Vancouver Police file: VA24-29075

WOW. Read everything below to get an idea of what this journey has been like.

May 20, 2024

Update: I am not accepting donations through this Gofundme campaign for now, as Anjali has chosen to stay in BC, and I will not live in fright or flight to keep her in Alberta against her will, because I think it is a safer and more effective option. Therefore, I am in the process now of fighting with MCFD to provide the support that they contracted to provide thirteen years ago.

If the government of British Columbia declines to fulfill its obligations then I will be reopening this campaign with dual purpose: to support Anjali’s treatment and recovery from abuse and assault through effective private therapists AND to pursue legal action to hold the government of British Columbia responsible for its stated commitment to provide a proper foundation in partnership with parents to support the prosperity of our children.

End update: May 20, 2024

Now, we are looking at what is best for ALL of us in this season.

We are choosing a definitely more challenging path, and based on the options available to us right now it seems like it is the least disruptive, and most effective.

I can’t afford to pay for private treatment for Anjali. The Ministry’s adoption contract included terms that they would step in to assist with the cost of care for foreseeable future needs based on the children’s early life experiences. Things like this were itemized in the adoption and post adoption assistance contract. So on my end I expected that we were covered. YET, they have screwed adoptive parents and children by creating policy which says that we must first exhaust public health options, for which there are waitlists, and which do not offer the specialized care that our children actually need. So we are all left to deal with potential bankruptcy, as we become full time caregivers dedicated to ensuring that our children do not become casualties of their past.

If I could pay for local private effective therapies it costs between $175 and $300 per hour per clinician, plus the cost of stabilizing medications for as long as they are needed.

Choosing this current option is definitely more labour intensive, and is the best that I can find for my kids right now.

I’ve now landed on being in both places.

Anjali will hopefully be in AB with friends who are like family, and I’ll be in BC with Priya, because her supports here are good, and I can more easily find suitable work based on my own medical needs and my abilities. I’ll be going back and forth between them.

Why Alberta?

I’ve been thinking about how to explain everything that has been happening.

I’ve been sharing with you guys as best I could that Anjali is mentally challenged, and she’s still growing up chronologically, and doing it in a world that’s not equipped to be safe for her. So she wants to live as the neurotypical 18 year old, although she is not neurotypical.

Neither Constable Sherwin of the VPD nor I understood why they routed my first call to the police from Richmond to Vancouver. The best answer that I could come up with as all of this has carried on, is that our family needed Constable Sherwin. He was an amazing first contact, and a very supportive ongoing guide even though the file is not in his jurisdiction.

When I finally got properly routed to the proper jurisdiction regarding the things that Anjali was slowly disclosing around sexual assault, the officer, Constable D of the Township of Langley RCMP detachment, was confrontational.

Thankfully, Anjali was in Alberta by that time, so she didn’t need to have contact with him.

Her file got picked up by Constable Floriou in Alberta, who told me that this was amazing as he was going off shift when he paused to pick up the file. He is one of only two officers who form the mental health team in the RCMP in that city.

That meant that he had specialized training to help support Anjali in being questioned by the police as a person with developmental disabilities. So although she is eighteen, they got her statement at the Child Advocacy Centre, where she will also receive more services to help her heal.

In BC: This is the response received from Anjali’s Children and Youth with Support Needs social worker when we requested counselling in this crisis:

“The Children and Youth with Support Needs (CYSN) program with MCFD does not provide counselling supports as part of our offered Family Support Services. The Family Support Services are a range of no cost programs intended to support parents to care for their child or youth with support needs in the home.”

She listed the available supports such as respite, and social skills building with the caveat that “ All of these programs are heavily waitlisted, subject to funding availability and a family’s eligibility. To aid in managing waitlists for service, a priority tool is utilized which helps manage availability of space, the needs of the child or youth, the current situation of the family and their existing supports. If you are interested in any of the programs, please be in contact with me and I would be happy to discuss the ways in which I am able to help support your family and arrange a time to complete the priority tool.”

And so I have again reached out to MCFD’s Post Adoption Support to see if they will finally step in to help.

Victims’ Services is not an option for us, as no charges have yet been laid.

I have been investing in training, paying for it privately, and finding every free option possible, so that I can be a solid foundational core for my girls’ daily treatment, with sound knowledge to advocate for them so that they are built well to be independently strong for now and the future.

This is why I do what I do to support and build healthy community with other single moms, because I know a lot of the ins and outs of our common circumstances, and equipping families to give their children the best chance is something that someone needs to do.

The government’s solution is to punish and shame the struggling parents who are the struggling children of the past, and then we traumatize the children of the present by giving them to other people with the children being indirectly given the idea that their birth families were shamefully incompetent.

It is disingenuous and damaging in so many ways. It creates harmful generational cycles.

Adoption is a beautiful and powerful way of forming family when it is done well. What the BC government is currently doing is using adoption as a sheet to cover the bloody carnage of its child welfare system’s incompetent core, thus avoiding taking responsibility for the increase in numbers of ravaged, addicted children in adult bodies many of whom appear to be “successful” until some crack reveals the truth.

The Ministry’s own statistics show that in 2019, 530+ children were known to be harmed after being removed from their parents’ care, and then sent back either to the struggling parent, or another person with NO sensible plan for improvement.

In 2023 that number jumped to 1636 children. It TRIPLED. And the system continues to pat itself on the back for whitewashing its dirt with adoption.

Hey Central Alberta. We’re looking to live among you.

Our family of three: mom, and two daughters 18 and 17 years old, are looking for another single mom and their kiddos with whom to share a house.

We also have pets. Two dogs and two cats. They go with us as a part of our family.

We need a place by May 1st.

Why sharing a house? Sharing a house connects with my core values of sharing life, building community, creating a village, creating tribes built on love, compassion, and acceptance, and the benefit of that is also sharing costs.

My dream is to create a boundless network of single moms who support each other, in this tangible way. We have been connecting as a supportive momunity for the past eight years, and we have been doing this home-sharing successfully with other single moms for the last five years.

We are learning even more from each other as we do life together, and we believe in the quality of the light within each of us.

We have been strengthened by learning from people who make it their life’s work to study and teach the principles of growth through healing individually as we live well examined lives, and we seek teaching and counsel from people anywhere who highlight the value of living examined lives as a connected community.

We believe that living together in this way will help us to reach higher levels of success as a healthy interdependent, creative, resourceful, resilient community.

We’re a sensible, fun enough, connected family with lots of experience in co-housing with other families, as we were a support family for many families in transition in our BC community.

We have references if needed. Please text or email [email redacted] to connect for this purpose.

We are also accepting funds please to help with our transition. It is a move that was generated by crisis, as we left to keep my perfect Anjali safe from abuse. It was not a planned move, so there are the challenges that come with this.

And we know that crisis is an open door to some other dimension of life. We’re claiming victory over the crisis, and healing from the trauma.

E-transfer accepted as a quicker alternative to gofundme. Ask for the address for e-transfer as gofundme will not display emails.

PS. My resource list of my favourite well-known people includes John Bradshaw, author of Homecoming; Isabelle Wilkerson, author of Caste: The origins of our discontents; Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog; Dr. Dr Vanessa Lapointe, author of Discipline Without Damage; Daniel Siegel, author of Parenting from the Inside Out; Gordon Neufeld, author of Hold On To Your Kids; Ross Greene, author of Raising Human Beings; Daria Shewchuk, author of Understanding and Healing Children Who Act Out Sexually; Brené Brown, author of Atlas of the Heart; Susan Cain, author of Bittersweet, and so many more.

Then there is my favourite podcast - We Can Do Hard Things with hosts, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle.

While we learn much from these well-known figures, our favourite teachers are the people with whom we do life, our community. And so we yearn to do life more closely together.

And sometimes the truth of life is not pretty. We feel no shame, and so we refuse to hide in the dark. Shame grows in the shadows. Change is created in the light.

We need to face it to understand the fullness of what needs to be repaired.

Anjali has been profoundly abused from February 17 to March 7 by a person whom she dated.

My strong, kind, insightful, compassionate, resolute, daughter, Anjali is designated as what the health fraternity calls intellectually disabled. Her neurological ability to assess risk has left her vulnerable to predators.

I have been fighting for most of her life to have her properly equipped with the tools to mitigate the risk of harm at the hands of one who would prey upon and abuse her. That has been a tough battle. For more than fourteen years we have had no substantial support in this.

The attached photo is an indication of the heat of the battle in which I have been engaged to protect her.

This happened while the police, our school, our family, friends, and Anjali herself were trying to figure out how to keep her safe.

Numerous times between February 17 and March 7, she came home, and sat in some distress, to ask me why it is that she kept being open to this person who did things such as this that she did not want done to her, because they told her that it was normal. She wants to be normal, even though normal is a myth.

And although we tried to help her to see that her hyper-focus on this “love” was being fuelled by the individual’s manipulation she was neurologically and psychologically paralyzed, and unable to free herself.

We incessantly fought to free her. Finally the predator refused to see her if her mother was close by because I refused to leave her alone. And so tearfully, Anjali turned to me and came home.

And so we need your help to keep Anjali safe as we fight beside her for her right to live a fully free healthy life.

I am editing the story so that we clearly understand what we are fighting to change.

Change is needed. We can create this new way, and only together. We often quote well known sayings about the dream of making a better world, and we do nothing much to make it happen.

Our family has always used our experiences to create a better world. This will be no different.

It would be easier with you.