Madness: The N Z Herald had a brilliant article about our Children, Young Persons and their Families (CYPF) Act, 1989. It reports that an assumption written into the Act is that parents and others don't set out to harm their children; and that there will be people in the wider family who are normal and able to step into the breech. Yeah right!
"It's crap, to be honest" says one Social Worker. And we all know that to be true. Well 98% of us know that putting kids with the Whanua, however distant, is madness.
Commonly, families seen by CYPF's had no furniture in their houses - "just a blanket for the kids to share" - no books, no food. Yet they would be able to be able to avail themselves of the services of the best legal aid lawyers to deluge social workers with paperwork when their kids - aka as their welfare payments - were removed.
The Act works on the assumption that families were best kept together, no matter what. There is the belief that there would be normal, sane relatives that could take the child. But again and again, this proved to be madness.
But that hasn't penetrated those who have these stupid and dangerous beliefs.
"We spent hours and thousands and thousands of tax payer dollars at family group conferences, with reports drafted in from counsellors, psychiatrists, Maori elders, extended family members and the like. There would be so many reports, all talking about how the mother was 'working on her issues', how the aunty was 'involved with gangs but trying to turn her life around' and that kind of thing. Whoever's story was the most convincing was the one going home with the child."
It will never be put right as the PC brigade are in charge.
