Comment by nickelcitymario

I have some inside information on how this plays out in Ontario, Canada, at least. One of my family members was a lawyer for the regional Children's Aid, and I worked for him for a few years. Another family member was a child protection social worker for two decades, but retired early because they felt the organization didn't prioritize the welfare of children (as is their mandate) but rather the needs of the organization or (perhaps more realistically) the needs of their own careers.

MANY social workers feel this way. They got into the field out of a genuine concern for the well-being of the most vulnerable members of our society, and instead found themselves dealing with politics (both real and office).

I'm not sure how it is in other countries, but in my region, they actually appoint a lawyer for the child. This is great, but it also tells you a lot about what everyone else's priorities are that children need their own lawyers:

(1) Parents want their kids back, of course. Not all parents are fit to get them back. But their lawyers fight for the return of their kids regardless of circumstances or reasons for their removal.

(2) Child protection agencies are under constant attack, so at the executive level, they lose sight of the individual kids and are instead worried about the needs of the organization and public relations.

(3) The social workers themselves are handcuffed to do anything about it and have to follow procedure, even if they can see it plainly that the procedure is not in the best interests of the child.

(4) Police want nothing to do with any of it and are quick to wash their hands of these situations.

(5) The children's lawyer somehow has to represent the needs of the child, which may place them at odds with their own clients (the kids).

(6) Activist groups will generally support the parents blindly, because by law, for the privacy of the children, the only parties listed above who can publicly speak about any given case are the parents themselves. So you can only ever hear one side of the argument. That's right: If a father, for example, sexually abuses his kids and as a result has them removed, he's free to say just about anything he likes about the matter, without ever acknowledging that he's a child molester. The other parties can't say a thing about this.

As a result, it's impossible, as a member of the public, to ever know whether it was appropriate or not that the children were removed from the care of their parents. I happen to know, from first-hand experience, that it's a mixed bag: Some parents shouldn't be allowed anywhere near any child ever, much less their own. Others are victims of a system gone haywire. And we, the concerned public, can't have an informed discussion about any of it.

All in all, it transforms child protection into a game of who-has-the-best-lawyers rather than trying to do what's right for the kids. Is it any wonder so many kids end up traumatized by this system?