T. Michele O'Connor

The applicants sought a review of the respondent society's decision to remove a youth with special needs from their foster home.

Prior to the hearing on the merits, the respondent brought a motion to move the youth from her temporary hotel placement to a group home, arguing the Board lacked jurisdiction over interim placements.

The Board found it had jurisdiction to make interim placement orders based on the child's best interests.

Applying the best interests test, the Board dismissed the motion, finding insufficient evidence to justify disrupting the youth's continuity of care before the final hearing.

The applicants, who had fostered the child since she was 17 days old, applied to the Child and Family Services Review Board for a review of the Society's refusal of their application to adopt the child.

The Society had refused the application in favour of a permanency plan with the child's extended family members.

The Board considered the best interests of the child, including her special needs, her strong attachment to the applicants, and her Indigenous heritage.

The Board found that disrupting the child's primary attachment to the applicants would not be in her best interests, rescinded the Society's refusal, and directed the Society to place the child with the applicants for adoption.

The applicants, the maternal grandfather and step-grandmother of a Crown ward, applied to the Child and Family Services Review Board for a review of the respondent society's refusal to place the child with them for adoption.

The child had been thriving in a foster home since before her first birthday, and the foster parents also planned to adopt her.

The Board found that removing the child from her stable foster home would not be in her best interests, particularly given the step-grandmother's lack of commitment to the adoption plan and her failure to attend the hearing.

The Board confirmed the society's decision to refuse the adoption placement.

The applicant appealed a decision by the school board to expel her son from all of its schools following his involvement in the robbery of another student's iPod.

The Child and Family Services Review Board found that the pupil had committed robbery, which is an expellable offence under the Education Act.

Considering the pupil's history of progressive discipline and the unacceptable risk his continued presence posed to the safety of others, the Board upheld the expulsion from all schools.