May 31, 2013 - Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry

B.A. CYR - CR-EX. (GINDIN) MAY 31, 2013
D.L. ROUSSIN - CR-EX. (GINDIN)
S.E. TAYLOR - CR-EX. (GINDIN)
D.M. KNOL - CR-EX. (GINDIN)
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families come up as high risk, and the problem with risk is
it's historical and it's very difficult for families to
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change their risk levels.
If you are a First Nations,
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Métis urban aboriginal person living in the north end in
poverty with multiple children, you tend to come up on the
high side of that scale and right away there is a file
opened on you and then it goes through this whole triage
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system.
It is unfair to families to hold them up even for
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a day, and that's what we seem to have forgotten in child
welfare, that we're making the assumption, based on my
assessment of risk on you on my little ticky box that I
showed up with that you're now, your probability of future
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harm is quite high.
And most families I know that in my,
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in my experience at ANCR and Métis was that numbers of
families showed up high and there was lots of overrides on
those, and that actually workers would forfeit their
professional judgment because they had what I called the
cover-your-butt tool and were able to take it off and say,
hey look, but it said it was higher so this is why I acted
this way.
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MR. GINDIN:
So would you agree that whatever
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tools are used, there's no replacing good professional
sound judgment?
MS. CYR: Yes. Hence my concern about the depth
and breadth of practice within child welfare.
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