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How can I get a child abuse investigation re-opened?

by Brent Bird
(Markham, Ontario, Canada)

Daycare abused my daughter: 
We were informed by a teacher at my daughter's daycare that my daughter was abused. Before we could really act on it, the teacher was fired. When we said we would have an investigation started, they terminated my daughter from the daycare immediately. We still pursued the investigation. The daycare owners then had me falsely arrested. These bogus criminal charges enabled the Ministry of Children's Services to stop the investigation and ALL correspondence with us.

How can we get the investigation started again? These people manipulate the system, and their employees are in fear for their jobs.

My wife is very afraid of what these people might do if we continue to push for the investigation to start again.

Why would the ministry stop a child abuse investigation ever?

Note from Darlene: My answer to this Ask Darlene question "How can I get a child abuse investigation re-opened?" can be found below.

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How can I get a child abuse investigation re-opened?

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Apr 08, 2008
Dropped investigation...
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

Brent, I can certainly appreciate your frustration and anger. To have been wrongly accused must have been devastating, especially the way things have been left for you, your wife and your victimized daughter.

I'm not in a position to answer why the Ministry of Children's Services dropped their investigation regarding the allegation of abuse against your daughter. It's possible they determined that the claim was unsubstantiated, that is to say, there wasn't enough evidence. There's no way to know just what kind of an investigation took place, as most of it would be blind to you and others.

One of the questions I'm asking is why the daycare teacher contacted you about the abuse of your daughter, unless she was reporting to you that she knew who was doing the abusing. And if that was the case, I question whether or not the social worker took this information into account. It is strictly against policy to contact the parents in suspected or known child abuse cases, because the parents are often the guilty party; and telling a possibly guilty parent would put the child at further risk. I'm not accusing you, Brent. I'm trying to make the point that the teacher's actions should have been taken into account when the case was being investigated.

As for how to get the case re-opened, I can't promise that any advice I give would work. Consider the comments I offered Maggie in PEI when she wrote Please help. You might find the comments I wrote to her helpful to you: See my post dated Dec 23, 2007, titled Turn to your government, if necessary... Once you get there, you'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the comments page.

Keep protecting your daughter, Brent. The fact that she was terminated from the daycare that you suspect abused her was a very good thing.

I wish you, your wife and your daughter all the best.

Darlene Barriere
Violence & Abuse Prevention Educator
Author: On My Own Terms, A Memoir

Apr 08, 2008
Additional info
by: Brent

First off, Thank you very much for listening (as it were). You're the first.
Second, the supervisor of the daycare was the one that abused my daughter. The teacher told us because she was afraid of the owners.
I have since gone through regional, provincial and federal government levels. No one will do anything to start the investigation becasue of the false criminal charges. There are still children there possibly being abused and no one will do the right thing and properly investigate.
I've even been to opposition critics with no results.
The Toronto Star has had three or four investigative articles regarding shady daycare. These articles even state that the government is doing nothing to rid the system of bad daycare centres. The gov't has the histories of all the licensed daycares but you have to go through the Freedom of Inofrmation Act to get it. Lack of timely information for parents trying to make the right decision for their loved ones.

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