I have just spent quite a bit of time reviewing the ethics as they
apply to psychiatry on the APA website. Although ethics do allow for
release of information when legally compelled to do so, the only two
instances in which it is ethical to release any information without
consent is when: 1) child abuse or neglect is suspected; 2) under
Tarasoft, the patient appears to be a threat to himself or the
community as evidenced by stating intentions to harm someone, and even
then, unless the patient names specific potential victims, then the
doctor or agency may not have any responsibility to warn as there
isn't anyone to warn.
I will also cite http://www.psych.org/pnews/98-09-04/analyst.html , in
which a supervisor for a psychatric program is being sued because in
the course of his work with a student of the program, he discovered
that the student had pedophilic fantasies. The supervisor took
apropriate steps, the student left the program but later did become a
child psychiatrist and was arrested for molesting two children in a
hospital/residential treatment setting. So far, the APA and all legal
advisors are supporting the supervisor's decision, specifically since
the laws of the state involved (Connecticut) do not require reporting
when there is no readily indentifiable class of victims (based on a
decision by Connecticut Supreme Court).
Thank you for that link. I've already skimmed it; it looks quite interesting.
As to Baal's information, I believe that he clearly stated that it was
based on Canadian law, not US Law. Furthermore, in the case he
presented, the person did not go to a shrink and say, "I'm a
pedophile," he was accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
The Nagler case is not directly applicable; I fully realize that. The point I
was trying to make with the Nagler case was just how ridiculously easy it is to
get one's name on a watch-list, even without so much a shred of evidence.
I just remembered a case that is, perhaps, even more apropos: the case of Wanda
Young. In a nutshell, Ms. Young was a young, aspiring social worker who wanted
to do nothing more than work with abused kids. As is not uncommon, she made an
error in a paper she wrote--forgetting to footnote/cite a case study.
Her Memorial U professor, reading this, decided without consulting Ms. Young,
that this case study was autobiographical in nature, and contacted both the
RCMP and social services. As a result, Ms. Young '... was red-flagged and her
name was on a registry within the ministry as a suspected child abuser.'
Ms. Young was repeatedly passed-over for promotion due to the fact that her name
was red-flagged on this register; she discovered this only years after the fact.
http://tinyurl.com/vw62d
W-FIVE Staff
Updated: Sat. Feb. 11 2006 7:14 PM ET
In 1992, Wanda Young was a student at Memorial University in St.
John's, Newfoundland. Wanda had always wanted to be a social worker
and help abused children. She had been going part time to Memorial
and wanted to be accepted into full time studies in [the] Social Work
Department.
It was a big dream for a girl from Spaniard's Bay, a small out port
about eighty-five kilometers from St. John's. Her father Gordon
Young is a cabinetmaker and her mother Barbara once worked in the
local fish plant. Wanda is the middle child in this large close-knit
family and ever since she was small she had one thing in mind --
to become a social worker. When she told her father she intended to
pursue her dream, he wasn't surprised. "She was cut from that cloth,
says Gordon, "that's what she wanted to be."
For Wanda, being a social worker was more than just a career --
it was her vocation. "I just felt in my heart and soul that I had
something that I could do for these kids. I don't know, I just
wanted to help them out in any way I could." recalls Wanda.
In 1994, after four years of university courses, her marks were
slightly below the admission rate of 65 per cent and the competition
for placement was high -- she didn't get in. So she went to the
head of admissions and asked her what she should do. Her advice
floored Wanda. "It was at this point where she told me that they
didn't think I had what it takes to be a social worker. And if I
wanted to pursue a career in social work she would have to ask me to
go elsewhere." But there was nowhere else in the province for Wanda
to go. Hurt and confused she left the meeting in tears -- and left
behind her dream of a career in social work for good.
What Wanda didn't know was the university falsely suspected her of
sexually abusing children.
Wanda had written a twelve-page term paper about juvenile sex
offenders. The last two pages contained an appendix entitled "Case
Study", a graphic and lurid account written by an actual teenage sex
offender who would molest the children she babysat. Wanda had taken
it word- for- word from a textbook, but she had forgotten to add a
footnote.
She had written the paper for a long distance course taught by
a social work professor, who was away on a research project in
Labrador. The teacher was Professor Leslie Bella. When she read the
appendix to Wanda Young's paper, alarm bells rang. She thought Wanda
was writing about her own life. "There was attached to the paper was
a first-person confession to being a child sexual abuser written
by a young woman who was abusing her children in her care, says
Professor Bella, "there was no reference, no citation indicating
where it was taken from."
Professor Bella felt the suspected confession could well be a cry
for help from Wanda. So she consulted her director, Professor
Bill Rowe. Professor Rowe is a leading expert on child abuse. He
contacted Newfoundland's Child Protection Services to warn them
about Wanda Young. He then wrote a letter suggesting the RCMP
investigate. But he didn't send the entire 12 pages -- he only
attached the alarming Case Study, which read like a confession.
But nobody from the RCMP or Newfoundland's Child Protection Services
called Wanda. And when Professor Bella contacted her, it was on
an entirely different subject. Professor Bella called Wanda and
suggested that she had self-plagiarized the paper. Wanda had
actually written the paper for another course and naively had
submitted it to Professor Bella's class. The professor gave her a
zero and she failed the course.
Wanda thought this was the end of the story. But it wasn't -- based
on the false suspicions Social Services now had a file on Wanda as a
potential child molester. And from 1994 to 1996, that file traveled
around Conception Bay to a half dozen out port community welfare
offices. From Carbonner to St. John's more than twenty different
social workers were handed the file on Wanda. A file that Wanda
never knew existed. Even when the RCMP in Bay Roberts got the file --
just five minutes away from her family home. But while everyone else
talked -- nobody called Wanda.
It wasn't until about two years later that Wanda had any idea of
what had happened. She and her partner Roy received a call from
the Child Protection unit in St. John's. They asked Roy to come in
to discuss a matter concerning Wanda and his two young children he
had from his former marriage. Roy and Wanda raced into the social
services office and were confronted with the Case Study. The social
worker asked him if he had any reason to believe that Wanda was
sexually abusing his children. The social worker placed the Case
Study in front of him and quickly he and Wanda sorted out the
confusion. Wanda went home, found the term paper and showed it to
the social worker.
Within twenty-four hours, Newfoundland's Child Protection Services
sent her a letter clearing her of their suspicions.
Wanda thought this disturbing episode in her life was finally
over, but it was just beginning. She and Roy thought it was
appropriate for Memorial University to issue an apology but they
refused. Explains Professor Bella: "In a situation where there's
a possibility of child sexual abuse, you have to be extremely
careful not to put the children in danger by doing the investigation
yourself while it's happening."
So what should the professor have done? We asked Andrew Caddigan, a
front line social worker with almost thirty years experience with
"You'd have to be a moron to make some of these decisions I mean
before you make any statement to anyone concerning the idea that
this person could be a threat to children, you investigate it. Then
investigate it again and then investigate it again."
But Memorial University stood firm and believed that professor Bella
and Rowe did no wrong. Wanda Young met with the university on five
occasions asking for an official apology but they refused to give
her one.
So Wanda went on to work in a series of low paying part time social
work positions -- as a caseworker and as a guard at a juvenile
detention centre. It was tough work and she received good feedback
from her superiors like Andrew Caddigan but never was able to move
up into more senior positions.
And one day while working at the Confederation government building
in St. John's Andrew Caddigan overhead a group of people discussing
who would be good for a promotion and heard Wanda's name come up. "I
heard one of the workers say -- but Wanda has been red-flagged."
Six years after meeting with the social worker whom she thought had
cleared her name, Wanda found out through Andrew Caddigan that she
was red-flagged and her name was on a registry within the ministry
as a suspected child abuser.
A teary-eyed Wanda recalls: "Basically my resume got passed over
because I was red flagged as an alleged sex offender. I was very
angry.
And she understood now why her career was being held back. And
a simple mistake made eight years earlier was causing a major
disruption in her life.
In 2002, Wanda Young sued Memorial University. In October 2003 her
case went to court in St. John's. After a three-week trial that
made headlines in Newfoundland, the six-person jury found Memorial
University, Professor Bella and William Rowe negligent and granted
Wanda a damage award of over $800,000.
Wanda had her day in court and finally felt vindicated. But her
nightmare was far from over. Memorial University appealed the
case and won. Wanda had received about $300,000 of the $800,000
award, but had to pay it back. It was a devastating. "I still can't
understand how somebody can take that away," says Wanda, "I can't
believe somebody's letting them off for what they did. I makes no
sense that they can do this to an individual and get off with it."
Wanda had one last chance to reverse the appeal court's decision.
She took her case to the highest court in the land, the Supreme
Court of Canada. At best, it was a long shot. The Supreme Court of
Canada receives hundreds of applications and accepts about thirteen
percent of the cases.
But in October 2005 they heard Wanda's case and in January 2006
made a decision. It was unanimous - all seven Supreme Court judges
sided with Wanda Young. They dismissed all of Memorial University's
arguments and upheld the original jury's verdict.
It was a big moment for Wanda, her family and her lawyer Gillian
Butler. W-FIVE caught up with Wanda and her family at her lawyer
Gillian Butler's office in St. John's. They were ecstatic about the
ruling but Gillian Butler thinks there are larger issues for the
rest of the country.
"The most profound one is you cannot make a report without a
foundation. You cannot make an unjustifiable report because the
consequences to an individual who was totally innocent are too
significant," says Butler.
But not everyone agrees. Peter Dudding of the Child Welfare League
of Canada thinks this case will have a negative effect on child
welfare reporting practices across the country.
I'm worried about the family doctor, the school teacher, perhaps the
police officer, those people who are dealing a lot with children,
who may not be quite as well informed around their responsibities
are and maybe worried about what their liabilities might look like,"
Dudding told W-FIVE's Victor Malarek in an interview.
Gillian Butler disagrees. "The Supreme Court of Canada says the
university had no information. This ruling doesn't affect a case
[w]hen people truly have information that a child is in need of
protection. One, there was no child. Two, there was no information.
End of story."
W-FIVE asked Memorial University for an interview but they didn't
return our telephone calls. They did issue a press release saying
they accept the Supreme Court decision and have promised to write
Wanda a letter of apology.
And after all, that's all Wanda really wanted in the first place.
4s00th
Baal
Retired Lecturer, Encryption and Data Security, Pedo U, Usenet Campus
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" -- "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
-- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 AD
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