| Author |
Message |
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, October 29, 2015 - 10:49 am 
I absolutely agree. The question is always about how to do that. I also don't think you can sacrifice one to protect the others... so "all" is correct.
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 5:55 am
The slippery slope of immorality started many years ago and the slope keeps getting steeper and steeper.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 6:31 am
I'm not sure about that. Something like that is hard to quantify. Having studied a considerable amount of history, I suspect that immorality right now is no worse than in the past and possibly less than in the past. However, awareness of immorality has increased. For example, years ago none of us would have even heard of Josh Duggar.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 7:45 am
Yup never had a kid in the system, Kar.
I don't think the field of social services always attracts the best and finest people. It's sad. We as society don't respect the profession as we should. When my son decided to get into education with his emphasis on special needs he got a bit of push back by friends sighting the salary in that field isn't great. Education and social services sometimes go hand in hand in regards that it doesn't pay well or very respected in career choices.
Personally I have more respect for teachers and social service people than I do for many of my clients that are part of the 1%. Of course you have bad people in all fields of the workplace.
I don't think masturbation, teens holding hands or making out, playing spin the bottle, playboy or even porn is immoral.
I think molesting your sisters is immoral and parents not getting the molester help right away is immoral.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 8:17 am
I don't think the field of social services always attracts the best and finest people. It's sad.
I think there are many fine people who work in social services though I think workers in that field are often disrespected (particularly in the U.S. as social services doesn't fit in with a culture where individual success is often seen as paramount). I think that the problem isn't so much that it doesn't attract the best and finest people but rather that inadequate funding, resources and disrespect leads to frustration and burn-out. Of course, that may be why there aren't more of the best and brightest people working there.
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 8:20 am
Lilfair, my daughter is planning on going into the same field. She is a high school senior who has dealt with being dyslexic and ADHD and has a special empathy for children who are not the definition of "normal." She currently goes to one of the elementary schools in her town three mornings a week (as part of a special program) and works in the behavioral unit. She absolutely loves those children and has never been happier. You are right - it takes a special person who has a calling to do that kind of work.
Gosh, if playing spin the bottle was immoral we would all be going to hell (those that believe in a hell of course). In my opinion there is a fine line between sexual exploration and normal healthy sexual behavior and molestation and people who cross that line should be addressed.
In my youth I enjoyed a good porn flick from time to time but there are people who go too far.
Ahhhh...sometimes I miss the misspent days of my youth...LOL!
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 8:57 am
Jimmer, exactly. Social service workers get burnt out and are paid poorly- the word is out. I know of several friends that point blank told their University bound children under no circumstances are they shelling out 10's of thousands of dollars a year for them/their kids to go into any sort of social services degrees. It's very sad.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 9:30 am
I don't think masturbation, teens holding hands or making out, playing spin the bottle, playboy or even porn is immoral.
YOU may not think it's immoral. But if one of your neighbors reports you, or a parent of your child's friend, social services may have a different opinion.
And that's my point. It's ambiguous, and how it is seen in any particular instance, and worse, how it is handled, is totally in control of your social services dept. It's out of YOUR hands.
Social service workers get burnt out and are paid poorly- the word is out.
And that is exactly why I can't fault any parent for not reporting. Horror stories are quite common, and those are just the well publicized ones.
It's a terrible conundrum for parents, who have kids that are in trouble.
For example, the woman who cleans my home went to social services to get help with her son, who had several behavioral issues. Instead of helping her, they took him away from her. Put him up for adoption.
But yet they left her daughter. If she was such a bad parent, wouldn't they take both her children? I had a friend look into her case, and she said there really was no justification for it. She just said that the social worker in charge took a disliking to her (tattoos and all) and assumed she was unfit. Never tried to get education, therapy, nothing for them to keep the family together. Just moved to have him permanently removed. And the judges are overloaded also. And also (in our conservative county) a bit biased.
And so she has not seen her son in 3 years. THREE years! Her own baby!
It really is a dangerous risk, in my opinion, to let them have at your children.
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Chieko
Member
11-20-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 10:21 am
And so she has not seen her son in 3 years. THREE years! Her own baby!
Why can't she see him? How can they adopt out a child without parental consent?
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 11:02 am
It happens all the time.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 11:15 am
If "Masturbation, teens holding hands or making out, playing spin the bottle, playboy or even porn is immoral." If these things are going to cause a social service person to make a big deal and cause problems then maybe we are getting really poopy people in social services positions.
Maybe there is such a shortage of good people going into that field that they'll take anyone on.
More and more people refuse to get into that livelihood. The degree should be more rigorous. From my experience with a few of my daughters friends that weren't great students and goofed around in their University years...social service was always the fallback degree because it's relatively easy to get.
Better people in the field and a more rigorous curriculum might help weed out really bad people.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 11:53 am
Chieko, as OG says, it does happen all the time. The social services worker deems the parent as unfit, the child is taken away, and their parental rights are terminated by the court. If you don't have a boatload of money to fight it, you're screwed.
And the system damns you. When they took her child away, after she sought help she desparately needed but couldn't afford, she got very upset. (Who wouldn't?) But they used that against her to deem her irrational and "explosive." Seriously? It was a railroad right from the start, and the more unfair they got, the more upset she got (who wouldn't?) and every time she got angry, it was more evidence that she was "unfit."
Honestly, it was one of the worst bureaucratic nightmares I have ever seen. She even (eventually) got a PHD psychologist from the local university to testify that in fact she was not irrate and irrational, even gave her the MMPI to prove it. But it was too late. She never had a chance.
If these things are going to cause a social service person to make a big deal and cause problems then maybe we are getting really poopy people in social services positions.
It is both the issue of a ridiculously low salary, and overload of cases. And it won't change until more public funds are available to fund these positions better. You're not going to get better people to take on 60 cases a week, for $24,000 a year. Never gonna happen, no matter how rigorous the curriculum is.
Please bear in mind, that I know many people who have degrees in Social Work who are excellent in their profession. They just don't stay working in the public sector for very long.
I would also add, that in my experience, it is often the case of the "unhealed healer" that gets into Social Work. And then they "act out" their own issues on their clients. That's why they can go overboard on some things, like removing a child from a home for an "explosive" parent, when the parent didn't get "explosive" until the child was removed. This worker saw her own abusive parents in her, and no amount of evidence was going to dissuade her.
And that's quite typical of the field. I have met more social workers with serious unhealed issues that distort their ability to be fair than I can count.
So, along with that more rigorous curriculum, they ought to be required to go through individual therapy to get that degree. Just like I was for my graduate degree.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 11:59 am
24K is poverty wages. No wonder they don't attract seeming incompetent people. From what you tell us there is nothing but a mess in that profession. It makes me sad. Everyone cries they are overworked. As an office manager of a small CPA firm (managing only 9 people) I hear that whine all day long.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 12:10 pm
To be honest, Lilfair, they are overworked. If you are supposed to contact everyone at least once a week and you have a caseload of 60 or more? That's just impossible!
And it certainly means that you can't spend the time necessary on any one case to do a thorough needs evaluation and put people in contact with the resources they need.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 12:44 pm
Yup, from everything you tell us Kar, the social services community is nothing but a gigantic failure. Maybe close the doors and out source it to private companies that can attract better people and manage the case load more effectively. And don't bother with cases involving masturbation, spin the bottle, playboy and concentrate on cases like Josh's....molesting his siblings. Yank him from that home before he was allowed to continue to molest his sisters. Address Michelle and Jim for not reporting this right away.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 1:11 pm
Private companies? Social services for profit? That's not remotely going to work.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 1:25 pm
Jimmer, LOL yeah- I know ;). It's infuriating at the horrendous way Kar talks about the institution. Just terrible. Sometimes if you threaten to take monies away people somehow seem to step up to the plate and do their jobs.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 1:34 pm
I have to agree with Jimmer. Private companies would have more incentive to be corrupt and offer poor services.
It needs to be a governmental organization, and it needs to be funded appropriately.
I find the language "yank from his home" to be offputting. He was still a kid. I guess Josh should have elected to play spin the bottle with his siblings instead? And then it would be okay?
Josh was a troubled kid. He needed help. Unfortunately, once you confess that to any licensed professional, you are at the mercy of the system. And as I've noted, and you now seem to realize, the idea that he would get help within that system is quite tenuous.
What he needed was a real evaluation by someone who could look at the entire family, help them set up systems that were protective, work with the younger kids if need be. All with the goal of making sure he could stay with his family. If he was taken out, it should be brief and very temporary.
Those are best practices in this field today. A view that looks at everyone and treats them with compassion, including the perceived "offender."
All the work in this field shows that a tremendous amount of damage is incurred when a family member is removed. Sometimes it is a necessary evil, but again, that's why it needs to be handled with care and compassion, and the family member should be returned as soon as possible (if possible). Certainly there are some cases when that person cannot be returned, but with good clinicians, they are rare.
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 1:47 pm
I think the poor people out in the field are drowning from the weight of bureaucracy. They are in a no-win situation. It must be extremely painful to have to leave a child in what you consider a horrible situation. My daughter is volunteering at a local children's shelter and what she sees hurts her deeply - and what is most painful to see is how much a child who has been sorely abused or neglected by his or her parents still loves his or her parents...they are ever hopeful that the situation will improve and would rather stay in a bad situation than not.
There is no easy remedy, is there?
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Friday, October 30, 2015 - 1:50 pm
Roxi said: ...and what is most painful to see is how much a child who has been sorely abused or neglected by his or her parents still loves his or her parents...they are ever hopeful that the situation will improve...
That is so very, very true.
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Happymom
Member
01-20-2003
| Saturday, October 31, 2015 - 8:20 pm
https://instagram.com/p/9g5qIQDfmm/?tagged=babyseewald
This is such a funny picture! From Jessa's instagram.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Saturday, October 31, 2015 - 8:47 pm
Great link, thanks Happymom.
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Sunday, November 01, 2015 - 6:25 am
That's a hoot!
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Sunday, November 01, 2015 - 8:24 am
That is funny!
Those magazines are disgraceful.
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Rehtse
Member
08-17-2005
| Sunday, November 01, 2015 - 1:22 pm
Jessa looks great.
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