SOCIAL WORKERS SEEK RULES ON PROTECTING GROW-OP KIDS

B.C. needs to give social workers clear guidelines when protecting
children found living in marijuana grow-operations or drug labs, the
B.C. Association of Social Workers said yesterday.

The association said the Ministry for Children and Family Development
has been slow to deal with the issue, leaving social workers to
respond in haphazard fashion across the province.

In some ministry offices, social workers have deemed it sufficient
for parents to simply move children away from the grow-op, where they
are exposed to toxic chemicals and potential violence. In other
communities, social workers launch more in-depth investigations into
why parents put their children at risk in the first place.

"Our concern is that it's erratic all over the province -- the level
of investigations that go on around probably one of the most serious
child protection risks we have in the province," association
spokesman Paul Jenkinson said.

But Children's Minister Tom Christensen said the responses differ
from one case to the next because circumstances differ. He said the
ministry takes seriously any potential risk to a child, but it relies
on social workers to use their professional judgment to decide what
actions need to be taken in each case.

"If you looked at, say, 25 situations where the police broke in on a
grow-op, found children, and then you looked at how the ministry
responded in each of those 25, there would likely be some variation,
because it's going to be dependent on exactly the circumstances of
the case, and most specifically the circumstances in which that child
is found."

Christensen said ministry officials have been looking at whether
specific guidelines are required. "They haven't, quite frankly,
concluded that that's necessary yet," he said.

The social workers association, a voluntary organization with about
1,300 members, has suggested B.C. might want to follow Alberta, which
recently passed a law making it clear that children exposed to
serious drug activity are victims of abuse and require protection.
The law allows officials to apprehend children solely on the basis
they are "drug-endangered."

Christensen, however, said B.C.'s child welfare legislation is broad
enough to handle any child protection issues arising from grow-ops.
"It's wholly adequate to empower social workers to remove children if
those children are at risk," he said. "I don't think there's a need
for separate legislation."

The ministry's doesn't keep statistics on the number of cases of
children found living in grow-ops. But police officers see it often
enough that they've sounded the alarm over the years.

Victoria police raided a grow-op last week where they found a
teenager's room located directly above the main growing room.

"So when we were speaking to both the teenager and the other
occupants of house for several hours, they had chronic coughing,
because they have been living in this house, which has been operating
this grow for probably several years," Const. Conor King said.

As a measure of how toxic grow-ops can be, police wear special
breathing apparatus to protect themselves from pesticides,
insecticides and the mould that frequently covers the walls. "And of
course, these people live in there are exposed daily and have no
protection," King said.