A 12 year old boy has been sent back to Canada, although he doesn’t want to go, by an Oregon Judge. The Lane County Juvenile Court hearing centered on the boy who has been in state custody for 2 years, and the case has threatened to become an international incident.
It is a complex story, involving international parents, so I will try to explain the details of how it all began. In the past year alone, Oregon child welfare has handled 12 cases with the children reunited with parents in Mexico, Canada and 5 other countries. Officials had to sort through all of the family emotions and international law in deciding what is best for the child. Last Friday, the 12 year old never appeared in court but spent half an hour talking privately with Judge Kip Leonard ahead of the hearing. Leonard said they talked about catching mice and snakes, middle school and family.
“He told me where he wants to be,” Leonard said. “He told me he’d like to stay in Oregon and have his mother and grandparents come to visit.”
But that’s not the decision the judge made. He will return to Calgary when school ends, to live with his grandparents. The ending of this case had the attention of government officials in Canada, the U.S. State Department, state lawmakers and Oregon’s congressional delegation.
The boy who is remaining un-named, because of his age arrived in Oregon in 2008. His mother, Lisa, said he had behavioral problems and that Canadian authorities wanted him placed in a therapeutic group home. Testimony from the Canadian Social Workers believed he may have been emotionally and physically abused and should be placed in a foster home.
Mom, Lisa said she was moving to Montreal from Calgary, and felt it would be better for her son to live with his stepfather in Oakridge, about 40 miles southeast of Eugene. But there is where the plans went astray. Police had many run ins with the boy, finding him once alone in an industrial park and another time riding his bike on a highway miles from town. And when Oregon authorities checked with Canada, they found an extensive record with the family.
At one time, he had been in foster care in Canada, because mom Lisa said she needed help with his special needs. But she was arrested in 2003 and convicted in 2005 for growing marijuana. There were also psychological assessments questioning her ability to parent as well as questions about the way she physically disciplined the boy when he acted out.
“I didn’t really get to say anything to the court. But I did tell the judge that neither my son nor I were American citizens,” Lisa said in an e-mail this week to The Oregonian. “I eventually had no choice and had to leave Oregon a few weeks later. … I was led to believe that the quicker I moved and settled in Calgary, the quicker they’d send him back.
Since the boy was in Oregon state care, and under the state’s legal jurisdiction, he couldn’t be put on a plane and sent to Canadian child welfare officials. Records in Oregon show the boy lived in multiple foster homes before a family with three boys took him in.
Meanwhile, mom Lisa, was ordered by a judge to undergo a psychological evaluation and complete other steps before the state could release her son back to her custody and back to Canadian care. Oregon paid for a Canadian expert to do the evaluation. She was recommended to undergo treatment for a personality disorder, which she balked at. All the while, Oregon officials investigated her parents in Canada, Phyllis and Mike Heltay who wanted the boy.
But the boy loved living on 6 acres outside of Springfield and he moved from a school for kids with special needs to a mainstream middle school, where he is earning mostly A’s this school year.
The boy’s psychologist, Craig Steinberg, testified Friday that the boy told him: “I don’t want to move to Canada. I want to stay here. I feel successful here.” But Phyllis Heltay said she feels the boy also can be successful with the grandparents he’s known as “Bubba” and “Poppy.” “We want him to feel he can be with us as long as he’s comfortable,” she said. “A lot of thought has gone into this.”
And Oregon officials have been criticized for keeping the boy who is really a Canadian citizen. So the judge last Friday ordered the boy back to Canada, which was in the best interests of the child.
VWFringe
/ 08/09/2010i hate how they point to marijuana here, as I don’t think it has anything to do with this. I’ve used marijuana for over thirty years, loving husband for 18, loving father for 13, a God-fearing man, home owner in an upscale neighborhood, IT Professional. Do you really think her smoking pot had anything to do with how she raised her son, or how he behaved before? Come on – how about just letting it be about her and the courts…why do we even go along with it when they say “train crash: hashish found in blood sample!” but never anything about whether or not they were impaired at the time. We don’t even understand how much our paradigm is effected by the spin they’ve had on this for the last hundred years.