child(ren) should not be kept in that home. Yet, if these government contracted doctors do not pick-up their injuries or find a way to reason their presence away, guess what, these babies and children ‘at risk’ stay right where they e-with their abusers and continue to be hurt and traumatized and yes, too many die, since one death is one too many.

* They know their protocols in regards to having a child examined within 24 hours of injuries on their bodies being reported- and at the outside 72 hours- NOT 504 hours.

 It’s time they ‘pulled their head(s) out of the sand – as the general public have theirs ‘squarely on their shoulders’.

 When the doctor asked Charlene where she got these marks (triangular in shape) she said that “mommy burnt me with a knife-and it was a very hot knife” was not even enough for them!

* The pattern of the burn marks would have corroborated her claim as to how she got them and they needed to be PHOTOGRAPHED!

                        So did they lie in two medical reports and their legal documents?

* If they did not lie about the photographs not existing, then they lied about their taking them, as documented by Dr. C. Norman in two of Charlene’s medical reports.  She went further and said that these photographs would be compared from April 14, 1997 with earlier photographs taken in December, 1996.

So, Yes, they denied! – and lied! –  and Yes– It’s a DISASTER!

Lily was under this ministry’s watch whereby they were involved in [not] protecting her from the time they knew Destiny was pregnant again to the time she was born. We never knew that Lily was even on her way or born until after plans for her were made.

* They knew she was ‘at risk’ and actually put her at risk in the decisions they made concerning her.

They stood-by with their hands behind their back-not tied —or were they tied, playing a game of ‘Russian Roulette’ with Lily’s life.  Note excerpts of Lily’s autopsy report at http://www.voicesofthebruised-reeds.com.

     Charlene and I wonder why she had alcohol in her blood-stream and we wonder if she was murdered.

No one has cared to explain this as no baby should have alcohol in their bloodstream-but the Coroner indicated she died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Every Children’s Advocate’s report from the 90’s to date have had scathing reports about how disastrous the situation with our Protection Services (Saskatchewan).  Ask this ministry how they’re doing and they’ll give us the same answers and ‘carry-on’ per usual.

This ministry hired Tim Korol, Assistant to the Associate Minister to go over files and provide a report on what are the systemic problems within the ministry. What he found was shocking.

For uncovering these glaring problems and making recommendations he was fired. A couple of years ago this went public and he made his report public called: SECRET SHAME posted here.

Link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/230155403/Secret-Shame

It’s not a secret anymore…Every month or so we hear something about the dire state of Protection Services not only in Regina but across Canada. Lately it is about this ministry houses ‘at risk’ teens by putting them in a hotel (Winnipeg, Manitoba). We need to care about the needless deaths of infants and children in care or not ‘in care’ when they SHOULD BE IN CARE. Our ministry is further reneging on their fiduciary duties of duty and trust by reducing the number of foster-care homes when actually more are needed. If this is not an ‘backwards’ move I don’t know what is!

June 05, 2015- on Regina, SK CTV local news we learned that the need for foster homes has doubled and our protection services are now putting these children in hotels also. It continues to be a disaster, lacking poor planning, lack of vision and not making the protection of children a priority to fix this broken system.

 We need better trained foster parents, better overseeing of foster-care homes, better support for the foster-care parents, less crowded foster-homes, specialized medical foster-care homes for babies born who are ‘at risk’ when withdrawing from their drug-addicted mothers and they need to be paid better. We need rehab programs for their parents-programs with ‘some teeth’.

Putting kids back with their addicted parents will lead to further risk to them, resulting in a spike in infant and children deaths, with no accountability from protection services.

This doesn’t even take into account the trauma they’ll suffer and continue to suffer. Where is their ‘common-sense’.   

* A VERY SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS FOR VULNERABLE  BABIES AND CHILDREN.

If Protection Services continue to create these disasters for families like they did ours, the judiciary will continue to see more self-litigants bringing their cases forward to protect their children, grandchildren and the integrity of their families.

Judges need to not critique our claims like Justice Chicoine did, on such matters as the number of paragraphs, pointing out that they are not numbered according to legal protocol, as this is petty when it comes to adjudicating the substance of the Claim . Then again he was not able to see its’ substance nor did he even realize that the original claim was not even to be adjudicated but threw it in there just because. He noted that even if I could have proven every pleading which he said I had none, like a Breach of Trust for example, it would have not made any difference.

We’ll continue to come before our judges until this ALL makes a difference.

Would it have made a difference if my grandchildren were his?

 We will ensure our voices are heard-books, websites or whatever it takes to be heard and to receive JUSTICE -BECAUSE OUR ‘LOVE DEMANDS IT!

We’ll be a ‘pain’ until you TAKE US SERIOUSLY and make these professionals accountable for their blatant actions and in-actions, whether doctors, public servants and even their own.

Judges can apply the laws of our land for the vulnerable-they must!

There is not one lawyer who would have taken on such a ‘political bombshell’ as my case because that would alienate them in their legal fraternity.

As well most of us can’t afford a lawyer.

 I AM TIRED OF THEIR EXCUSES, PROMISES AND MINDLESS RATIONALES! – WHAT ABOUT YOU?