Katharineseniorproject

 Of the fifty percent of  probationers I met with, six of them that have relapsed due to postpartum. Three of the babies were born of withdrawal.  This was hard for me to hear. I struggled to keep my emotions inside for most of these conversations. It is such a real problem that I have been aware of for a long time. I didn’t though, know about the extent of the mental toll it had on women. It broke my heart to hear about their journey to sobriety coming to an end due to postpartum depression. As well as to hear about the extent of their stories. I feel that I learned a lot from these women. 

     Tuesday: On Tuesday I debriefed on the work I have done. I didn’t do as much research as I would have liked. This is because I frankly needed a day to decompress from the mental toll a lot of these cases have been causing me. It has been difficult and daunting to deal with such hard subjects on a day to day basis especially because I am so young. I’m glad I was able to take this day to really reflect on the work I’ve done. I’m proud of what I have been able to accomplish. 

    Monday: One thing about most of the cases I worked with was that they involved kids. Often this is because the probation clients had kids that were at risk. I watched the Gabriel Fernandez trials on Netflix to help me do research on yet another case similar to the ones I had worked. Although the kid was dead it shed a lot of light on social workers neglecting their duties and in particular home visits. I joined in RED which was a group of social workers meeting to discuss the severity of certain cases (see previous RED blog). It is interesting to me because it was refreshing to see social workers being proactive unlike the Gabriel Fernedez case which could have been prevented if he had received the care he needed from them. 

     Friday: On my last Friday I visited the local food bank. I brought back food for clients to take with them home. It was interesting because it was very specific types of food. This was because many of the clients didn’t own utensils to use. The people helping us load the food into the cars we’re others on probation which tied it all together. It took over an hour to unload all the food. It was nice to see a community working together and I am grateful for the valuable experience.

     Thursday: I was given a tour of the juvenile assessment center. The center is on the first floor of the Remington building and is heavily secured. There’s a place for kids to take off their shoes to ensure they do not attempt to run away. They can only be there a maximum of four hours. They can go to rooms such as the sun and moon room that have beds in them to create a peaceful environment for the kids to unwind. All the social workers are professional and equipped to work with kids. From this assessment center they are placed into detention centers. 

 Katharine Alfond  On Thursday morning, I had the unique and rare opportunity to join the RED Team Meeting. Rapid Emergency Decisions, is essentially a thorough discussion & investigation with the Jefferson County division of Children, Youth & Families Child Protection Team. During these staffings, all concerning and high profile cases are staffed and assessed, for investigations of child abuse & neglect. Because these meetings are regarding minors, and CPS, I am not able to go into specific detail, due to legality and confidentiality purposes. However, this is an example of how a case would be covered.   Let's say MOC (Mother of Child) is intoxicated, possibly a Methamphetamine user, and has mental health issues, and FOC (Father of Child) calls into the PD. The PD then files a report to the Child Abuse Hotline. The case is then reported to a case worker to take over. These cases are assessed locally and investigated prior to RED meetings. At the meeting ...