By: Laurie Monsebraaten Social justice reporter, Published on Sat Dec 13 2014
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
The problem is history and systemic. It's primary cause is
deliberate lack of accountability that itself stems from the
arrogance and contempt of politicians who believe anyone
involved with CAS must be the scum of society.
Make no mistake. A Black CAS worker is no different from a White
CAS worker when they work in a Cult of unaccountability and
endless Fabrication of Evidence.
All CAS Child Protection workers are brainwashed in Extreme
Feminist views that men are violent criminals and their primary
role becomes one of relationship destruction.
They actively encourage Domestic Violence by women towards men.
They receive Billions of Dollars that is spent on their own
Gender Superiority and famously in Toronto a Racial Superiority
Program that is Fas.cist in Nature.
Ottawa CAS lawyer Marguerite Lewis is typical of how CAS lawyers
Fabricate Evidence "of admissions" when they don't have any.
They arrange for "hired pens" corrupt Psychiatrists, the Dr.
Mengals of the Psychiatric world to make reports to assist their
predetermined conclusions not based on facts but Gender and
Race.
The Children's Aid Societies of Ontario Remain a Cartel of
Criminal Organizations because we have a Judiciary of Former CAS
lawyers who are anointed by the government to Rubber Stamp
anything and everything they ask for their Cult of child
abusers.
That cess pool of Judiciary is chosen by selectors chosen by our
equally gutless politicians who have their feet in their own
various financial and political troughs.
Then there are their partners in Crime, the Police who never
ever lay charges against CAS workers or lawyers.
It's no wonder that lawyers in Ontario call them "The Gestapo"
Ottawa Mens Centre