Assignment: Department of Child Welfare

Assignment: Department of Child Welfare

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The Department of Child Welfare would not comment on camera, but it’s position in court was blunt.

06:25We cannot recommend that an adult of diminished capacity take on responsibilities they cannot shoulder, when such a decision would place a dependent infant at risk.

06:40C. DAVID JOHNSON The judge compromised. He decided to giveSusan a carefully controlled opportunity to demonstrate her fitness as a mother. The child was placed in a foster home. Susan was allowed weekly visits under constant surveillance by a child welfare worker. How she handled the baby would be crucial to her chances of getting her back, because the early months are critical in a baby’s life.

07:10MIKE GODMAN Given what we know now in terms of a child’s development, we’re much more careful in terms of having to make decisions, the right decision at the right point in time, because if that decision isn’t made, that child’s development forever is jeopardized so that you can’t give a parent five years to make the necessary changes, because that’s not in the best interest of that child.

07:35C. DAVID JOHNSON Child welfare workers compiled a growing list of concerns about Susan’s attempts to feed and care for her baby. They continued to feel the child was at risk. Although Susan had been atrusted babysitter over the years, social workers reported she was doing things like bathing her daughter in water that was dangerously hot.

08:00DOLORES CRANE Susan’s lawyer And consistently I saw that over and over in the notes(ph), and my point was always if… if she wasn’t that capable that she couldn’t tell hot water from cold water, don’t you think at this stage in her life that we would have found out that through these other children that she had taken care of, or through herself? I mean, if the woman didn’t know how hot the water was, you think she would have scalded herself.

08:25C. DAVID JOHNSON Susan admits that she was unprepared for her first baby 15 years ago, but since then, she has lived on her own, worked in a fast food restaurant, and returned to school to improve on her grade five education. She rejects the charges that she is incapable of caring responsibly for her daughter or herself.

08:45SUSAN PURCELL That’s not true. I can think on my own. I’ve been looking after myself for 18 years. I’m bit of a slow learner… but I can catch on.

09:05C. DAVID JOHNSON The deck was stacked against Susan from the start. She grew up one of eight children in a shattered, violent household. All eight were removed to foster homes, which were not much safer. Child welfare officials used Susan’s dismal upbringing to argue against her fitness as a parent. She was separated from her sisters at an early age. They all live in another city.