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The Foster Care Council of Canada is an Ottawa based, non-profit organization made up of both current and former child-welfare service clients and their supporters who are dedicated to improving the quality and accountability of child-welfare services across the country.
Below is a list of our Board of Directors members.
John Dunn:
Founder and Executive Director
(Former Ward)
John Dunn, is the founder and volunteer Executive Director of the Foster Care Council of Canada. As a child, John lived in foster care for 16 years and was moved 13 times. In 1988 when John was 18 years of age he chose to leave foster care and live on his own. Approximately 13 years later, in 2001 when he contacted the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto to get copies of his own life records he learned that Children's Aid Societies generally, as a matter of policy do not provide copies of former foster kids' life records to them. It this discovery of how former foster children are treated by the CAS's that the idea for the Council was truely born and continues its work today.
Listen to Dunn's CBC Documentary about his life in care [ here ]
Read and Subscribe to our Blog [here]
See Dunn's Youtube Channel [here]
Gary Curtis: Director
(Former Ward)
Gary Curtis of Winchester,Ontario (South of Ottawa) was a Crown Ward for his entire childhood up to the age of 18. Gary lived in 6 different foster homes, an orphanage and the Ottawa Children' Village, plus a couple of temporary homes all by his 8th birthday. In 2003 Gary started out by requesting a copy of his file from the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa and finally received about 60% of it. During Gary's search, he discovered the Foster Care Council of Canada and is now actively involved in various aspects of its work where he specializes in Disclosure and Information aka: Records. You can visit Gary's Records website [ here ]
David Witzel: Director
(Former Ward)
David Witzel was born in Timmins Ontario in 1947 to alcoholic parents who were abusive to both him and his brother. His parents abandoned them when David was seven years of age after taking them to the Hamilton-Wentworth Children's Aid Society (HWCAS), under which they were made Crown Wards. In their foster home David and his brother were consistently and severely abused emotionally, physically and sexually for years. When David was 21 he joined the US Marine Corps and remained in service with them for 3 years. During that time he was deployed to Viet Nam for 13 months. David suffered from alcoholism between the ages of 13 to 35 when finally on Thanksgiving Day, October 18, 1982 he quit drinking -- "with God's help" David emphasizes. 5 years later in 1987 David's life changed drastically for the better when he met his wife and daughter.
In 2004 David applied for his foster care records from the HWCAS and only received a 4 page summary. After pushing further for more information David received an additional 8 page summary. Still unsatisfied, David talked with the law firm (Torkin Manes Cohen Arbus LLP) who kindly DONATED their services successfully obtaining not only his own files, but those of his brother as well. David notes that they also arranged and set him up with the law firm Jellinek Law Office and Ms Simona Jellinek kindly took on the case on a pro-bono basis. David sought accountability for the abuse he and his brother suffered while in foster care both through the HWCAS and through the Police without success. He initiated and is still involved in trying to obtain more information on himself and his life through Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act requests (FIPPA) and in 2008 joined the Board of Directors of the Foster Care Council of Canada. David specializes in FIPPA and MFIPPA request with the Council.
Richard Bertrand: Director
(Former Ward)
Richard Bertrand is a former Crown Ward who.. (Bio pending)
Alice Daniels: West Coast Director
(Non-Ward)
Alice Daniels has been doing poverty law advocacy for approximately 13 years. She is based in Revelstoke British Columbia, but has worked on cases in almost every province of Canada. Her specialties are child welfare-services and family law issues, although over the years she has been and continues to get involved in advocating for other issues as well. Alice works under a supervising lawyer and has done so for the past ten years.
She is the mother of 8 children, 5 of which experience a disability or disabilities ranging from minor learning disabilities to severe behavioural disorders. Alice has informed us that she is the first person in the province of British Columbia to ever get her children back from child-welfare after they have been permanent wards of the government.
Having never lived in foster care herself, Alice sits on the Board of Directors of the Foster Care Council of Canada as a non-ward representative. [ More ]
The Foster Care Counci
of Canada