Into the System

So I was expelled from school. More than that – I was not allowed to attend any school in Labrador West. Understandable.

I ended up in court, listening as the social worker told the judge that I was beyond parental control and that the department of social services was hereby applying to have me made a ward of the court for a period of one year, the time to be spent in an open custody group home. The preferred placement would be Goose Bay where I would still be fairly close of my family, bla bla bla… I barely heard what was happening in the courtroom. All I knew is that I was going to a group home: Images of barbed wire fences, fist fights, and huge mean guards flashing through my mind. I was terrified, having no idea what a group home really was and I still did not know after hearing the social worker explain it to me. I thought that she was either lying or giving me a watered down description.

I had no way of knowing about the mini-war that my placement would cause within the Department of Social Services, brought about by several group homes refusing to take me because of my “numerous problems”. The government said I was to go to a group home, but no group homes wanted to take me. Now though, I have the letters.

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
Department of Social Services
Regional Office
Elizabeth Goudie Boulding
Happy Valley, Goose Bay, Labr.
A0P 1E0
1984 02 22

Mr. F. J. Simms
Director of Child Welfare
Confederation Building
Dept. of Social Services
St. John’s, Newfoundland
A1C 5T7

RE: Barry Veinotte
        FILE NO.  952-048

Dear Mr. Simms:

Enclosed you will find correspondence from our Wabush District Office requesting that the above boy be admitted to either Pleasantville of Whitbourne Training School. To say that I disagree with this request would be an understatement. Actually I am totally dissatisfied with the lack of support our office has received from our request to have the boy admitted to the Group Home in Corner Brook. Their response to our application was that the boy had too many problems. This response in our opinion is not acceptable.

As you can see from reading the report which was forwarded to the Group Home Admissions Committee, the boy’s major problem is that he is a fourteen year old with a drinking problem. If our group home system is unable to admit or deal with a boy with this type of problem then we are obviously not receiving the service from this particular program as we were expecting.

At present we are going to try and have the boy admitted to a foster home, if unsuccessful I might have to, regrettably, recommend a short placement at one of the training schools until an alternate placement can be found.

I feel this whole issue of group home placements should be discussed at our next senior management meeting. If we are paying 120 to 140 thousand a year to support these group homes, we need to have a stronger commitment that they will be more willing, to take children who would not be acceptable for foster home care.

In other words, their perimeters will have to be expanded to include children with various social and delinquency problems, and not to only take children who are only being referred to Group Home Care because there happens to be no foster home vacancies available.

The system we should be working towards is one where the seriousness of the child’s problem should be the determining factor as to where a child is placed. The group home would obviously be used for children who have problems too serious for a foster home but not serious enough for placement in a training school.

Your comments on this very perplexing situation will be appreciated.

Yours Truly,

WILLIAM COOK
Regional Director (Acting)

 I was very pleased when I eventually learned that I would not be able to go to the dreaded Labrador Group Home in Goose Bay for two months. I was less pleased when my father announced that I would be living with him until I went to Goose Bay in March. I would rather go straight to Goose and face whatever horrors awaited me there than live under my father’s law.  I had no choice of course and so off to Dad’s I went.

Before long my attitude changed and I found I had more freedom that I had expected. I had curfews and rules, but dad worked shift work, so I had lots of time home alone, which translated into lots of time to drink. That’s just what I did. I tried to maintain some kind of control over it, not wanting to get caught. However when dad did smell alcohol on my breath on at least two separate occasions that I can recall, he simply made a joke about it. That was as good as a green light to me! I was in heaven, almost; I don’t think there would be hangovers in heaven.

If my father was working four to twelve (which was my favorite shift) I would start drinking when he left at 3:30 pm. There was lots of rum in the cupboards, some of which was in 66 ounce bottles left over from Christmas. I’d have a few drinks, get pleasantly buzzed and then fill the bottles back up  to where they were with water. I tried to be careful not to dilute the rum too much, but always ended up drinking more than I had planned to, and so more water would go into the bottles.

I also began stealing beer and wine from the Wabush Hotel which was just a few minutes walk from dad’s house. At one point I had the bottom drawers of my dresser filled with beer and knowing it was there brought me peace. As long as I could have a little to drink each day, I was fine. On the rare occasion that I couldn’t I would be obsessed with finding a way. Alcohol was the only thing that made me feel good, that lessened the weight of the lead ball in my stomach. It was my sedative. My escape.

“Jesus Curry, you could have put some rum in this.” Pete said, holding up his drink.

“Yeah well, the rum is half water,” dad replied, turning and grinning at me. I simply stared at the television, pretending not to hear, feeling the color fill my face, my heart pounding as I waited for the anger. It never happened. No more was said about it. Now I was certain I had the unspoken permission to drink – as long as I was not causing problems or getting into trouble I would be able to drink and not worry about it.

I began to be just a little less careful after that.