Could Child Protective Services agencies investigate parents solely on basis of a psychic reading conducted by a school? Maybe not in America yet, but it happened in Canada. The Toronto Sun reported on June 19 that Canadian mother Colleen Leduc "wants an apology from the Simcoe County District School Board, which called in the Children's Aid Society (CAS) to investigate" suspicions that her child was sexually abused based on a "psychic's perception."

On May 30, after picking up her daughter Victoria, who suffers from autism and can not speak, from school, Leduc received a phone call asking her and her daughter to return. When they arrived back at the school, the Sun reported, school officials "advised her that Victoria's educational assistant (EA) had visited a psychic, who said a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old. Leduc was also handed a list of recent behaviours exhibited by her daughter."

To say Leduc was unhappy with the school's behavior is a vast understatement, but what is particularly galling is that school officials insist they did nothing wrong. According to the Sun, "Dr. Lindy Zaretsky, a school board superintendent whose portfolio includes special education, said the school was just following protocol, adding the board is bound by the same legislation (Child and Family Services Act) as the CAS when it comes to suspected neglect or sexual abuse. 'It is clear in all cases that this (information) must be reported,' Zaretsky said."

Though this seems to be an isolated incident, there is still cause for concern. All too often school officials seem to overreact in their handling of suspicions of child abuse. True, the welfare of children must be protected, but officials should understand that child welfare begins in the home. Traumatizing families by overreacting to spurious claims of abuse, particularly when the potential exists for children to be stripped from their parents and placed in foster care, is itself a great and terrible threat to the welfare children.

This, however, assumes that it is the welfare of children that is foremost in the minds of school and child protection officials. But, perhaps another factor carries weight with some. The power to strip children from families is substantial and perhaps intoxicating on occassion. As Lord Acton famously noted, "power corrupts." For that reason, educators and bureaucrats in all fields, but particularly those that wield the power to tear apart families, should have substantial checks and balances restraining their actions. Where they do not, abuse of power is inevitable.

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