Segment Four: Emotional Toll

Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. You have to be able to relate to any child. Then you also need to be able to know your limitations and sometimes you can go to a peer if you're not as good with kids because it's so different to talk to a four year old and then a fourteen year old.

Dalene: I've been actually in the system for almost eleven and a half years. I was taken away from my mom whenever I was four and in a foster home and until I was twelve. I was in about fifteen, twenty different foster homes and I grew up by myself. I had to.

Speaker 3: I just didn't want to follow the rules. I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. When I was on the run, I didn't really do nothing. I didn't go to school, I didn't work, I lived with my mom and my mom, she had a house. She be running in and out, I be running in and out. 

Anything and everything I wanted to do, I was fine. For awhile my dad was out of jail but went back to prison. They were both on drugs, didn't care what I did. I was pregnant. I didn't find out I was pregnant until I was four months, but when I did find out I was pregnant I hid it. 

We didn't even have the type of relationship where they even knew that I was pregnant. I hid it from them until I was seven months pregnant. My dad went to jail, but my mom, she wasn't even around me enough to know that I was pregnant.

Speaker 4: I think working with the younger children you have to be more observant in going into the home because a lot of times they're not able to tell you what's going on. Whereas working with the older children, especially teenagers, they can be very challenging but at the same time it can be rewarding. They want to be heard. They want you to hear them, so I think with them you have to have a good listening ear.

Speaker 1: A lot of times at two, three, four, even on up, I mean, we have to make decisions for them. Whereas when you're looking at a teenager, there's so much they have to be able to decide because if not, it's not going to work. It's very tough.

Speaker 5: It's exhausting and I don't know that you can prepare yourself so much as know that you're going to need to utilize your supports. Whether that's your coworkers, your supervisor, your friends, your family. It is. It's a big job and you will definitely get yelled at. 

Honestly, again, if you have that rapport with your families, typically parents will cool off like any individual would and come back around and say, "I'm really sorry." You understand the emotional nature. I'd rather have a parent yell and scream at me because they're upset about what's going on with their family then be indifferent about what we're trying to do. Sometimes you need to welcome that emotion even when it's negative.

Speaker 6: It is emotionally overwhelming. One of the reasons that we decided to do this realistic job preview is that we wanted to get people who were contemplating going into this line of work to really have a candid view of what the job actually entails. It's not for everybody.

There are going to be emotionally charged, angry people that you deal with, very sad situations of abuse and neglect that occur in children and sometimes it's too much for some people. Being able to leave work at work and go home and resume your personal life, it becomes difficult to balance the two. That emotional aspect and the emotional toll that the job takes is just for some people too much for them to bear.

[No Audio: Former foster child DeLena reflects about her 14 years in the system]

Dalene: I think sometimes there's only so much that social workers can do, such as Vicky St. Meyers who was my case worker, she had to place me back with my mom. Whenever she found out that I was taken away from her again, I saw her several years later and she said, "Dalene, I'm so sorry. That's what I had to do. That's what was ordered."

I want to be a good person and I want to do good things and I want to succeed. I don't want to go through the court system like this. I hate it. 
	
I wonder sometimes, why did I get bounced around so much? I know a lot of foster homes were temporary and things like that, but I think that once I started really having a voice and being old enough to voice my opinion, Judge Tolpher really listened to me.

Speaker 7: I want to go live with my dad because it'll be better for me and my mom and my sister. I don't even know where I'm going or anything. They just pull me like I'm a dog on a leash. 

Speaker 8: Why is it you don't want to go back home?

Speaker 7: Because if it happened twice, nobody can really say it is never going to happen again. I'd rather not take that chance.

Speaker 9: At the age of three my dad tried to kill me, so yeah. I was taken with my dad and I was put in my mom because my dad went to prison for ten years for child abuse and attempted murder. My mom went to jail for stabbing her husband after my dad, 47 times in the back so I was put in a place called Meadows and I was there for nine years. 

Speaker 10:	You can do everything that you have been told is right by everybody else, but somebody else is going to change their mind and change the rules. You do what you feel is the best for your kids, but if the state doesn't feel it's right for your kids or anybody else's kids than they have the right to come in and make a disaster of your life for awhile. It's exactly what they did here.

Speaker 11:	Well, when we got out of the court room he said, "Well how does three days a week sound?" I said, "huh?" He says, "Yeah, that's about normal." I said, "I thought we're getting him back period and you guys come in and check whenever you want." The home base counselor stepped up and said, "Yeah, that's the way it should be. These people need to give back ..." He's like, "Well we can do that then."

Speaker 12:	Yeah. Especially with her. About myself I feel a lot better, but I still feel bad sometimes because I don't have her, but I feel like it's all my fault. I've been doing good.

Dalene: one of the last things my biological mother said to me just about three years ago was, "Dalene, everything that's happened in your life is your fault." It's not. It's not my fault. Now, whenever I was old enough to make my decisions, that's when it was my fault, if I made the bad decision. Like I said, everyday is a learning experience and you can not beat yourself up over stuff or you won't get to the next day. That's just how it happens. You have to continue on and if you don't love yourself then you can't love anybody else.

[No Audio: Not Just a Choice: Making the Commitment to Child Welfare]