jliedl.ca

Via Boing Boing: Recently, in Barrie, a school called in Children’s Aid to investigate a charge of sexual abuse against a child who happened to be non-verbal and autistic.

All well and good, no?

No, because the accusation was based on information provided to the student’s Educational Assistant by a psychic. (Who further described the assailant as a male between 23-28 years of age.)

Let’s stop for a moment and consider the source of this information: a “psychic”?

. . . under the Child and Family Services Act, anyone who works with children and has reasonable grounds to suspect a youngster is being harmed, must report it immediately - and the CAS has an obligation to follow up. (See the full report at City News’ website)

Note the words “reasonable grounds”. Nowhere in today’s world should that terminology be used to justify following up the wild comments of a so-called psychic. Fortunately, the mother had evidence to repudiate the charges: since the school has had problems keeping track of her daughter on the school campus, she invested in a GPS system with audio recording. The records showed that the girl had not been abused and the file will be closed but the mother has now lost all faith in her daughter’s school, pulling her from their care and searching around for alternate accommodation.

I only hope that the Barrie police will follow up to lay charges against the psychic for her reckless and unjustified claims. (And I’d also hope that the EA who consulted the wacko and brought forward these charges would be required to go back and do some remedial work of her own.)