Mum punches cyfs worker
Taken from the “Stuff / Dominion Post” web site – 15 March 2012. “Pasted” in full here due to Stuff’s propensity to clean out the annuls of history.
Just to maintain a bit of balance; it’s not only dispossessed dads that get upset with the state grannies at cyfs. Seems cyfs can rile up mums to busting point as well.
Mother punched social worker at CYF office
MICHAEL FORBES
Last updated 05:00 15/03/2012A custody meeting at the Child, Youth and Family office in Palmerston North descended into chaos when a woman “lost control” and repeatedly punched a social worker after finding out that her children would not be returned to her.
Nadine April Hawea, 36, pleaded guilty to one charge of assault in Palmerston North District Court yesterday.
Hawea was at the CYF office in Church St on February 15 to regain custody of her 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, the court was told.
The police summary of facts said Hawea became angry during a meeting with a social worker and her family lawyer, grabbing the social worker by the collar and repeatedly punching her in the head and body.
When the social worker fell to the floor, Hawea continued to punch her. The lawyer had to intervene to stop the attack. Hawea then walked out, leaving her victim lying injured on the ground.
The social worker needed two days off work to recover from extensive bruising to her arms, legs and right armpit.
Hawea’s lawyer, Richard Bedford, said his client arrived at the meeting only to find she had not completed the paperwork necessary to regain custody of her children.
“It was a terribly stressful time for her … and she simply lost control.”
Hawea was also on “really serious” medication for her health problems, Mr Bedford said.
Judge Gregory Ross remanded Hawea on bail to reappear for sentence in May and ordered her to attend an alcohol abuse rehabilitation programme.
Child, Youth and Family general manager of operations Marama Edwards said social workers were trained to manage difficult situations, but attacks on staff did occasionally happen.
The social worker in question was shaken and distressed by the ordeal, she said.
“It’s appalling that anyone can be attacked while carrying out their duties.”
The department had security measures in place to protect its staff, but she did not elaborate on what they were.
The department is already embroiled in a national security review, spurred by the rampage of Iraqi refugee Thamir Abdulridha El Mehdi, 49, who caused $2250 of damage at a temporary CYF office in Christchurch on November 7.
Good on her.
Comment by golfa — Sun 18th March 2012 @ 9:51 pm
‘Marama Edwards:
‘It’s appalling that anyone can be attacked while carrying out their duties.’ ‘
Personally I think it is appalling to prevent a child reuniting with a parent because “…she had not completed the paperwork necessary”. New Zealand’s systems are barbaric.
Can you imagine if every father punched a civil servant that impeaded them from seeing their children?
Comment by Vman — Mon 19th March 2012 @ 1:47 pm
This new law places fathers in an impossible situation yet again:
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=145099&fm=newsmain,narts
Under changes to the Crimes Amendment Act 2011, members of households who witness abuse or neglect against children could be sent to jail for up to 10 years if they fail to act or seek help.
However fathers have no where to go for help. If they report the abusive mother that will be the end of their relationship with the children. Typical of feminist New Zealand.
Comment by Vman — Mon 19th March 2012 @ 1:50 pm
Thanks, Vman. Much of NZ’s legislation in he last 30 years is very poorly thought out. It is easy to be do-gooder with legislation, but unless it actually will work in the real world, then it should never be passed into law. We should be prosecuting writers of poor quality legislation, for wasted caught costs, for manslaughter for suicides, for children’s reduced quality childhoods……
As legal-workers benefit from low quality legislation, they should abstain when Parliament votes on legislation.
The non lawyer Parliamentarians are not suspicious enough about lawyers and conflict of interest, when these votes are taken.
Legislation such as this can backfire, by making parents who have deliberately injured their children very reluctant to take the injured child to a doctor. Once a doctor has been consulted, his life might be at risk, due to his being obliged to report the parents. A father is in a similar position, teachers too.
Suck it and see is a dangerous way of checking legislation. The proper way is to spend time, considering how the legislation will impact onto all affected stakeholders and what their possible behaviours might be. If we are not prepared to investigate the workability of legislation before passing it, then we shouldn’t try to be so innovative at all. A country of only a million taxpayers cannot support the homework required to checkout new social legislation. If we could save a bit on beneficiaries, then we could afford better policy analysis. Why don’t we make lots of the familycaught “judges” redundant and contract out their work at lower pay rates. Done carefully, we would get better quality work, along with a large reduction in cost to the Government.
We could spend part of the saving on better analysis of social policy and in the long run, reduce parental suicides and child protection costs too.
I knew a lady who was in a similar situation. She had a court order for the return of her daughter, but after 3 weeks the daughter had not been returned. She had to make a highcaught appeal application, before CYFs actually returned the daughter. She told me that she thought CYFs were keeping the daughter, to keep up their useage of a foster home, or it was at risk of being closed down. I didn’t believe her at the time.
So why did the mother above lose her bottle, at such a slight issue? Was it deliberate provocation?
Thanks, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 19th March 2012 @ 9:49 pm
This woman may well be subjected to the ‘Double-P-standard’ parenting process: the double-standard Pussy Pass for when a female is the violent offender. People including judges tend to feel much more understanding and sympathetic when a woman is separated from her children than when a man is. This was evident in the recent Algerian case. When the mother complained (incorrectly) that her children had been abducted by their father, NZ diplomats rushed to her rescue and news agencies went into a frenzy, whereas children are abducted (and truly abducted) from their fathers by mothers every day, both domestically and internationally, and this is usually condoned by Courts, ignored by officials and avoided by news agencies.
Comment by Hans Laven — Tue 20th March 2012 @ 2:06 pm
Hans, I guess the only way that the issue of father or mother abductors will be understood by the public, is when many more of the fathers left behind by women abductors stand up in public and defend that children’s relationships with their fathers are as important as the relationship with the mother!
And, many other fathers must stand up and support them!!!!
Also the international abduction numbers must be made public. The present newspaper reporting of father abductors and only rarely of mother abductors seriously misleads the public. It also misleads fathers from properly protecting their children from abduction. Waiting for “judges” to publish these figures is a waste of time and a waste of trust.
If the figures I was given under Official Information Act are correct, then almost 0.5% of children are abducted internationally after separation, almost all within about 5 years. If we take out parents where both of their families are largely living in NZ, then the international abduction risk is about 2% for children with significant overseas families. To me this figure is horrifying, when the consequences for these children are considered.
Several “judges” have made seriously misleading comments, to persuade fathers to trust mothers taking their children out of NZ, to non Hague or non Hague honouring countries, such as Turkey or Germany. What a cruel, soulless, heartless and crooked thing to do.
Until we face the fact that most children in NZ are at more risk of neglect or murder or abduction by their mothers, than all other perpetrators put together, then we will continue to fail to protect our children.
All parents can pose a hazard and we must respond to each case, according to the facts of THAT case. Children are much safer with frequent and regular contact with both parents. This is exactly what the familycaught$ is not doing!
The Hague Convention expenditure in NZ is extremely poor value for taxpayer money, it is just giving taxpayer’s money to a few lawyers and sacrificing the protection of our children. This is robbing the poor, to give to the wealthy. The only protection, is to not allow children seriously at risk to be taken out of NZ, especially by mothers. Ambulance at the bottom of the cliff isn’t protecting children.
“The department has procedures to protect staff!”
It seems that they protect their staff as effectively as they protect children.
Of course the harm that CYFs does, includes taking the wrong children, as much as it is harming the children who should have been taken, alas! I am not meaning to criticise their staff, who are not properly trained, or supervised, or selected. (Maybe this also applies to for judges attempting to work in familycaught$?)
Ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is unworkable and we are just endangering our children, while we persist in trying to make it work. Professor Dorothy Scott has been pointing this out, for quite a large number of years. In 2006 she gave a presentation in NZ and her paper was on the NZ Family Violence ClearingHouse website, but after CYFs people had read it, it was removed!
http://www.nzfvc.org.nz/accan/papers-presentations/PDFs/Keynotes/Wednesday/Scott-Dorothy.pdf
Dorothy Scott’s paper is still available, courtesy of our wiser Australian cousins:
http://www.cfecfw.asn.au/sites/www.cfecfw.asn.au/files/Monograph%206%20Sowing%20the%20Seeds%20of%20Innovation%20in%20Child%20Protection%20Web.pdf
Similar background documents:
http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fm2006/fm73/msalveron.pdf
http://www.unisa.edu.au/childprotection/documents/Nov2006seminar.pdf
http://www.childprotectioninquiry.vic.gov.au/report-pvvc-inquiry.html
Professor Peter Gluckman, The NZ Government Science Advisor, tried to recommend that NZ Government use evidence, as in real world evidence, not just party political thought experiments or musings by “judges”, as a guide to safe social policy:
http://menz.org.nz/2011/evidence-based-practice-gluckman/
Our present social policies are flying through cloud, on a prayer and a hope and we are starting to see the mountain that we have been programmed long ago to hit.
It is time for major changes.
Best regards, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 20th March 2012 @ 3:44 pm
Support for all from Parents against Negative intervention by CYF http://www.cyfstalk.org
Comment by Gwaihir — Wed 25th July 2012 @ 2:25 pm
Gwaihir and others may I draw your attention to
http://menz.org.nz/2012/pets-as-pawns-in-patriarchal-power-and-pontrol/#comment-735418
Comment by Leigh B — Wed 25th July 2012 @ 4:48 pm
Just a wee blog about our thoughts as we start our shit arse journey with CYFS. Needless to say both mum and I are stripped of all rights but she can click her fingers and I don’t know what I can and can’t do anymore it’s all been so twisted noiwontwearthatridiculousxmassweater.blogspot.co.nz
Comment by T Cee — Fri 13th May 2016 @ 8:28 am