Friday, April 16, 2010

Things I Learned at Court:

1. No one does their jobs very well. For whatever reason (under staffed, over worked, underpaid, under motivated. . .) children really are just shuffled through the system.
2. CPS caseworkers need more legal training and to be held to higher standards. (and yes, I believe they should be paid way more and have smaller caseloads. I get that.)
3. Information gets lost in the shuffle. We will make every effort to attend every hearing for every child in our care from here on out.
4. Don't just trust that things were done well even from well intended agencies. Our home study, that has now been submitted to the court, has mistakes. I didn't think to ask to read the final copy in the fall and had just trusted that the corrections that we had discussed with our agency had been made. No doubtunintentional, but there are still mistakes that I'm not comfortable with.
5. Bring something to read.

Blessed

I woke up feeling like Eric and I are walking in the land of the uncertain-- babies, jobs, grad school, houses. . . Then Brett Dennen reminded me that I'm blessed.