ISBN: 978-0-473-33469-7. The dyslexic person’s version Compiled by Graeme Axford Edited by Karlie Clarke, Australian Family Law 1 The Preface Graeme Axford, who compiled this book, has been an advocate since 1989 and along the way became a qualified Social Worker since the mid-2000s. This book has arisen out of his dealings with the Child Protection System (CPS) in New Zealand and based upon the combination of both his personal and professional learning’s to this point in 2015. During this time, Graeme has voluntarily helped well over 15,000+ families and now stopped counting. There are definitely better qualified and much more able people than Graeme to have taken on this task but at the end of the day it was left to him despite the odds being stacked against him, as readers will later discover why and how. When on his quest for answers about some issues within the CPS, Graeme found a lot of very good academic research all over the place about specific topics in this field. So he wanted to try and gather as much information about the wider CPS issues and simplify it into this one document. Graeme wanted an overview from when and how an initial investigation might start and the progression through the CPS and into the Family Courts and everything in between. Many of the issues and learnings Graeme uncovered, from experience and research, led him to take his concerns to the New Zealand Parliament three times via Petitions numbers 2008/121, 2011/33 and 2011/52 for which most of this book is based upon the submissions that supported those. The reason Graeme based this book around that submission is because he wanted to show the issues were nothing new and that Parliament and Child, Youth and Family (CYF) had been made aware of them over many years. When Graeme wrote about the CYF staff tactics and behaviours, as outlined in his submission (for Petition 2011/52) before Parliament, CYF never rebutted many of his claims. The fact CYF never challenged this should attest to the accuracy of those claims. What’s more Graeme also gives other cases and examples of how what happened to him at the hands of some CYF staff were not isolated incidences and how in doing so CYF were not being at all child centred. Graeme was surprised about how a system that was meant to address dysfunction and abuse became that way itself. How CYF became part of the problem not a solution and if you have any doubts about that they should dissipate by the time you get to the end of this book. This book is going to be a bit different from most others for a few reasons. Mainly because the author suffers from a severe case of dyslexia, which has a profound effect on everything he does. Having dyslexia affects his literacy’s skills, like the ability to read and write well, let alone the grammar and punctuation. But more than 2 that, his streams of consciousness go all over the place, like Graeme starts something then would suddenly stop; forgets where he is in that moment or gets repetitive and at times can go far wider from the mark than a lot of people expect. However, there is a good side to having dyslexia that we hope you will see throughout this book and what that is we will leave to your imagination just for now to see if you can glean what it is from reading it. While this book has had some editing, it’s kept true to Graeme’s form as we wanted people to see things from his perspective in the hope it might be enlightening. The editors tried to keep the book as authentic as possible and true to Graeme’s very dyslexic ways. Many people with dyslexia have published books but in doing so during the editing processes they have not remained true to the quirkiness and giftedness people who have this condition often show. We wanted to avoid writing that out of this book wherever possible, which I believe we have done. So there are mistakes we have left in rather than taken out as the point of this book is not literary perfection but rather disability tolerance and an overall theme and stories and facts that support them. Graeme has been mocked; scoffed and ridiculed because of his writing style and even by officials and more so when he writes stuff on Social media or blogs by the wider online community. People see his poor writing style and take from that his lack of good literacy skills must be because he is unintelligent. They equate literacy with IQ and believe me when I say that happens a lot. However, I hope the readers can look past the literacy issues that dyslexia creates for Graeme and look into the wider purpose of this book and message it’s trying to convey and story it tells. When you read what Graeme was up against and tried to achieve, it is very much a David and Goliath ongoing type battle. As Graeme said instead of this book being a literary work of art this might end up being an abstract literacy/unliterary work of art that will be either a masterpiece or a piecemeal to master if you are able to. So Graeme does not expect to win a Nobel Prize in Literature or for his book to become a best-seller more so as it’s a giveaway. So no one should be charged or ask for money in return for this book. While we are using the book to raise money and highlight our cause, it’s by donation only if people are willing. However, if people find what’s in this book worthwhile and helpful there is, on the very last page, information about how you can help us in other non-financial ways as well. The layout and formatting of this book might be a departure from what’s normal, for example, Graeme puts the links underneath rather than having a reference section. That’s how Graeme does things as he finds it much easier to click on the link where needed, rather than go elsewhere and lose where he’s at. Graeme repeats many of the abbreviations throughout the chapters to try and make them as standalone as possible. That’s because some people might want to read only a few chapters, rather than the whole book as they could find that hard going or 3 not be as interested in some chapters like the one about the petitions or others about Graeme’s personal battle with CYF etc. Let’s see if you think what Graeme says has merit and reached his end goal of making people aware of how the system really does or does not work as he sees it. Most of Graeme’s experiences contained within this book come via helping others so he views this as the people’s information that he also learnt a lot from himself. So he is merely returning the knowledge and experiences imparted to him back to the people he tried to help via this book. He also used a lot of articles and others research that he felt it would be unfair to try and make money from their use. The links within this book should directly open from the PDF version to your internet browser and if they stop working for any reason please feel free to contact us and we can email you the information [email protected] as it’s all been saved. By the end of this book, you should see why Graeme talks about the lack of checks and balances within the CPS and how that virtually equates to being given unbridled power in his view. One should consider this and that is despite the increases in spending on New Zealand’s Child Protection System, why has there been no real improvement. Where is that money going, if not to solve or help mitigate the Child abuse, domestic violence or neglect issues? Graeme will provide you with answers about that which is more or less from the horse’s mouth. Once you read this book it’s over to “You-be-the-judge “what you make of it all. The power of a book lies in its power to turn a solitary act into a shared vision. As long as we have books, we are not alone. Laura Bush 4 Table of contents: Introduction Sets the scene and give a general overview of what’s to come. Page 7 Chapter One Overview of the entire New Zealand’s Child, Protection System as submitted and accepted by Parliament in 2011 by Graeme Axford. This is one if not the only truly comprehensive work of its kind ever done to date. Page 8 Chapter Two The history of CYF complaint system encompassing the Howard Broad review of CYF dated 2013. This very much supports my chapter one hypothesizes and then some. Page 69 Chapter Three The ways CYF see things and attempt at explaining some of the staff’s Modus operandi and persona. Page 109 Chapter Four Graeme Axford’s personal, history with Child, Youth and Family (CYF) the untold story about where and how this all started and escalated from. Page 128 Chapter Five What CYF have said about me and how others have seen it, and then You-Be-The- Judge about who you think is right.