My Journey Through the Foster System: From Group Home to Case Management

Hi Friends!!

I know it’s been a while since I discussed my experience working in the foster system, so I want to go back to that!

When I started sharing this journey, my hope was to take you along with me through what I experienced so you could better understand the system.

I have been blogging about current events to keep you up to date, so that has taken some of my attention away from sharing my personal journey.

I left off with my experience working in a group home for girls while attending the University of Georgia School of Social Work.

So, let’s go back to group home life!

Group home life was chaotic. I would not want any child to grow up in this environment.

While there was structure, I did not see the nurture and love that I believe children need. I did not observe a setting that allowed a child to simply be a child.

There was no walking into the kitchen and taking whatever you wanted from the refrigerator or pantry. The pantries were locked.

There was no walking into the living room and turning on the television to watch a show. TV time was scheduled.

There were no playdates with friends or hanging out at a friend's house.

These were the small things I noticed while working in a group home.

The life-changing things were runaways, self-harm, suicide attempts, and fights.

Those were the hard days—and those days seemed to happen more and more.

The more children who came through the door, the more behaviors and medications we saw.

The tougher the shifts became.

Processing a shift was mentally exhausting.

Secondary trauma is real.

I think there should be a therapist specifically for staff to help them deal with the trauma of having to talk a child down from self-harm, deal with a runaway, or respond to a serious fight.

I felt the system did not have enough safety measures in place for the children.

As a staff member, I was told that if I “physically stopped a child from leaving, I would be arrested.”

The facility where I worked was not a locked facility, so we were told that we had to let the child walk out the door and then call the police.

I noticed that if the police did not catch the child within about a two-mile radius, the child was gone.

Sometimes the child would return because of bad weather conditions—cold, rain, or darkness.

And sometimes, we never saw them again.

That bothered me.

I still wonder what happened to some of those girls.

Where are they now?

Now imagine if I am an adult and I am experiencing all of these emotions from the trauma of the day.

What does the child feel?

After two years, I moved over to case management.

My title was Family Consultant.

My initial thought was, This is going to be easier.

Group home life had trained me for case management, right?

I would be working from home and in the office. I wouldn’t have to deal with all the fights, runaways, and self-harm.

I was completely wrong.

As a case manager, I was required to have my phone on 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday.

There was no real off time.

I do want to stop here and make an important point about how the foster care system works.

The foster care system is set up through contracts. You have the government, the Division of Family and Children Services, and then the service providers.

I was a case manager for a placement agency. The placement agency had a group home on one side and another section that handled foster home placements.

I worked on case plans alongside case managers from the Division of Family and Children Services.

I worked well with the DFCS case managers, and we worked the case plans together.

We reunited children with their families, and we did it outside of the courtroom.

We would go through the case plan together and list the items that needed to be completed. We held team meetings and determined what the family needed assistance with.

We didn’t hinder families from completing their plans.

We helped them complete the plan.

I want everyone to understand how the system works because this part can be very confusing.

The majority of services are provided through outside providers rather than directly through child welfare or the Division of Family and Children Services.

This is also why I believe so many people end up pointing fingers at one another instead of focusing on the larger Georgia child welfare system.

As a case manager, I now had children all over Georgia, and the homes were not close together.

Now I had crises occurring in three different locations at the same time.

A crisis could consist of a child being removed from school because of aggressive behavior and the school needing a parent or worker to pick the child up.

It could be a runaway.

It could be fights within a foster home.

I had to be strategic about where I needed to be.

I always had a child riding around with me because of school disruptions and foster parents working.

This was another thing I didn’t understand.

How can a family say they can foster a child but not have anyone available to stay with that child if there is a disruption?

What happens when a biological family has these same issues?

I also observed foster children with behavioral issues being prescribed multiple psychotropic medications. I became concerned about the effects these medications could have on children, including behaviors that I observed such as aggression and suicidal ideation.

The paperwork that had to be completed on a child was insane.

I also noticed that the paperwork sometimes appeared to become more important than the child’s best interest.

And that concerned me.

I worked for a placement agency, so I had a cap on the number of children on my caseload.

However, the DFCS case managers I worked with did not have the same type of cap, so they could have significantly more children on their caseloads.

We all noticed the challenges of keeping children safe.

And the supervisors and directors did not make the environment easier for workers.

The work environment was the worst I had ever experienced in my adult career.

Other case workers I know have referred to the environment as “the bully system.”

Instead of empowerment, I experienced oppression.

Instead of help, I experienced ridicule.

The environment was confusing to me because I thought the people who worked in the system wanted to help others.

But some of the supervisors and directors I encountered did not treat workers with respect.

I also noticed that many people working in the welfare system did not have social work degrees. Some had degrees in criminal justice or psychology.

I was also pressured to maintain children in care.

This was a huge pressure that was pushed on us during our daily, weekly, and monthly meetings.

We were told we would lose our jobs if we didn’t maintain children in care.

We were encouraged to use every possible resource to make sure a child did not disrupt a placement.

Those services included behavior aides, therapists, psychiatrists, and psychotropic medications.

But no matter how many services we had in place, children still moved from home to home.

It was not a stable environment for children to grow.

I will talk more about specific cases at a later time.

Right now, I really want you to understand how unstable the system can be.

So, do case workers really care about the children and families they serve?

I think most case workers enter the foster system because they genuinely want to help.

However, I also think they are trained not to show emotion.

I remember my training beginning during my internship. I was constantly reminded not to show facial expressions while speaking with a client.

I struggled with this because my facial expressions show everything I am feeling!

I had to really work at controlling my facial expressions, and I called it my “therapeutic face.”

So, I’m going to leave you with one final question—and this one is for the case workers:

Why did you become a case worker?

God Bless!

Until next time ❤️