‘Tis The Season…

…for kids to come into care, apparently.  My unit, which gets kids once they are removed from their parents and the courts are involved, has been flooded with cases transferring to us.  Last week, I got 4 new kids and I am a little overwhelmed with the new cases.  There is a lot to learn and get caught up on, all while trying to do everything else on my other cases.

The four kids are on two different cases – both cases came from Voluntary Services and the parents have substance abuse issues.  Cases essentially go to Voluntary Services when there are concerns about the family but there is a belief that it may be possible to avoid the court process.  Families work with Voluntary Services workers and address the concerns within a short amount of time.  If the parents are not able to make progress, then the court gets involved.  In both of my cases, the mothers agreed to engage in intensive substance abuse treatment.  And both failed to comply with the agreements they made and did not follow through with treatment.  Thus, the court was involved and they come to me.

I wonder why there has been such a spike in cases.  Is it because it is the holidays?  Is something up with the other units?  Another theory is that kids have been in school for awhile and schools start becoming concerned about kids after they have been there for awhile.  I wonder if there is data somewhere that shows when and if there are consistent trends.

Someone Stole My Chair!

Some thoughts:

1. Someone stole my chair over the weekend. On Monday morning, I sat down in my chair and it felt different. I looked down and indeed it was different. I could not believe it. Oh, and the thief(ves) also left a dolly in my cubicle. Strange.
2. Bad news. So I need to go to the state-wide training before I can officially have my own cases (and feel like a real social worker, instead of an intern). I thought that was what I was going to be doing on Day 1. Nope. So then I thought I was going to be doing it in the beginning of June. Well, nope. So I am signed up to start in July. That is so long away. I am glad that I have to do this training and I am glad it is mandatory, but I wish it was more accessible. At this point, I would like to do it as an Independent Study.
3. The drug and alcohol treatment facility for mothers that are pregnant or have small children that I supervise a visit at is very depressing. It looks like it is a petri dish of neglect. Very cute kids, but there are some very clueless (distracted/incompetent/overwhelmed/struggling) mothers there. I am curious what some of the numbers of how the program does are. But I do not like going there.

Finally, I went to a meeting today – a brown-bag open dialogue – between Dept. social workers and members of the judicial bench to foster communication. There is a new commissioner (same as a judge, but appointed instead of elected) and many social workers have had some issues with her. So they had this meeting and for the 1st 45 minutes they addressed written questions that they had received from the head of the region (which supposedly received them from office heads who gathered them from social workers). Anyway, at that point some social workers told them that they didn’t have issues with the procedures, but mostly had issues with the way they were being treated and the tone used by the new commissioner. Essentially, they felt degraded, disrespected, condescended to, and insulted in court. Not good.

So aside from all of the immediate and practical implications this has, I got to thinking about some of the larger systemic issues that might be at play here. One is the major hierarchy of power here. Judges rule. In the courtroom, they make the decisions and in a lot of ways, do what they want. Social workers are way down low on the totem pole in that setting (although do most of the work). In a sense the courtroom is a microcosim of society. Another is some of the miscommunication issues and where they stemmed from. Who and where were social workers’ issues filtered from the court? Interesting.

But the big thing that I have been thinking about is sexism. Now I don’t want to let this new commissioner off the hook here – she should be treating everyone with respect. But does the fact that she is a woman play into this at all? She is the only female that I have seen on the bench (granted I have seen only a handful). But perhaps she is feeling the need to establish her authority early and is fearful of not being taken seriously (or as seriously) because she is a woman. Perhaps people are viewing her comments as harsher than they would from a man because she breaking the expectation that women are nurturing. I don’t know if these play into it at all, but I do think they probably are at least a little bit and have the potential of being huge factors. That being said, treat people with respect, and don’t steal their chairs!