Let me start by saying that in my professional and personal life I've known lots of social workers and some of them are the smartest, wisest, most insightful people I've ever met. Several are the kind of person I hope I grow up to be someday. A good friend of mine, who is a social worker, got a full ride to college and probably could've gone into any degree area she wanted to pursue.
So, lots of smart social workers out there...just not the ones we have.
Our adoption social worker called yesterday for this purpose:
SW: what's your monthly income
me: didn't we put our yearly income on X form (I can picture it in my head)
SW: yes, but I need the monthly income
pause
me wondering, will she figure this out?
nope.
me: couldn't you just divide the yearly income by twelve to get a monthly income?
lengthy pause
SW: (still thinking hard, trying to puzzle her way through this complex math problem) yeah...I guess...I think that would work...okay! It worked!
And here's why this bothers me. I have put the fate of our family, the fate of two fragile little girls just starting to experience stability, into the hands of a woman with the brain power of a gnat.
I feel deeply, deeply worried every time she is here that she's going to see or hear something she doesn't understand and then escalate this to a CPS report and then--poof--the girls are gone. And even when the charges were found to be baseless and the girls were returned, the damage that this would've done to them would take months and months to repair.
I know this is an irrational fear. Everything is fine (no flags during any inspection done by any of the many people who've walked through our house a bazillion times, we're under the care of a therapist who could testify to the girls' mental health, etc.), and she's just here to muddle through her paperwork, and I've made such a stink with her supervisor that I think there'd be some oversight so she couldn't make a stupid complaint at this point. But still.
Our lives are in the hands of an inexperienced, incompetent, not-very-bright, 22 yr old in her first adult job.
And this keeps me up at night.
So, lots of smart social workers out there...just not the ones we have.
Our adoption social worker called yesterday for this purpose:
SW: what's your monthly income
me: didn't we put our yearly income on X form (I can picture it in my head)
SW: yes, but I need the monthly income
pause
me wondering, will she figure this out?
nope.
me: couldn't you just divide the yearly income by twelve to get a monthly income?
lengthy pause
SW: (still thinking hard, trying to puzzle her way through this complex math problem) yeah...I guess...I think that would work...okay! It worked!
And here's why this bothers me. I have put the fate of our family, the fate of two fragile little girls just starting to experience stability, into the hands of a woman with the brain power of a gnat.
I feel deeply, deeply worried every time she is here that she's going to see or hear something she doesn't understand and then escalate this to a CPS report and then--poof--the girls are gone. And even when the charges were found to be baseless and the girls were returned, the damage that this would've done to them would take months and months to repair.
I know this is an irrational fear. Everything is fine (no flags during any inspection done by any of the many people who've walked through our house a bazillion times, we're under the care of a therapist who could testify to the girls' mental health, etc.), and she's just here to muddle through her paperwork, and I've made such a stink with her supervisor that I think there'd be some oversight so she couldn't make a stupid complaint at this point. But still.
Our lives are in the hands of an inexperienced, incompetent, not-very-bright, 22 yr old in her first adult job.
And this keeps me up at night.
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