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Was It Illegal For My High School Chaplain To Take Me To Therapy Without Telling My Parents?

This question touches on a lot of the rights of adolescents under Ontario’s Health and Education Laws. It might also seem to be related to Family Law. Mostly, it is a question of children’s rights. 

Health Care and Consent Laws

To start, in almost every situation, teenagers have the right to go to therapy without parental consent. The work of both psychologists and psychotherapists is covered by Ontario’s Health Care Consent Act, 1996 (because those are both self-governing health professions).

Under section 4 of the Health Care Consent Act, every person is presumed to be able to understand the information relevant to treatment and the consequences of making a treatment decision. There are no age limits on what “person” means, so everyone is entitled to make their own healthcare decisions (including therapy decisions.) The only exception to this is where the health care professional has reasonable grounds to believe that the person does not have that understanding. A young child or a person with a serious mental illness or a developmental delay may not be able to have that understanding. But, unless the health care professional believes there is a problem, any person, including a child, can consent to treatment, including psychotherapy. Most teenagers can have the necessary understanding of what therapy involves, and what any risks of therapy might be, to be able to consent to it on their own.

It is also important to note that section 15 of the Health Care Consent Act, 1996 recognizes that a person (including a child) can have the required understanding to consent to one type of treatment even if he or she cannot understand others.

The impact of the Act is that a child can direct the treatment he or she understands, even when there are treatments the child does not understand. Check out this page for more about children directing their own health care.

Note that leading institutions, such as the Hospital for Sick Children (“SickKids”) are very careful to respect the rights of children to direct, or participate in directing their treatment. Additionally, some practice areas, such as Adolescent Medicine Specialists, usually assist older children without the involvement of their parents. So, a child getting therapy without a parent’s permission is not “against the law.”

The Code of Ethics for Canadian Psychologists is consistent with Ontario Law. It does caution psychologists to be careful around vulnerable groups and people who may not have the capacity (such as children), especially when there are multiple people involved in the therapy or aspects of it. But, that is not the case here.

The Professional Standards of Practice for Registered Psychotherapists in Ontario specifically reference the Health Care Consent Act, 1996 and adopt its principles. So, the therapist did not do anything wrong either.

Family Law does not apply to the school chaplain because he or she is not acting as a parent, at least not on a continuous basis. Family Law does not give parents the right to interfere with their children’s therapy either. Ontario’s Children’s Law Reform Act addresses custody rights when parents are separated. Section 18(2) of that law says the custody provisions apply to children up to the age of 18. The term custody, which will soon no longer exist under Canadian Law, includes the right to make medical decisions. However, that law does not supersede the rights of the child under the Health Care Consent Act, 1996. Family Law applicable to separated parents has no applications when parents are not separated.

Children’s Aid Societies sometimes get involved if a child is not getting necessary treatment, but rarely start intervention in a family over what therapy a child should be receiving. Section 74(2) of the Child Youth and Family Services Act allows Children’s Aid Societies to intervene when a child is not receiving treatment to prevent the child from suffering harm. That section explicitly states that the Society is not able to intervene when a child has the capacity to make treatment decisions under the Health Care Consent Act. However, there have been court cases where the Children’s Aid Society has challenged whether the child has capacity.

John Schuman Guide to the Basics of Ontario Family Law book cover

You can get a lot more information about Ontario Family Law issues, including a comprehensive explanation of parenting cases (parenting time and decision making), child support, spousal support, property division, and most other common family law issues by downloading this $9.99 Kindle eBook, Kobo eBook, or iBook for your iPad or iPhone or ordering it from Amazon as a paperback. But to understand how the law works precisely in your situation, it is always best to speak to a good Family Law Lawyer.

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