Shocking Canadian facts

I have to say I was surprised, dismayed to be informed that school employees have presented a serious risk to children in their care and even  the number of school employees sexually offending against children.  The School employees were not alone in this, it included both male and female educational assistants, student teachers, lunch monitors, volunteers, secretaries, custodians and school bus drivers, the report says.

.

K-12 school personnel suspected or found guilty exclusively of child pornography offences included 77 males (99%) and one female (1%). The mean age of these individuals was 47.57 years — noticeably higher than those suspected of contact offences. Their primary occupations include certified teachers (73%), principal/vice-principals (8%), custodians (6%), and educational assistants (4%)

Collectively, the search of disciplinary decisions, media sources, and criminal case law yielded a total of 750 cases of sexual offences against a minimum of 1,272 children, carried out (or allegedly carried out) between 1997 and 2017 by 714 employees working in (or formerly employed by) Canadian K-12 schools

.

Among the study’s findings:

• 87 per cent of the offenders were male
• 75 per cent of the child/student victims were female
• 55 per cent of the victims were sexually abused on school property (including field trip locations and school buses)
• 29 per cent of the victims were abused in the offender’s car or residence
• More than two-thirds of all victims were high school students

.

See the Prevalence of Sexual Abuse by K-12  School Personnel in Canada, 1997-2017,” published in the  Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2018.1477218.

.

“The frequency of such cases is certainly occurring more than one would expect. While one such case is too many, the fact this study identified 750 Canadian cases involving 714 school personnel from the last 20 years alone is  unquestionably alarming.”

.

Many offenders in this study engaged in grooming, a method that involves building trust with a child and the adults around a child in an effort to gain access to and time alone with the child. Some offenders in this study did not appear to employ grooming but instead displayed opportunism. Finally, there was a group of offenders in this study whose offences consisted solely of those committed online against children with whom they had not had in-person contact. This pattern was offending was characterized as online luring.All of this clearly demonstrates the need for enhanced efforts to protect children in schools. elsewhere too.

.

 Child sexual abuse includes a range of behaviours, from obvious contact offences,  to less obvious non-contact offences which include exposing a child to sexually explicit material, voyeurism, luring a child online for a sexual purpose, and inviting a child to sexually touch themselves or someone else. Children can experience trauma from both contact and non-contact sexual offences.

.

Furthermore, a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed that 10% of the population (corresponding to some 3.6 million Canadians) reported having experienced sexual abuse before they were 16 years old.

.

The Criminal Code of Canada prohibits the offences  of sexual interference (touching of a child under 16 for a sexual purpose whether directly or indirectly, such as with an object) and invitation to sexual touching (encouraging a child under 16 to touch themselves or someone else for a sexual purpose, whether in person or online). The offence of sexual exploitation applies to children aged 16 and 17.And new offences have been added to the Criminal Code to address online risks to children, including the offence of online luring (which prohibits electronic communications with children that are designed to facilitate a sexual offence against the child), and the offence of agreement or arrangement (when two or more individuals use technology to agree to or arrange for the sexual abuse of a child). The Criminal Code also criminalizes the creation, distribution, possession and access of child pornography.

.

Those who pleaded guilty and those who were found guilty following a trial, a criminal conviction was entered for 78% of teachers charged with a criminal offence.

.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICIES AND PRACTICES TO PROTECT CHILDREN FOR SCHOOL BOARDS

-Policies and practices that formally recognize commitment to safe communities.

-Policies and practices for bringing forward and responding to inappropriate behaviour and boundary violations.

-Policies and practices for managing situations when school personnel are criminally charged with sexual abuse, but not convicted.

-Policies and practices for managing situations when school personnel are not criminally charged, but there is still reason to be concerned about the individual’s actions.

-Standards outlining the expectations of school personnel demonstrating appropriate boundaries in their interactions with students.

– Appoint a team of at least two individuals for school districts who handle all incidents and concerns regarding teacher misconduct in an effort to centralize the information reported. This is where all rumours, allegations, or complaints are reported. Having all information centralized allows patterns of inappropriate behaviour to be identified and managed early.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EDUCATION AND AWARENESS FOR SCHOOL PERSONNEL

– Educate staff regularly about the policies, practices, and guidelines to protect children during staff meetings or in-service trainings.

– Make sexual abuse prevention training mandatory for educators and school personnel. Training should outline the behaviours that are considered inappropriate so that everyone is working from the same set of expectations

– Educate new staff about the policies, practices, and guidelines to protect children as part of their orientation.

-Require new staff to take boundary/child sexual abuse training as condition of employment (with statement of professional standing, criminal record, vulnerable sector, and child abuse registry checks). ;

-Remind staff about policies, practices, and guidelines during annual evaluations, in newsletters, or communications on related issues.

– Include copies of the policies, practices, and guidelines in teacher handbooks.

-Have teachers take an oath as part of teacher certification — an agreed upon credo in which they pledge to their duty of care of children

.

https://protectchildren.ca/pdfs/C3P_CSAinSchoolsReport_en.pdf

Public exposure and full prosecution of the guilty serves everyone’s best interest

See also  https://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/swxual-harassment/

It is a very low proportion of medical personnel that are disciplined

IMAGINE THIS TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE STILL DYING FROM THIS DECADES OLD SHIT DISEASE AND CONTINUALLY, AND FOR DECADES EVEN IN QUEBEC, CANADA, AND NO ONE IS JAILED FOR IT.. NOT EVEN THE HEALTH MINISTERS https://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/shit-disease-c-difficile-related-deaths-highest-in-recent-years-is-still-totally-unacceptable/

.

 

It was interesting to me to read the various news spins being done on a report done by the researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital about our bad doctors. Supposedly another tip of the iceberg, as there are very low proportion of doctors that are disciplined even because it a serious obstacle course where doctors are not allowed to complain about the other doctors, and ordinary persons, others they are are not qualified to make any medical, professional judgments.

 No such thing as a little bit pregnant, and I am sure that it is same doctors who commit sexual transgressions are also guilty of other major immoral acts such as tax evasions.

I have laid complaints directly against 5 bad Canadian doctors and none were ever properly dealt with. https://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/canadas-health-care-fiascos/

Undisciplined Doctors, like Policeman, Nurses do now get complacent with daily routine and forget how to act properly. More attention is needed for safeguard. Present “Discipline means nothing.If you bring a complaint of fraud,cover up,concealment,abuse and report anything that is in violation of the health act don’t be surprised if things aren’t covered up.The fact that 98 percent of patients never receive a penny in compensation is a little more telling.24,000 people die every year in Canada due to medical mistakes. 87,500 patients admitted annually to Canadian acute care hospitals report an adverse event.5.2 million people according to the CIHI reported an adverse event(preventable medical error). The serious stuff that is reported is not made public so people have no idea what is being covered up. ”

TORONTO — One-fifth of doctor disciplinary cases in the last decade involved repeat offenders, suggesting a need for greater monitoring, researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital have concluded. The researchers looked at the cases of doctors who were disciplined by their provincial medical licensing bodies between 2000 and 2009. Of the 606 cases in total, they found that 92 per cent of those doctors were men and that a majority were family physicians who had been practising for a long time. “It’s a very low proportion of doctors that are disciplined.” But of the doctors who are disciplined, there are many repeat offenders, the research found. Fifty-one doctors committed 64 repeat offences, or 19 per cent of the total offences. Seven of the doctors had been disciplined three times and two had been disciplined four times. The most common violation was sexual misconduct, which accounted for 20 per cent of the cases. Those offences, as well as standard-of-care issues and unprofessional conduct, made up more than half of the violations. Most of the doctors who were disciplined by their local medical licensing authorities over the last 10 years were family doctors who had been practising a long time, a new study finds. The most common penalties in the disciplinary cases were fines, imposed in 27 per cent of the incidents. That was followed by suspensions, which occurred 19 per cent of the time. The median fine amount was $4,000 and the median suspension length was four months.Doctors had their licences revoked in six per cent of the cases. The study appears in the journal Open Medicine. The study did not include the three territories where such information is not publicly available.

And the study also exposes how little standardization there is in Canada when it comes to publicly reporting disciplinary action against doctors, and how much remains unknown about the true scope of complaints against physicians. For instance, some information about disciplinary action against doctors was incomplete on various provincial websites and no information was publicly available from the territories. Chaim Bell, lead author of the study, physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and associate professor in medicine and health policy, management and evaluation at the University of Toronto, said the findings indicate the need for a national system that can allow improved public access to information about disciplinary action against doctors. The study was conducted by gathering publicly-available data from various Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons across Canada, which are medical licensing authorities and conduct disciplinary hearings when there are complaints against doctors. The problem is that complaints against doctors remain confidential unless it leads to a formal disciplinary hearing. While the study notes that cases of negligence, sexual abuse or concerns over professionalism are serious and usually lead to disciplinary action, there are questions about complaints against doctors that may never be released publicly. For that reason, it’s also unclear what the exact number of complaints against doctors is in Canada.It’s also difficult to get information from certain years from various provincial medical bodies, Dr. Bell said.It’s a problem that highlights the need for improved transparency as it relates to complaints against doctors, he said. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/more-than-600-doctors-punished-for-misconduct-in-canada-study/article2197463/

A national database should be created to make it easier for patients to monitor bad doctors, says the author of a recent study tracking physicians who have been disciplined.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1068227

 

Viciously we need a consumer evaluation system, such as the ones in some universities where you graded your own professor annually, even for the doctors and the hospitals.. And we still do need to have much better hospital ombudsman who will incorporate real changes.. so things can change for the better…

do see also https://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/very-wide-regional-health-discrepancies/