Black children’s aid society needed, lawyers say

[Tropicana]

Look at the scathing comments from White people who have posted.

Black children’s aid society needed, lawyers say

Toronto black community leaders say the African Canadian community needs its own children’s aid society.

The “alarming” numbers of black children in foster and group home care mean the African Canadian community needs its own children’s aid society, say leaders in Toronto’s black community.

No it means their parents are not cooperating....I know of what I speak.

“We have seen this successfully implemented in other communities,” said Anthony Morgan of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, noting there are already children’s aid societies serving Ontario’s Jewish, Catholic and aboriginal families.

The clinic has set up a working group of academics, social workers and community members to study the issue, he added.

The legal clinic was reacting to a Star story that showed 41 per cent of children in the care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto are black. Just 8 per cent of the city’s population under age 18 are black.

Black community leaders blame cultural misunderstandings, poverty and systemic racism in the child protection system as well as schools and police, the largest source of referrals to children’s aid.

“The guts of this lies in the question about anti-black racism,” said Ryerson University social work professor Akua Benjamin, referring to what she describes as the core of the problem.

“The establishment of an agency directed, developed and owned by the black community will have a real impact on these numbers,” added Benjamin, one of several leaders who spoke at a news conference at the legal clinic’s downtown office Friday.

Urgent action is needed because black families are being torn apart and too many black youths in care are ending up in the criminal justice system, she said.

What the heck is this supposed to mean:

In the meantime, the clinic is calling on the government to mandate the involvement of the black community whenever child protection workers respond to calls about the safety of any child of African or Caribbean heritage.

This is laughable. I tried for years to get members of our community to volunteer to be tutors, big brothers and sisters to young people at risk but to no avail. It was far more important for them to go jump and prance and spend the day at the hairdresser putting in extensions (and today weaves).

In these cases, every CAS should have a local list of “competent and proven” African Canadian organizations to assist, Morgan said.

“Of course we know there are times when a child does need to be apprehended,” he said.

“But in terms of the legitimacy of that decision, the appropriateness of that decision, and making sure that the rights and the dignity of the family and the child are upheld, we feel that roster needs to be developed and used — and supported by our governments,” he added.

When black children are brought into care, they should be placed with relatives or culturally appropriate foster families, Morgan said.

The clinic also wants the government to mandate all children’s aid societies to collect ethnic data on the children and families they serve and for the numbers to be regularly publicized on agency websites.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/13/black_childrens_aid_society_needed_lawyers_say_1.html

I could say a LOT here but I won't at this point.

Reactions? Thoughts?

[Gen]

go ahead and say a LOT here.

what "community" is our community referring to ?

where were you trying to find community members ? that is ? what venues, location etc.

[Tropicana]

Did you miss the headline"

Toronto black community leaders say the African Canadian community

As for your other questions. I am not going to get into it.

[Tropicana]

Why are so many black children in foster and group homes?

A disproportionate number of Toronto-area children in foster and group-home care are black. Advocates are blaming poverty, cultural misunderstanding and racism.


In the Toronto area, black children are being taken from their families and placed into foster and group-home care at much higher rates than white children.Numbers obtained by the Star indicate that 41 per cent of the children and youth in the care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto are black. Yet only 8.2 per cent of Toronto’s population under the age of 18 is black.

By contrast, 37 per cent of kids in the care of the Toronto CAS are white, at a time when more than half of the city’s population under the age of 18 is white.

Other figures obtained by the Star indicate the overrepresentation is provincewide.

“The gross overrepresentation of black kids in the CAS is like a modern-day residential schools system,” says Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, which advocates on behalf of the province’s 590,000 black residents.

“This is another form of racial profiling,” she says. “They’re profiling black parents in a very negative way.”

Oh gosh...where have all of these people been while this problem has been developing for decades. Racial profiing my batty. In main instances it is the parents demanding that the children be placed in care because they are too stubborn to modify their parenting practices.

Patricia knows first-hand how cultural misunderstandings can lead to black children being removed from their homes.She was shocked when police and a Toronto children’s aid worker came to her tidy bungalow two years ago to say her granddaughters were being taken into care.



Patricia, whose name has been changed to protect the identity of her grandchildren, had been caring for the girls for about a decade, following the death of their mother in Jamaica.
They were living a comfortable life in Toronto. “For the little one, I was the only mother she ever knew,” says the soft-spoken woman.

That all changed in 2012. Her teenage granddaughter, facing suspension at school, told the principal she would be beaten with a baseball bat if her grandmother found out.

“She told them I was going to kill her,” says Patricia, who admits she disciplined her granddaughters with a slap now and then, but denies ever having struck the girls with an object.

“West Indian children, if something is going to happen, they say: ‘Oh my mother is going to kill me.’ It’s not that her mother is going to kill her. That’s how they speak,” Patricia insists.

Patricia was charged with numerous counts of assault with a weapon, involving multiple incidents. A landed immigrant, she says she was advised by her legal aid lawyer to plead guilty to some charges to avoid possible deportation. In a blur, she agreed.

As a result of her criminal record, she lost her job as a caregiver for the elderly. Unable to pay the mortgage, she lost her home. And her granddaughters.

“Everything fell apart,” she says.

Explain to me how this is "cultural misunderstanding".

SO glad they said this as is is a FACT and has been for a long time. I knew if I said it I would be told it naw go soh. So read very carefully.

The data also showed that many of the black children in care were of Jamaican heritage.

Let me replay this.

The data also showed that many of the black children in care were of Jamaican heritage.

These are children born in Jamaica and children born in Canada of Jamaican parents. The Jamaican consulate is WELL aware of the problems and has been for decades. Not sure why they have elected not to make this public knowledge. Too busy giving receptions and attending dinners and events I guess.

Lawyers, black community leaders and child advocates say the overrepresentation of black children is due to cultural misunderstandings and stress and neglect created by poverty. They also believe systemic racism in the child protection system, and within the police and schools, is at play.
“We received a call because a child was sent to school with roti,” says Danielle Mitchell, a child protection worker at Peel CAS.

The teacher believed the popular Caribbean flatbread, usually filled with goat or chicken curry, was “not healthy or sustainable for this child,” Mitchell says. “And that’s the school system …”Corrie Tuyl, manager of Toronto CAS’s north branch, says workers have told her about a school that called with a referral simply because a child was from Jamaica.

Everton Gordon, executive director of the Jamaican Canadian Association, believes police go into black homes with the same bias that results in black youth being racially profiled on the street.

“These institutions have problems with black people to begin with,” Gordon says, referring to police and schools. “The minute it’s a black family it sets off alarm bells.”

Front-line CAS workers tend to be young and inexperienced. When they see something that doesn’t conform to life in middle-class, white homes, their reaction is, “Oh my gosh, red flags,” says Danielle Mitchell, a child protection worker at Peel CAS.

A recent provincial survey of about 7,000 Ontario children who have been in care for more than one year shows that about 12 per cent are of African or Caribbean descent. Meanwhile, only about 5 per cent of Ontario’s children under age 18 are from those communities.

Notice they have said not one word about the Jamaican mothers who refuse to cooperate with counsellors and demand that their children be taken into care. No one has ever wanted to address this issue.

Groups serving the black community are trying to bridge the cultural divide that can land children in care. The common use of spanking to discipline children in Africa and the Caribbean, for example, can lead to astonished parents being charged with assault.

So many parents get in trouble just because the don't know the law here and the penalties. This is still going on when a simple orientation when parents are bringing their children to join them here to familiarize families with the legislation around spanking would significantly reduce these numbers.

This was suggested to the Lloyd Perry, official guardian of the Province of Ontario a couple of decades ago by Jamaican social workers. His parents are Jamaican by the way.

His response:

Lloyd: The Government of Canada has no business telling Jamaican mothers how to bring up their children.

Black Social Worker: Well you are going to have so many Black and Jamaican children in care that they will be swinging from the rafters.

I do hope that Mr. Perry is happy.

Some families have been investigated for yelling at their children, says Gordon of the Jamaican Canadian Association, who witnessed such cases when he worked for Toronto Catholic CAS in the late 1990s.

Gordon says parents who get their backs up when confronted with a CAS worker — “You want to tell me how to raise my kid?” — are branded unco-operative, heightening the chances of the child being removed.

Seeit deh. Some would rather have their kids in care than change and cooperate. So how does this become racial profiling.

If abuse is suspected, children are assessed by psychologists who are paid by the CAS, and parents have no say. Nor do they have much opportunity to present their stories in court.

Total and utter garbage. The children have lawyers and the parents have lawyers (paid for by Legal Aid if the family can't afford it). It is mandatory for the children to have lawyers. There is ample opportunity to tell their side of the story.

A pilot project in the Toronto CAS is keeping some youths out of care by referring black families at risk to a counselling service for the black community headed by therapist Sonia Mills-Minster.The program teaches parenting skills and anger management, and connects families to black community services that deal with mental health and addiction.

Fewer than 10 of the 100 families counselled over the last three years have seen a child go into care, Mills-Minster says. Understanding the culture makes all the difference.

Good for her. This is the approach that is needed.

And the JCA was handed the rights to a programme that I developed with another social worker and it has also been very effective for the families who have gone through it. We could have published it and sold it and made money but we handed it over after running it and demonstarting that it was effective. More of this type or prevention is needed.

During a “technical briefing” with the Star last month, senior government officials said they are prepared to work with the community on training and best practices for CAS workers who investigate black families. They suggested it might require the kind of culturally sensitive approach used with aboriginal families.

This was suggested decades ago and ignored. What a joke. Talk about closing the gate after the horse has bolted.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/11/why_are_so_many_black_children_in_foster_and_group_homes.html

I personally know a Jamaican social worker who was scapegoated in this town and didn't work for 10 years because members of the Black community were upset that she was "airing dirty laundry" when she attempted to raise awareness about this issues.

I also personally know a Jamaican teacher who was interviewed by the Gleaner about the problems Jamaican children were having in the Canadian school system. Before he returned to Canada., the RCMP showed up at his door.

I hope everyone who didn't listen is happy now.

Yes I am extremely angry about this.

Mi done talk.

[Gen]

/0\

[Tropicana]

FYI, this was suggested to Toronto CAS’s north branch almost 30 years ago to no avail but at least they started it 4 years ago...better late than never *sigh*.

Toronto aid workers introduce new programs to help black parents, children

Senior children’s aid managers in the Toronto area have been troubled for some time by the high number of black children in care.And quietly, they have started to act, introducing programs aimed at addressing parenting and cultural issues, as well as the racism and isolation many black youth experience in the system.
About six years ago, a committee of the Jamaican Canadian Association (JCA) and staff from the Toronto CAS and Toronto Catholic CAS began meeting to “hear how their clients experience us,” says Corrie Tuyl, director of the Toronto CAS’s north branch.

“How oppressive we are to them,” she says. “How we perpetuate the oppression they have experienced all their lives. Why that has to make a difference in how we engage with people.”
Together, they agreed to offer an intensive counselling service for black families — the African Caribbean Canadian Family Enrichment Program — aimed at keeping youth between the ages of 12 and 16 with their families.
Now in its fourth year, about 100 families have used the 12-week program and almost none of the children have been taken into care.
Tuyl has also been meeting with her black supervisors and front-line staff to discuss the relationship between intake workers and the black community.
“There is a lot of concern from our black staff about systemic racism here and how it operates,” she says.
One worker, who accompanied a family to the police station, ended up being detained himself because the officer on duty didn’t believe he was with children’s aid.
“The worst part is that these things happen and (staff) don’t tell their supervisor. They don’t talk about it,” she says. “They don’t want to be seen as someone who’s always talking about race.”
The YouTube images are startling: Before and after photos of American celebrities and ordinary black women whose dark chocolate skin turns creamy. One woman rubs a bleach-soaked cloth across her forearms and declares she is “addicted” to bleaching.
About 14 area young people with Caribbean and African roots watch the video in a meeting room at the Honourable William G. Davis Centre for Families in Brampton. Most are familiar with skin bleaching.
What they may not know, notes Kike Ojo, is that it is a multi-billion-dollar global industry also prevalent in Africa and India.
Ojo, the diversity and anti-oppression manager for the Peel Children’s Aid Society, is one of 24 Peel CAS workers who volunteer one evening a month as mentors with The Village. The program, started five years ago by Ojo and other agency staff, aims to fill the cultural gaps experienced by black youth in care between the ages of 16 and 21.
“We talk a lot about hair and skin but it’s deeper than that,” says Nicole Bonnie, head of community engagement and outreach for the agency.
The program takes a critical look at what Bonnie believes is systemic racism involving police, employment, housing, education and the media and helps youth learn to advocate for themselves.
This evening’s discussion is typical of the “hot topic” focus of each gathering, Bonnie says.
One teen says skin bleaching represents “self-hate.”
“Black is bad,” adds Veneice, 20, who has been in care since Grade 8. “If you cross the path of a black cat, it is bad. Dirt is dark and dirt is bad, while white doves are a sign of peace and goodness.
“There are not very many good things that are black,” she observes with searing honesty. “It makes it hard to be a black person and think about yourself positively.”
The mentors bring the discussion around to solutions and the youth break into small groups to list the top five reasons to be proud of their identity.
“I see a lot of shades of black in this room and not one of you is ugly,” Bonnie concludes. “You should be proud of the skin you are in. We are stronger than what people give us credit for.”
The boom box is playing, the water is spraying and there are smiles all around as Effy leans her head back to get her hair washed.
It is the 13-year-old’s first visit to Beautiful Hair, Beautiful Me, a makeshift hair salon at the Scarborough branch of the Toronto CAS.
Speak to any black youth in care and they will tell you hair care is an issue.
Most white foster families have no idea how to wash, comb or style the kinks and rich textures of black hair. Shampoos, creams and conditioners specially formulated for black hair are often hard to find and usually cost more than popular brands. Braiding a child’s hair at a salon can cost between $60 and $70.
For most black children and youth in care, the lack of understanding about their hair is just another blow to their self-esteem, says Krista Umerah, the Toronto CAS’s volunteer co-ordinator. She started the weekly salon program for 13- to 17-year-olds five years ago, after foster parents called, begging for help.
“Sometimes our girls don’t realize they are dealing with internalized racism,” she says. “They will say, ‘I hate the colour of my hair and my skin. I want to be white and have blue eyes.’
“But after they start coming regularly, we start to see a change.”
The program’s stylists don’t do weaves or cut hair and no chemicals are used, although volunteers will occasionally straighten hair for special occasions, she says.
“The end result is for them to feel good about their natural kink.”

http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1236948/toronto-aid-workers-introduce-new-programs-to-help-black-parents-children/

[RichD]

Mi done talk.

[Tropicana]

I am not talking...just shared an article..that is not talking.

[RichD]

Eeh heh