Easy Friday, I think...

Well so far, so good! I figure since I'm going to have a little time today, I'd start a new project, bringing my number of projects to be worked on in 2010 to 28.  If I get half of them done, I'll be a really happy camper:)!

A while back, when Large Marge's Yarn Shop was open in Ellicott City, I would stop in there from time to time, usually on a Friday - a payday Friday - when I might  have an extra sawbuck burning a hole in my pocket.  Usually on days like that, I will look at the lace yarn.  Knitters know why.  Laceyarn contains a LOT of yardage in one skein.  It takes so few of those beautiful skeins to make one lovely scarf and you get to make something lovely with a relatively small investment.  It was on just such a Friday that I bought this little bit of loveliness, took it home and wound it into a ball.  Now I am hoping I have found the right venue for it.  I will see. If not, I'm not afraid of frogging and trying again!

Today is a relatively quiet day - I've been doing most of my work via e-mail, hoping to avert any bad situations.  A colleague very kindly covered the one hearing I had this morning likely to be continued to another date for various reasons I cannot post here.

Unrelated to my hearing referenced above,  can I vent just a little here?  Why is it that when the State, i.e. the local department of social services, or DCS or  DFS or whatever they call it in your neck of the woods, has custody of a child, the standard of care seems to be less than what is required of the parents? If a parent doesn't send a child to school here in beautiful Merlin, they can be arrested.  If a child reports that a parent has abused them, the mantra is "believe the child," but when a child reports abuse or neglect at the hands of a foster parent, the mantra appears to be "the child is a liar?" I am sick to death of that nonsense!  I get that older kids who don't like their placements will sometimes stretch the truth to get another one - or think that if they do, they will go home.  But more frequently, if anything, kids will recant their allegations of abuse when they are taken out of the home because they want to take back the upheaval that has occurred.  That doesn't mean the abuse didn't happen. Most kids are afraid to tell you when they've been abused in a foster home.  They've already experienced what happens when they tell and they have decided never to tell again, poor darlings.  Plus, they are afraid of what the foster parent will do if no one believes them.

The law basically says that foster care should never be worse than what a child has at home - otherwise, what's the point?  It's about the best interests of the CHILD, not the best interests of their social worker, the system, the attorneys, the foster parents, etc.!

The really strange thing is, I get this reaction from some of the better social workers in our local department.  I get that they have seen a lot of stuff.  Hell, so have I.  I get that this means more work for them -work for which they are overworked and underpaid to do.  They definitely have a fan in me. Truly, they do. I see what the courts do to them.  A social worker can spend months working day and night on a case, not only making sure my clients receive the services to meet their needs, but they also have to work with the parents, braving bad neighborhoods and hostility to effect change.  They have to make "reasonable efforts" to assure reunification.  Theirs is often a thankless task.  Let them make one mistake and these professionals are often blasted and treated like dirt in the courtroom.  And that is wrong.

On the other hand, it is so frustrating when you are dealing with kids whose needs are very real and the "system" has no common sense in dealing with them.

Just saying. 

Well with any luck, I'll be on the road tomorrow visiting clients and getting more earfuls:)

God be with you 'til we meet again!

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