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Another protester being harrassed by police

Filed under: General,Law & Courts — Julie @ 10:55 pm Mon 7th February 2011

An Uncle of a niece has been protesting outside ‘Child, Youth & Family Services’ (CYFS) for years, trying to find a way to bring her back to the family. His sister had hooked up with a man who had a negative past and CYFS took her child from her. The man then told the extended family it would be in the family’s interest to stay away from the first ‘Family Group Conference’ (FGC) and so they didn’t attend. From that moment on, CYFS excluded the extended family and when they pushed to see their niece, grandchild, great grandchild etc, they were place on supervised access for 7 years.

The uncle [name suppressed so case can’t be identified] decided to become a qualified CYFS social worker so he could understand how things work and what they could do as a family. His family is the first family to attend the ‘Chief Advisory Panel’ which was setup a year ago for CYFS complainants. To get there, you must be invited by the CYFS CEO which was not given to his family until the CEO received around 300 complaints and protesting outside CYFS building.

Recommendations were made by the Chief Advisory Panel that CYFS failed to uphold within 2 weeks and so the uncle is back out protesting yet now he’s hooked up with others around the country and it’s become much bigger as families unite.

CYFS don’t like it and are trying to force him off the frontline by firstly saying he is breaching an agreement and the police are willing to arrest him for it, and secondly the police have said they don’t care if they get it wrong, they’ll just arrest him for harassment.

It’s unbelievable to see so much corruption in a country that’s supposed to pride itself on democracy. And especially when it comes to families with children. But it’s not over by a long shot for the protesters have paid a lawyer to write up something we all can use when faced with police bullying on behalf of CYFS. I will post a link as soon as possible.

Proof through email….

The Police and CYF do not wish to impinge on your right to protest peacefully. It is our belief however that these protests have escalated to be a form of harassment fitting within the definition of Part 3 of the Harassment Act 1997. I have a responsibility within my role to ensure that we are taking appropriate steps to protect our staff from this, and I support the approach currently being taken.

Yours Truly,

JOHN HENDERSON
Southern Regional Director
Child Youth and Family

9 Comments »

  1. It would be nice if some support came through comments. 🙂

    Anyways, I want to share a bit more of the email sent by JOHN HENDERSON; Southern Regional Director because it’s disturbing.

    One of the concern’s the family put forward was,

    That your niece [name removed] has expressed that she wants to have access with you, and this is being denied by CYF.

    Below is John Henderson’s answer back.

    To my knowledge there has not been an indication that [name removed] has been expressing a desire to have access with you. If you have further information regarding this belief please do let me know when we meet so that I can look into this further. I want to assure you that CYF would not deny this access, and we will continue to encourage [name removed] to have contact with her family. I am aware that the social worker did invite the family to a meeting towards the end of January to provide an update on [name removed] progress and answer any concerns or questions the family may have in relation to [name removed].

    Any adult who has been in CYFS care and any parent who has been able to listen to their children about CYFS care will tell you how expressing an interest in going home or seeing your family will cause you grief.

    Children’s complaints are not only ignored, but the children are punished. If a child pines for their family, CYFS will stop all contact saying the parents are making the child pine. If a child plays up because they want to see their family, CYFS will place them in tougher homes and eventually if the child still wants to see their family, CYFS will lock them away, force them to live in rooms with bars on the windows, and locked doors and put trackers on them so they can’t run to their parents. They will place them in other countries if need be.

    No-one has rights when it comes to CYFS, not a parent and not a child. Why do you think children get returned to homes where they’re abused? It’s because CYFS believe CYFS knows what’s best for children. These government law enforcers are not acting as social workers, they’re acting a tyrants who follow government law and policy that’s based on, “Break the family up”.

    Once you are in the system, you are GUILTY without a trial.

    Comment by Julie — Tue 8th February 2011 @ 6:52 am

  2. I have stated to fathers who care for their children in this country and try to make a difference that no-one cares for you, not even the men’s movement….. but don’t stop because we will find people who do.

    I couldn’t help but reply to the email our above man was sent. Here is what I wrote.

    I must let you know that I was disturbed immensely when I got my hands on an email you sent to a complainant. I assume you don’t have children and that you think working for CYFS is just a job. I wouldn’t think harshly if you were a parent but I would question why you take one hat off and put on another while working with families and I do question why you take defense when parents complain how state-care cares for children because firstly, ‘State care is never going to make up for a family” and secondly, “Why the defense? It’s just a job to you while parenting and family means everything to someone’s existence”.

    Here is what was complained to you and I’d like for you to put some compassion forward when you read this for it’s about a family, an extended family, not an object.

    B) That your niece [name removed] has expressed that she wants to have access with you, and this is being denied by CYF.

    When a family complains this way, what they are saying is that they are not getting to see the child who is placed in state care and they’ve taken the trouble to tell you their family would like to see them.

    You wrote back and said…..

    To my knowledge there has not been an indication that [name] has been expressing a desire to have access with you. If you have further information regarding this belief please do let me know when we meet so that I can look into this further. I want to assure you that CYF would not deny this access, and we will continue to encourage [name removed] to have contact with her family. I am aware that the social worker did invite the family to a meeting towards the end of January to provide an update on [name removed] progress and answer any concerns or questions the family may have in relation to [name].

    Did you interview the child in question? Did you ask her? Somehow I don’t think you did.

    This is where things are going wrong. Instead of a complaint being taken seriously, some government office worker emails or phones another government worker instead of seeing if something is going on. Where there is smoke there is fire no matter if it’s a parent or child in state care.

    CYFS has many children in it’s care complaining about terrible abuse but instead of it being investigated, the children are left in the care of the abuser while CYFS workers discuss the matter not only with each other through emails and phone calls but the abusers themselves. None of you are actually talking to the children in your care.

    You have no idea what it’s like for the children and you will never know until you get away from discussing things between yourselves and talking to the children themselves. You have children in you care who are trying to talk and say what is happening to them but the way you do things doesn’t allow their voice. Infact, children are being punished for speaking out. If they pine their parents, CYFS says, “We must insist on less contact”, while if the children are being abused, the caregivers are given notice and abuse the children even more. You will never know what’s going on and why so many parents and organisations hate CYFS until you actually meet with the children.

    No parent should have to prove things to you. It’s your job to take children’s complaints seriously. Don’t believe in the bureaucracy for it’s a nothing while families are made from real lives.

    Comment by Julie — Tue 8th February 2011 @ 12:59 pm

  3. I liked Prime Minister John Key’s opening speech to Parliament for 2011.

    “The Government doesn’t believe that throwing more money around will improve the lives of these children. If it were that simple, then New Zealanders could expect significant improvements in outcomes for vulnerable children to have occurred in the past decade. They haven’t.”

    There would be some specific legislative and policy changes this year to get better results for children. That would include more support for children in state care…..

    Comment by Julie — Tue 8th February 2011 @ 5:10 pm

  4. ok. so no response. Y’all off doing your own thing. So be it. From now on my posts are closed for comment as I figured should be some time ago.

    Comment by julie — Tue 8th February 2011 @ 8:45 pm

  5. Sorry Julie, if you want to post on MENZ you must allow commenting.

    Closing comments might be appropriate if a thread gets completely off-topic or reaches a dead-end, but otherwise please leave them on.

    Comment by JohnPotter — Wed 9th February 2011 @ 10:03 am

  6. Thank-you John,
    Very sensible in my view.
    Otherwise MENZ just becomes an undemocratic free blogsite.

    Openness to challenge, whilst maybe scary for some, means in a contest of ideas the best ideas have a greater chance of being aired and properly valued.

    Abuse using power and control by censorship and blocking males perspectives and other important information is something many feminists practice and I think we need to avoid at all costs.

    Comment by Skeptik — Wed 9th February 2011 @ 11:03 am

  7. Julie; I guess the problem is that we all know that CYFS is rotten to the core. I read the story and thought; same old cyfs. That’s not to degrade the issue it’s just that the bar for what is acceptable by this government organisation is so low that we have just started to accept it.

    Nothing but a complete dismantling of the cyfs organisation would be acceptable. We need a royal commission to investigate the issues here. While there are children that need government intervention due to terrible parents,the jack boot soldiers of cyfs have been stomping over normal family life for years now. My daughter told me this week that when she was at the doctors with her mum the nurse was asking why she had so many bruises on her legs. You can see where they would go with that one. But come on. It’s school holidays and my kids love the outdoors, which mean they encounter the rough and tumble. While my ex has assaulted her in the past I believe she has learnt her lesson and my daughter is at an age and with a personality which would alert me if things were not right.
    We need a child protection organisation that works as part of a community based system. Of course we dismantled lots of community based services years ago – big mistake.
    These evil cyfs workers that break up families with no evidence should NEVER be allowed to work in a social services role again. They have abused their power and should be punished.

    So how do we sort out cyfs Julie? I guess that’s the big question? I wish we had a government of an mp who listened to concerned parents but the issue is that the voice of abused children shout louder and so dilute the issue.

    Comment by noconfidence — Wed 9th February 2011 @ 12:54 pm

  8. Thank-you for your comment.
    I understand everyone here knows how bad CYFS is and what needs to be done. You put it well, IMO.

    If anyone does have a story they wouldn’t mind sharing, I’d appreciate knowing so I can place them on posters that will be put on the walls while we have a couple of presentations about CYFS. We don’t need to use your name.

    Contact: [email protected]

    Comment by julie — Wed 9th February 2011 @ 1:51 pm

  9. ok, what can be done to get them to sate who malicous complaint layers are when they realise the calls were pathetic and done because of family court proceedings?

    Comment by rex — Mon 7th March 2011 @ 12:47 pm

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