Submission to the Social Services Select Committee

This was our submission to the social services select committee, in support to our petition to parliament.

To the members of the social services select committee.

Our submission is in support of the petition in our name which asks the question of the members of parliament to look at the relevant legislation that will in essence help remove many of the children who face their entire formative lives in the care of non-whanau members get out of the foster care system and provide them with more safety and security.

Preamble.

Without going into all of the details this is the situation we face daily. Since the end of 2009 we have had in our care a child who fits this situation. Little girl will never be returned to her biological mum due to mum’s drug and alcohol problems, mum’s inability to look after herself, her highly transient nature, and her proclivity to enter relationships with men who are addicts and violent offenders. Mum has time and time again proven why she has none of her four under 18 year old children in her care. The biological father of this one child came as a result of a one night stand at a drunken party. He has never met this girl and to top it off he has a conviction for unlawful sexual connection with a minor.

Because of the mother’s choices, our daughter now has to live with the impact of foetal alcohol disorder and a moderate intellectual disability for the rest of her life. It is entirely possible that other difficulties will present themselves as she gets older but nothing to us is more important than her ongoing safety and security and under the current scheme of things, even with the yet to be effective amendments to the Care of Children Act, we are far from convinced that this is assured.

Home for life.

As home for life caregivers our legal status as parents is unclear. We are not recognised by CYF as caregivers; there are no supports if the relationship with the biological families (if any) breaks down. If it goes to court it is not CYF who are served with court papers, it is us as the co-guardians and we stand alone. Our own experience has proven that and is shared by many others in our situation.

We are required to consult with these biological parents over ‘big’ decisions despite the fact they have been proven incapable in court of doing the parenting. Issues requiring us to go to court could arise over the fact we go to church or what school little girl goes to. Recently, as one of the featured parents on The Nation, another HFL parent shared how an anaesthetist cancelled his daughter’s surgery because they wanted to see the biological parent sign the consent despite the fact that this just was not possible.  Family holidays in New Zealand and overseas require consultation with people we can’t track down and who don’t bother to keep us apprised of their details. It is incredibly challenging to have the responsibility and the entire legal obligation to people who do not meet their responsibilities, yet if we don’t meet ours, they have the power to significantly disrupt our lives.

But that is our life and our girl’s life for the next six to eight years. When she ages out...then what?

One of the biological parents could at some point between now and then make an attempt to gain custody. Given Child Youth and Family’s complete lack of support since our gaining Home for Life in 2011, we have no illusion that they will suddenly rally to our cause and prevent what would be a soul destroying attack on the only family she's ever known. When the dad did this 18 months after we got granted HFL custody and additional guardianship it took three months for CYF to even talk to us after being fobbed off by former social workers, supervisors and even the regional manager until the intervention of our Hamilton West MP and his team. That was more stressful than the fact my wife got served at her workplace by a Private Investigator and we essentially stood alone.

A legal No Mans Land

It also seems to be a level of a legal no mans land where the children are not considered wards of the state but we do not have the rights of the parents despite holding the full measure of accountability. Many HFL parents will tell you that they have been ‘requested’ to obtain birth parent signatures for medical procedures or consents for camps or other school things.

While many lawyers including our own has said that us having to consult with the incompetent biological parents/family may be reading a little too literally into the law at the end of the day we will be judged by the orders that allow us to have this child in our home and a judges interpretation of our actions/inaction based on the law and the cases presented by lawyers we’d be paying for with NO-ONE from the state agency charged with ‘child protection’ watching our backs.

Financial Costs/Savings

In our original submission to the Green Paper on Vulnerable Children we highlighted a large financial savings potential to the tax-payer if what we are proposing was allowed. Each week we receive an Unsupported Childs Benefit of about $180 coming to just over $9000 annually.  From that 2012 submission we wrote;

“If half of the [2275] children in non-kin care were adopted, it would save the taxpayers approximately $8,872,500.00 per year in board only. This figure is based on a $300 per fortnight average payment to foster parents for board. It does not include the quarterly clothing allowance of $280-$300 per child and the birthday and Christmas funds of $60-$100 per child based on the child’s age for each holiday.

Keep the money and you will find people who want to look after kids, people who want to parent long term”.

As HFL parents we get a one off year start up grant for school uniform and so on amounting to no more than $400, however as is our desire to adopt we will not only lose the Unsupported Childs Benefit, but that annual grant.  We don’t care. It’s not about money. It’s about safety and security which this present system does not assure either us as the ‘parents’ or the child in any way, shape or form.

Exiting Foster Care.

At present there are three ways in which a person who is in foster care leaves the system.

Return to Family

Where possible this is the ideal scenario. Families who sort themselves out should have a chance to reunite and continue on with their lives free of unneeded supervision, surveillance and unwarranted intervention. A former colleague of Wiremu’s had a child placed in care due to an unfortunate incident with his then wife. Over the course of the next year the couple worked on their own situation, retained visitation and access frequently, initially supervised then unsupervised until the child was returned to their full time care and custody. A short period of monitoring followed but this was soon ended. Now the father has sole custody and guardianship and the child is none the worse off.

Our petition is not intending to deal with these children in any degree however the CYF report has indicated a level of abuse and neglect tends to happen when this takes place.

Aging Out.

At the age of 16 the orders which tie the child to the state or their home for life family expire, thus ending any legal obligation on the state or family to provide on-going support. It also ends any financial supports that the family may be receiving for the child. For us this isn’t the most critical element but it plays a part in many situations. 16 is not good enough. Kids who’ve been through what our foster kids have been through deserve a significantly better commitment from New Zealand than 16, because all the evidence tells us that they need more support and stability.

Home for Life Program

This is labelled an exit from foster care; however, under the law the child lacks legal security of a family, and the Home for Life caregivers never gain the security of parenthood. It is not an exit from foster care, it is simply a re-branding of the previous ‘permanent foster care’ that doesn’t provide the security children deserve.

One thing is that a lot of HFL parents have an excellent relationship with the biological families. The issue is that this can change at any time so what could be good, could turn nasty and in the courts with those who do the caring standing alone.

It’s not a Home For Life. It’s a home until you age out or those who have the care and custody lose the next court battle which they have to fight alone because CYF won’t stand with them either morally or financially.

Dispensed with Consent (Adoption Act 1955 Section 8)

The final way that a child/young person could leave the foster care system is if the parents enter into a potentially long and costly battle with previously proven incompetent parents by seeking to dispense with parental consent for an adoption using the existing archaic and seldom travelled road.

We have begun this path ourselves and already in the short time of going down this path have expended nearly $5000 of our own money. We are about to have the social worker visit as a part of the process. Both parents were served and both failed to respond.  However as an example a case on public record went all the way to the five judge court of appeal in the 1989 case of Director General of Social Welfare V Lapham (CA 72/89) showed how far and how long and you can imagine how much this cost the applicants.

To be where we are at this point we have gone through four court hearings and all have had the same result. We are the ones who have custody and guardianship. That will not change. But why isn’t there an avenue where a judge could say…”shes yours now” and the adoption is done.

Amendments to the Care of Children Act 2014 (Special Guardianship Orders)

The Minister of Social Development in a letter to me dated 2 June 2015 outlined these new orders that can be applied for by the caregivers. This came in response to concerns we, and others share about ongoing litigation over small issues. The Minister said that we as HFL caregivers can apply for special guardianship orders. The ‘Special’ guardianship orders would likely have to be paid for by the Home for Life families (as there is no assurance of any financial assistance from CYF) and all of the burden of evidence is on the caregiving families to prove that people who have already been proven in court at least three times previously incapable of parenting, cannot meet their responsibilities.

The thing is however, as these are still nearly eight months from becoming effective there is no threshold to know how bad things have to get before the caregivers can apply for or the courts would award such orders. Also, given that maybe we would like to relocate overseas, perhaps may be to relocate to where Sunny’s family is in the United States, no visa’s can or would be granted to her with these orders nor under the current orders we have.

Where to?

Provide a pathway to allow children who are never going to return to their biological family to gain a family, not just a home, for life. This will require significant legislative change, and a willingness to terminate the parental rights of biological parents who will never parent their children. However, terminating rights does not terminate relationships, and amending the Adoption Act 1955 to allow for contact agreements and open adoptions is an essential part of this recommendation. Especially we feel that this will allow children to know their backstory if it’s not already known in a way that is safe and secure for them to do so.

In our case our girl knows some of her story. But her learning needs and level of understanding require a level of adaptation – everything she knows is the truth, but for age appropriateness, she doesn’t know the whole story. She knows she has a tummy mummy who has a sickness called addiction but her comprehension of this remains an ongoing issue. She knows she has another father, despite not ever meeting him and becomes quite agitated and fearful of his coming to get her. His photo, along with her biological mother’s is in a special book which she views frequently which tells her story from birth to age five which my wife compiled for her. It is important to us that she knows her story, her heritage, and also that she belongs and is safe and secure. Unfortunately, her personal security and safety, mentally, emotionally and physically can be threatened at any time by litigation.

What happens if something happens to us?

One question we have not approached with anyone but it is worth asking yourselves as the law and policy makers and drivers.  We all know the situation with the late Jerry Collins and his partner.  What if that had been us in our present situation? What if there was a situation where my wife and I were suddenly taken from her in the worst of scenarios and she was left alone.  Legally where does she stand? Sure, both my wife and I have family who would take her in an instant, however what legal claim do they have on her in our current status where she is neither considered a ‘child of the state’ or ‘CYF foster child’ nor are we considered her legal parents. Guardians yes. Parents…no.

We know some HFL parents who have written somethings into their wills however like any will, the status of these children can be contested leaving them as in the cold as being in a big foster/family home.

Who Are We Looking At?

Our petition is targeted at a sector of children and young people in our foster care system that is not officially classified under a statistical category. In our case we were advised at the time of assuming care that this girl would never return to the care of her biological parents (who are not together) and there is no extended family eligible to care for her due to conviction histories.

There are many in the same situation whom we have become acquainted with on a personal level and have come to know through our petition gathering process, and our Time For Change Facebook page. Such cases include:

·         A couple who have the ninth child of a couple in their care who have a 17 year track history of CYF involvement for domestic violence, drug offences and alcohol abuse. All 9 children between the ages of eighteen months and 15 years old are in non-whanau care. The parents will not prioritise their children by attending visits, yet fight every decision made by the HFL parents in the child’s life, forcing the HFL family to take court action to do simple things like plan holidays or leave town for a weekend. The HFL family dreads dealing with schools in future years with the level of litigation they’ve had to deal with in just over a year under HFL.

·         The story referred to previously about a medical procedure almost being cancelled due to the expectation that the natural guardian be available to sign the medical consent forms.

·         A single mother who has her nephew in her care for over six years. The child was born to an addicted mother and at birth tested positive for marijuana, methamphetamine and synthetic drugs. He frequently recalls severe instances of domestic violence. The mother has had minimal contact over the past three years and refuses to be an ongoing positive influence, yet refuses to allow her sister to make the major decisions in the child’s life.

One family contacted us to say this.  “We have 2 children in our care, brother and sister. They have been with us for 4 and a half years. We have been waiting for nearly three years to finalize access orders for the mother. Father has started a new family and wants nothing to do with the children. Mother has been diagnosed with mental illness has alcohol and drug dependencies, and won't take prescribed medications for mental illness. She has continually made complaints regarding us as well as CYF. Due to her irrational behaviour CYF and [the] courts seem to be more interested in keeping her calm, rather than doing what is best for the children. Even the judge has requested security be present when she is in court, and yet we are discussing putting two vulnerable children in the same room with her. We feel the mother’s needs and wants come before the children's. Even though the government says it is supposed to be the other way around”. In this and many other instances the question becomes one of relationships being maintained rather than the safety and security of children, mentally and emotionally as well as physically, being assured”.

High profile former CYF state ward Daryl Brougham has been in touch with us to say that had an option of being adopted from foster care been available, without the need for consent from those parents who had already been deemed unfit and incapable of parenting then he believes his life would have been very different.  He said to us for this submission “Being a Ward of the State meant- sole guardianship of the director general, as I was. I had the rare opportunity of adoption but this was turned down via CYPS liaising with my birth parents- who I had no exposure to in the first five years of my life. In the end, I bounced through the system and was shoved from pillar to post”.  We aren’t talking one or two foster placements; we are talking over 30 foster placements and homes in and out of New Zealand some of which were abusive, resulting in his pay out from CYF this year.

How long is this pattern going to continue?

The Question.

Speaking specifically about the children/young people affected by our petition; those who will spend the long-term in non-whanau care and whose birth parents by court orders have been determined incompetent or incapable of parenting, why isn’t the family who is raising the child and doing the day to day job of parenting provided with an avenue that allows a pathway for an open adoption?

We would love to speak directly to the committee if possible on this.

Sincerely

Wiremu & Sunny Bayliss.

Petitioners.