This Country's Child Welfare System SUCKS!!

I'm angry this morning. Very angry.

I'm retired. I'm retired from my regular job of work. However, it doesn't take a long time to realize that doing nothing is not all that it's cracked up to be so I have a couple of 'jobs' that I do to keep busy.

On weekdays I drive special ed children to and from school. This year the 3 children that I drive are profoundly deaf. K is a 12 year old boy who communicates fairly well with me and helps out with the younger children in the van. It makes him happy to help and it makes me happy that he is able to. S is 4. She has had many health problems in her little life, but she's a firecracker and a joy to be around. E is barely 4 - no hearing and VERY little speech. She was removed from her own family by Children's Aid in August and put into foster care. I have no idea why she was removed from her own home. E is a difficult child in that she is always in motion and mostly always screaming in an attempt to communicate. Her foster parents are (were) over 60.

Generally, 4 year old children are not in school all day 5 days a week in Ontario, but the hearing impaired have to be so that they can catch up on communication and social skills. All that time away from home has to be hard on them, and my little girls are usually asleep by the time I get them home.

Yesterday I went to pick my charges up at the usual time. We got S & E loaded into their car seats and buckled in to wait for K to come out of his classroom. Just as we were about to leave a teacher came running out and said E had to be taken off the bus - someone from Children's Aid was coming to pick her up. There were tears in the teacher's eyes as she explained to me that E was too much for the foster parents to handle, so she was being moved to another foster home.

Just like that - two 'too-old-to-handle-a-4 yr old' adults decided to toss this beautiful little girl back into the system where it is unlikely she will ever have any continuity or stability in her life because she is labelled as 'difficult.' She won't be allowed to go back to their home, and her clothes and few possessions will be forwarded.

I wanted to pick her up and give her a big hug and squeeze her with all my might - but I'm not allowed to do that. I am allowed no physical contact with the children because it PROTECTS MY ASS!!! What kind of society have we become?