Here we go again. The ups and downs of foster care are getting to me today. I feel like I have been on the phone all day, which is hard to believe because I was also at work for about 10 hours today. W's mom is going to give me a stroke from all this. She has been doing really well lately. I talked with the caseworker on Tuesday and we both agreed that things were leaning more toward W going home. All the drug screens have been clean for almost 3 months now. The mom has been talkative and happy when I see her. I have been thinking she might be taking steps in the right direction. The next step is unsupervised visits. Then, today happens.
When I got to the mom's house to drop W off for his visit on Monday, the mom was standing at the visit supervisor's car talking. I got him out of the car and walked up. The mom told me that she had found her pilot light off on her stove and so she didn't want to be in the house for a while. The visit supervisor suggested they go to the library for a while. I handed W over and they all loaded into the car and left. It was no big deal, they go to the library sometimes during visits so I didn't think a thing about it.
Then, when I got there for Wednesday's visit, it was a similar scene. The mom was outside. This time, she needed the visit supervisor to do the visit someplace else because her furnace was being worked on. This time I was suspicious. She was obviously keeping us out, I just didn't know why.
I called the visit supervisor today because we needed to talk about this. She told me she had some concerns too and was glad I called. Of course she was thinking the same thing I was, what or who was she keeping us from seeing? She was going to do some investigating and get back to me. I called the caseworker to let her know about these concerns too. I got her voice mail so I called the CASA next.
Again--I'm so thankful for CASAs! She was driving near the mom's apartment anyway, so she drove past. She saw a man who she initially thought was W's dad, but turns out it wasn't. She went up to the door and the man answered. He wouldn't tell her his name, but he did say he was living there. This was the reason the mom was keeping us out of the apartment.
I was shocked. I shouldn't have been, but I was-- and still am. This is a game changer, I think. How could this mom have a man living in her apartment and not let anyone know? My guess is he has a criminal record, so she wanted to keep everyone from knowing about him. There is no problem with her having a boyfriend, but she can't have someone around W without being able to show it is a safe situation. The only explanation for her keeping this guy a secret is that she knows he is bad news. So, she knows this, and she knows that she can't keep this guy a secret for long. And, she knows that her actions are going to end up keeping her from getting W home. That's where the shock comes in. How can she afford to do something so detrimental to this case at this point? She knows that she is so close to loosing W for good and any mistake at this point is going to be huge. But she also knows that her screens have been clean for 3 months, and that is huge.
The visit supervisor (who is also a counselor of some sort) feels the mom is self sabotaging. She is going to talk point blank with the mom about this. She is going to tell her she knows about this new guy and the mom has to tell him to leave for visits because these are her visits and she should not be leaving her own house like this. That won't work because this mom can't demand anything from anyone. She can't give an answer when she is asked a question. Her response is always "whatever you think". She thinks the mom knows W is safe with us and feels relieved and satisfied with that. She wants to talk to the mom about this and try to get an honest answer from her. Again, she won't get an honest answer, because the mom can't stand up for herself.
I hope the caseworker takes this all seriously. I hope she puts some consequences in place because of this. That has been some of the problem. The mom gets 3 visits a week for 3 hours each, that is a lot of visits. Even after several bad drug screens, her visits haven't changed. I feel like the visits should be reduced and moved to the office, not in the home. She has shown that she can't maintain a safe home--again, so how can the visits continue in the home.
I don't know, I'm frustrated I guess.
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