“Every Removal is a Trauma”: Parents and Service Workers’ Perspectives on Risk Factors, Trauma, and Barriers when Interacting with British Columbia's Ministry of Children and Family Development

This research study used semi-structured qualitative interviews to examine the concept of parental neglect within British Columbia’s Ministry of Child and Family Development (MCFD). Using the lived experiences of 7 parents who have had encounters with MCFD as well as 4 Service Workers who have worked for, or alongside, MCFD in the last 15 years this study identified risk factors that can lead to neglect categorized as parents unable or unwilling to provide care. The findings show a reluctance to support chronic issues parents face that inflame risk factors and stress leading to inadequate coping skills needed for parenting abilities. Through a neoliberalism and gender discrimination lens this study was able to identify barriers to efficacy within the MCFD process, such as a lack of funding for mental health services leading to long waitlist, stigma surrounding substance use and biases from servicer workers around expectations for how a parent should behave in a highly stressful situation like child apprehension. This study found that there were relationships between with mental health issues, poverty, a lack of parental advocacy and negative experiences with MCFD. Parental advocacy, a restructuring of funding to allow for more individualized care helping to address the issues of waitlists, reducing substance abuse stigma by viewing it through a mental health lens, and supporting Service Workers mental health while also increasing Service Worker training are small steps that can be taken to mitigate the added traumas resulting from encounters with B.C.’s child welfare system.