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!