Letter: Families the best advocates for kids

Re: Article “Give him up to get him help: Sudbury mom’s terrible choice,” which appeared in the Dec. 4 edition of Northern Life.

This is the Anne Larcade battle all over again. She was told she would be required to surrender custody in order to access needed supports for her son with autism.

Fortunately, Anne refused to comply. Instead, she launched a class action suit against the province of Ontario, where hundreds of other families facing similar obstacles joined in. The case was won and then the province turned around and had the decision reversed. Bullies and cowards.

Anne went forward nonetheless, founding the Special Needs Dreamworks Foundation and has continued to be a vocal advocate and mentor for other families.

When I discovered Anne’s case several years back, my daughter was still alive and she gave me hope to challenge wrongs; for the first time, I knew I was not alone.

Anne was equally surprised that I was calling her from Alberta. She, too, had been inundated with correspondence from folks across Canada in similar dire straights.

At the time, she had believed the incidents were strictly Ontario-based and it came as a shock to find out otherwise.

The Ontario Ombudsman has also been a vocal advocate for the rights of persons with diversity to remain in the custody of their family. He wrote a report, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, which speaks to these issues.

I encourage those with similar issues to look into Alberta’s amended family-centered care practice policy.

There will be instances with medical and developmental conditions so profound that care in the family home may not be feasible.

The point, however, is that no parent should be manipulated into surrendering guardianship in effort to attain medical supports.

Generally, the family is the best advocate for the child, and whether living in residence or not, will make good decisions based upon the interests of the child. Conversely, custody granted to the system results in strangers without a vested interest given decision-making powers over the child.

Why do we fund the system instead of the families? It makes no sense. My daughter’s legacy is Samantha’s Law (Alberta), which differentiates families tasked with complex medical needs from the Child Welfare Intervention Model.

How many other children will fall to tragedy and die before we get it right?

Velvet Martin,
Spokesperson for Protecting Canadian Children, founder of Samantha’s Law