Is our government helping or hindering?

[Tarzan]

We are living in a period of time where drug addictioin is rampant. Couples are working so hard to earn a living that they don't have time to supervise their own children. Children grow up with emotional problems and/or a lack of coping skills, yet nobody notices. Some of these children manage OK, but others end up in trouble. What leads to "abnormal" behaviour? Who's fault is it, and what can we do to fix it? What can we learn so that the mistakes are not repeated?

I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of  horror stories. Lets hear yours, and see what we can learn from it.

I'm told that counsellors working with addicts and other troubled people are sworn to confidentiality. Is this really in the best interest of the person needing help? Should care-givers be included in the circle of people who need to know the details of what is discovered by the counsellor so that everyone is on the same page and working together to support the person in need instead of pulling the already-troubled person in different directions?

[Tarzan]

In the February 2, 2007 edition of the South Delta Leader was a guest editorial by Paula Carlson, a reporter with the Surrey/North Delta Leader. She was writing about the Pickton trial and mentioned about the victims and how the general population didn't want to see, hear, or know about them while they were alive. The article goes on to say that the system shuffled these girls through foster homes, denied their requests for assistance with mental health, dismissed them as hookers and junkies and abandoned them to predators.

It is this last sentence that I would like to discuss here.

Is there enough control or supervision in the selection of foster parents? How many of these children are we actually helping, and how many are we messing up?

Are we doing enough with regard to counseling these children and recognizing mental illness? If and when it is recognized, is there adequate help?

Are hookers and junkies the way they are because they choose to be that way, or because of underlying issues that have pushed them into the situation they now find themselves in? Did they HAVE to turn out that way, or could their destiny have been re-directed had there been early intervention?