Case Planner #3

The next day on my lunch break, I called The Agency to try to get some information about Joshua.  I was transferred a few times and then was given the number to his case planner.  Her boss told me she was "very new," in fact, Joshua was her first intake client (all her others were already foster children at The Agency when she started working there).

I called and miraculously, she answered.  She sounded very young, and from her last name, I knew she was Italian (bonus). When I told her my name, she asked if I was a teacher at Proctor.  I told her I was, and she said she didn't have me (I knew that) but that she remembered me (most people do) and that she had friends who were in my class (small town, one high school, even though it is large).  She graduated just two years before Tiernen.  Crazy.

We talked for the entirety of my lunch break and she told me that she didn't have much information about Joshua, only that he was taken into care on Friday and that on Monday he needed a new placement.  She said she was free that afternoon and asked if she could stop by.  I said she could. 

I asked about the voucher so I could get him clothes and supplies.  She told me that they must still be with the former placement and that she would contact them and would get back to me.  If possible, she said, she would bring them when she came to visit us that afternoon.

She came to our home after school with a Walmart bag and a case of Walmart diapers.  This, I guessed, was the haul from the former foster parent purchased with The Agency voucher.  Inside were onesies and several outfits for Joshua, all labeled with his initials on the inside tag.  That would make it much easier to differentiate.  They weren't exactly clothes I would pick out, but then again... not my baby...  

She told me she had very little information:  Joshua had been taken into care on Friday and place with a family friend.  Because it was the weekend, The Agency hadn't inspected the home.  When they did on Monday, they decided, for whatever reason, that the home wasn't up to standard.  (I remembered the weeks we had spent getting our own house "foster ready."  It was a big process.  I didn't blame the family friend for not having everything that s/he needed.  But apparently, it wasn't something that could be easily remedied, like installing smoke detectors in the bedrooms.)

While the case planner was there, her phone rang.  It was, I surmised, the family friend.

"No, I'm sorry, that decision wasn't made by me... no, there's nothing that can be done... the house was deemed inappropriate... let me call you back because I'm at a placement right now."

Before our half-hour visit was over, she (I found out it was a she) would call another ten times.  The case planner let it go to voice mail.

She had no information about Joshua's parents or why he was put into care.  She told me that when she found out, she would let me know.

She left, and that was the second day with our boy.