The story from the Toronto Sun Newspaper about the Simcoe County District School Board beginning an investigation of sexual abuse based on the “visions” of a psychic would have made me laugh my ass off if I hadn’t thought about it and realized how scary this really was.
According to the article, an educational assistant (EA) who worked with the 11 year old girl in question visited a psychic who told the EA that she had a “vision”, telling her that the girl was being molested. The girl exhibits autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is non-verbal. The EA reported her “suspicions” to the school board who, in turn, reported the allegations to the Children's Aid Society (CAS) to investigate. The article goes on to say that the CAS refused to comment on the investigation, but said that the Child and Family Services Act requires that allegations of sexual abuse be investigated "if there are reasonable grounds." Apparently “reasonable grounds” includes the visions of a psychic.
The mother of the girl is understandably upset, and pulled her daughter out of the school, citing “trust issues.” The school principal referred all requests for comment to the school board. Everyone involved is hiding behind the contention that they were following protocol and were required to report the information to the CAS.
In my mind, this is evidence that the CAS has too large a budget, the legislature needs to act before more money is demanded to investigate information derived from consulting tea leaves and Oui Ja boards. This kind of silliness wastes resources needed to investigate allegations based on legitimate justification, and should be viewed as insulting to those who are genuine victims of abuse.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Canada/2008/06/18/5910691-sun.html
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