MONTREAL -- Quebec's youth protection services need to help parents more and stop punishing them, the lawyer for the mother of the young girl killed in Granby last year said on Thursday.
"I want the culture at the [Director of Youth Protection] to change," the lawyer, Valerie Assouline, told CTV News. "I want them to stop judging parents and start helping them more."
Assouline's client, the mother of the 7-year-old girl who died in Granby last Spring, had to leave her daughter's deathbed to rush to a court hearing to fight for her son.
Such a situation -- a lack of understanding by the DYP -- is inhumane, Assouline said, and all too common.
Assouline was in Montreal on Thursday, at the Laurent Commission, which was appointed following concerns that Quebec youth protection services failed to protect the Granby girl. The girl's mother and grandmother had voiced concerns about the father and stepmother, who are now facing charges in the girl's death. The stepmother has been charged with second-degree murder, the father with criminal negligence.
One mother whose identity is protected by a court order said youth protective services are often weaponized in child custody battles.
Her abusive ex-husband alienated her from her children, she said. "My children were taken away from me almost 5 months ago," she said. "They're teenagers right now, placed in two separate group homes. They took away my parental authority, so despite the fact that you're a victim of domestic violence instead of helping you, they help him completely destroy you."
