this crazy life

Job search time? Duh, I'm going home. I'm going and never leaving again.  I'm working with kids!  Hmmm, right.  Can I tell you, I got a job alright.  It's where I am now and it's totally in BFE. The shocker...it's in a HOSPICE!  People dying all over the place.  People crying all day. Mad and demented old people.  Yeah...never would have chosen to work here and it NEVER crossed my mind. The job was sent out on our listserv and I read it and really...I swear God spoke to me.  I felt like I was supposed to apply.

I applied. I didn't think anything would come of it. I emailed them my information TUesday. The email didn't say how to contact them, so I just emailed the info email on the site and asked that it be forwarded to the right department. Shot in the wind. Thursday, I got a call for an interview.  I'm thinking in the next week and she asks me to come the next morning.  I told my roomie she should apply...and she pointed out the part that said they needed an LCSW.  Definitely didn't see that when I applied. I'm nowhere close to an LCSW.  But they did call.  Go to the interview and just clicked with the social workers. They asked me to come meet their director and introduced me to the staff. In addition to a few other things, I spent all weekend analyzing everything that happened.  God actually gave me real peace and confidence that this was it.

Monday I'm babysitting for one of those awesome social workers I worked for. I rented our complex theatre and we watched movies. For some reason I felt like I should pay attention to my phone (it was silent)  Around 1130 it rang...a strange number.  The director calling to offer me the job!  

If you read all that, do you understand how crazy that is!?  Application to offer in less than a week! Graduation, the week before.

this is a crazy life we all live.

It's been a while!

I see last time I posted I said I was going to be at a hospital.  Well, I went to that interview and they hated me! (ok, maybe that's a strong word)  But they did say they didn't think I was going to be a good fit. Our field supervisor did something in a timely manner for once and got me an interview with a school system.  The interview was a breeze, they didn't expect me to know things about being a school social worker and the interview was mainly a "here's what you'll be doing"

I absolutely LOVE my placement this year.  School social work is a little bit of everything and I get a lot of freedom, but enough supervision to feel like I know what I'm doing.

Concentration Placement

We received our placements for next year.  Our concentration year has us at our agencies 3 days a week and during the fall and spring semesters. Pretty intense.

Next year I'll be working at a local hospital! 

I'm very excited!  I have to set up my initial interview and then I'll know more.

On-call

I have 40 hours to make-up this semester(due to the furloughs) so this weekend I told the on-call workers to call me when they were going out.

Sunday night rolled around and I thought I was safe.  Of course, they would get a call Sunday night...of course!  I get the call around 8:45, saying they need directions to my house and we're going about an hour away.  Guess who we're picking up...the 14 year old from the FtM Friday. Her placement was disrupted :(  The cops had been called out to the home, because her adoptive mother feared for her safety. The group included: me, the case manager, and the on-call worker.

When we got to the house Mysti  had been crying and the mom had a friend over and seemed pretty calm by then.  Mysti asked her mom if she would be able to come back and mom said she didn't know. When Mysti was out of the room, it seemed mom was ready for the placement to end. 

We packed up her things and Mysti went and hugged her mom.  It was a bittersweet moment. Mysti has always had this woman "Ms X" but last night she switched between mom and Ms X. We had about a 45 minute drive to the shelter and Mysti was very engaging.  She turned on her sweetness factor and I absolutely enjoyed our time.

I saw a group home for the first time and it was a lot cozier than I thought, but still a sad place.  One of Mysti's complaints about her placement was the amount of rules. I read over the rules of the shelter and all I can say is I'm sure Mysti feels a bit differently about that now. By this time it's about 12AM and Mysti is falling asleep and her CM is feeling out a 1000 page intake packet!  Those things are crazy.

When we left, I asked Mysti if I could have a hug and she said ok.  It was hard to leave her there.

In the car, her CM said I was falling for an act.  She is more than a bit fed up with Mysti's behavior.  Thinking back, it is obvious that she was acting very different than she did on Friday. She was using a kind of baby voice and fishing for affirmations all night. But I realize it's part of her coping mechanisms.

I hope when I get back to the office this week Ms X and Mysti have some sort of plan for reunification. The oncall worker commented that Mysti was just testing Ms X and Ms X failed. I hope that is not the case. It was so obvious that they both have so much love for each other. I hope it all works out...

Oh yeah...I got my official state email last week!  I sent out all kinds of random emails with my account. I feel so official :)

Busy bees

A few weeks ago Scarlet and I went out to meet a woman living in a treatment facility with her two young children. The lady was very sweet, the kids seemed happy, and all seemed well. Thursday her CM told us that this woman had been caught not only doing drugs in the facility, but distributing them as well. Talk about surprised. I need to work on taking things at face value.

The CM was hoping the mother could move into another facility and take the kids with her. If it couldn't be arranged the kids would have been safety resourced. Fast forward to yesterday morning; as soon as we get in the office the on call foster care worker is upset. The guardian ad litem petitioned the judge to have the kids removed from the mother.  So, of course it looks like DFCS lied and screwed up the case. I'm seeing how DFCS catching the flack for things that the office really has no control over. The GAL in our county often disagrees with the DFCS office, but of course it DFCS who must carry out the orders of the court.

The on-call worker felt bad about it and we had a visit at the office yesterday for the mom and her two boys. They are such a sweet little family. The mom actually went to school with the foster mother and got some comfort out of that.

Scarlet and I also go to sit in on a family team meeting. It was very different than any others I've seen. The meeting involved a 14 year old, placed in the adoptive home of a single woman. The meeting was for the young girl who had started acting out in the past few months and saying she did not want to be adopted.

The girl voiced concerns about betraying her family, not wanting to change her name,  and not wanting something she felt was a permanent and legal break with her birth family - all very valid I think. The meeting lasted about 3 hours and could have gone much longer. The girl left the room a few times and shut down completely a few times when she felt like no one was listening to her. She said she just wanted to be in foster care until she was 18.  By the end of the meeting; the hope was for the girl to go into respite for a while, to have a break. She seemed very excited about the idea. After the meeting we had lunch with the girl, her prospective adoptive mother, and her therapist. It was fun! 

And I can't leave out the home visit I went on Thurday, where I'm sure roaches were crawling over me and there were a million dogs and cats all over the place. Delightful!

Also, made my first visit the jail.  I realized I had never even been inside a jail before.  It looks a lot like it does in movies. 

Monday we should find out our placements for next year!

Question

What is the purpose of terminating a parent's rights? 

Can the same outcomes not be accomplished without legally wiping away a child's birth family?

Biting my tongue

Fridays are always pretty slow in the office. Seems like a lot of people come in late or do all their traveling on Fridays.  That leaves Scarlet and I begging people for jobs usually.

This morning I was able to go out with Clay.  Clay is actually in our MSW program, but somehow got hired already at Sleepy County DFCS.  I bow down to him for attending school full-time and working full-time...don't know how he does it! 

We went out on an immediate (I'm finally learning the lingo!) Father had been arrested the might before for drug possession and someone had reported neglect of 6 month old. We initially thought no one was home, but I saw the blinds move as we were leaving (what am I becoming, lol?) This family had another precious baby...you know I had to pick him up.  Home was a bit of a mess, but there was nothing horrible.  Now for biting my tongue...evidently DFCS is against co-sleeping.  This mom co-slept with her baby and Clay told her she would need to have a crib by his next visit.

After thinking it over, I can see DFCS requesting that a family gets a crib for naps during the day and stuff like that, but I can not ever see myself advising parents that co-sleeping in inherently dangerous and not to be done at all!  I told Clay in the car that I knew families who co-slept and he looked at me like I had two heads and said "They don't know how dangerous that is?" Ugh!  I looked in my manual to see if there was an official statement about co-sleeping, but could find none. I plan on asking a supervisor next week.

Today was also our field supervisor's last day, so a bunch of people from the office went out to eat.  It was fun to sit and chat with everyone and get to know a few of the people I have never really worked with. I'll miss Leigh, but I know she'll be happy at her new job. Our new supervisor has not introduced herself to us or anything, but it's ok because Scarlet and I picked our own supervisor in the office!

The afternoon went by very slooowy. Scarlet admitted to me that she is thinking of getting out of her title program. A lot of my co-horts are having the government pay for school and getting a stipend and will pay it back by working at DFCS for at least 2 years. (awesome opportunity!) She feels as if DFCS takes away a lot of rights/dignity from their clients. She feels very, very uncomfortable with things like unannounced home visits (which I guess is a necessary evil) If I did work for DFCS I would definitely want to work in adoptions or family preservation. I can not see myself doing investigations at all!