There were “valid and significant concerns” with the process an Ontario psychologist used in an expert opinion calling for two GTA parents to lose custody of their children, a judge found. Milton Blake, a London, Ont.-based clinical psychologist who testified he had done parenting capacity assessments in child welfare cases for more than 30 years, used out-of-date psychological tests to determine whether the Halton Region parents could care for their children, Ontario Court Justice Sheilagh O’Connell found in a 2016 judgment. The court treated Blake’s assessment, which supported the Halton Children’s Aid Society’s position that the two children be made Crown wards under the care of their aunt and uncle, “with considerable caution and placed very little, if any weight on it,” the judge wrote. As part of an ongoing investigation, the Star is highlighting cases that raise questions around parenting capacity assessments, expert reports that can be heavily relied on in Ontario child welfare cases that may result in parents permanently losing their children to adoption. Blake told the Star he respects the judge’s decision but also disagrees with the criticism levelled in court by a psychologist hired by the mother’s lawyers — which was relied upon by the judge in her ruling.As the Star has found, there are no specific qualifications to conduct such an assessment, which typically examine parents’ ability to address the needs of their children and whether there are supports available. Child protection lawyers, family law academics and the official opposition have been calling for the provincial government to launch an independent review in the wake of a series of Star stories on psychologist Nicole Walton-Allen, whom a judge found had been misrepresenting her credentials for years and who testified she had done more than 100 assessments since 1992. The problem with the Blake case, one advocate says, ...
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