I’m a foster care social worker. What this means is that I work in conjuction with our state child protective agency in foster homes- as a support to the family and advocate/ therapist/ case manager for the children. Our homes are what are called “therapeutic foster homes” meaning that the children require a little more than the “average” foster child- i.e., their behaviors are worse.

It’s a hard job. It’s emotional- as hard as you try, it is very hard not to get attached to the little people you work with who have been through so much- hell and back. I was talking with a relative of my husband’s, and he said something along the line of, “Wow. So you’re responsible for these kids lives.” I reframed it for him- in some senses I am, and in others, well, not so much. But yeah, every day I carry around the lives of little people who have to trust the adults in their lives to keep them safe.

To say the kids I work with have been through hell and back is an understatement. I do therapy with some of my kids, and usually leave sad and angry. Sad for what they have been through, angry at what we put them through. Not only do they have “issues” of abuse and neglect, but foster care is not a pretty picture. These children move around far too often, and often for not very good reasons. The families we have are wonderful, and try their best, but after years of abuse and then transition, well, these little people can be hard to live with.

I have always been very good at keeping my job separate from my life. In the field I’m in, burnout is rampant and when you burn out you are no longer an effective worker. You lose your perspective and your energy, two things which are crucial to the job. Crucial to these children’s lives. One way to prevent burnout is to “leave work at work”. Usually I do ok with that, but sometimes… sometimes it’s harder.

The hardest time I have is when my children are disrupting from the homes that they are in. Homes that I have worked hard to help save, homes I have put time, effort and energy into to make sure they can stay. And it’s not about me- moving for these kids adds another notch on their belt of “I’m not worth it”, “It’s all my fault”, “No one loves me” and “No one really cares”. Our goal is to give children homes that can unteach all of those lessons.

From the thirteen year old boy who has moved four times in three years, and still has temper tantrums, to the seven year old who is being adopted, to the 10 year old who just went to an inpatient psychiatric unit, to the 21 month old who headbangs… I carry them with me. Their hurt sometimes becomes my heartache. Their pain invades my dreams. I worry about them and worry that they might be going through things I don’t know. Because they don’t trust the grown-ups in their lives, it can be difficult for them to trust us. Even though their lives depend on it.

When you see me, or when you are interacting with a social worker, know that they are carrying their children with them. For their own sake they are working hard to keep appropriate boundaries, take care of themselves, separate themselves from their clients, but know that somewhere in them at that moment lies the lives of children who are unable to care for themselves. Know that they worry about those children. Know that they celebrate the joys with those children. Know that they love them even though “clinically” they should be more separate. They love them in a way that is not the love of a parent or family member, but in a way that means they want the very best for children who have experienced the very worst.
Know that they care.