| A Poll and a Bit of Discussion....... |
[Apr. 22nd, 2008|09:54 pm] |
As some of you may be aware, even though I'm officially retired, I'm a licensed social worker and a licensed professional counselor. What this means is that to maintain these licenses I need to obtain a specific number of training hours in my field every year. Today I attended an absolutely amazing training on suggestibility during the process of forensic interviewing of children during child sexual assault cases. The class was taught by a woman who graduated high school the same year as I did. And even though the school was not large and I certainly knew her, I don't think we were in any classes together. And, even if we had been, high school was a very long time ago for both of us. We were never employed by the same agency at any point in our professional careers and we are colleagues in only the loosest sense of the word. In other words, despite the fact that social workers tend to be rather superficially engaging with a number of people, she and I are not friends.
In any event, during the years I worked in child welfare I developed a large number of trainings for foster and adoptive parents and had a special interest in working with child sexual abuse victims. In fact, the trainer was actually using some of the material I developed (with credit though not permission which in truth she didn't need because since I developed it while working for a public agency, I don't actually own any of the material), which was very flattering. However, during the course of the training she discovered that I was retired. And she called me to task repeatedly for leaving a profession where someone with my skill level was so desperately needed. So I'm curious:
Click here to link to my poll on LJ. |
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| Comments: |
I tried to post this comment on LJ yesterday but got kicked off for some reason - and when I went back to look, it hadn't posted. But, I've been thinking of you for some time in this capacity, especially because of all the publicity surrounding the sexual abuse case of children from that horrible polygamist cult in Texas. It's more than crystal clear to me that this "belief system" HORRIBLY abuses children. and I'm SO glad that someone has FINALLY stepped up and done something about it. But I was just wondering what you might do with one of these little survivors - it seems like in many ways, even though they've been rescued, their little lives are potentially ruined - however, I do have hope, since children are resilient, that maybe some of them can adapt to living in the real world. Like I said - just wondering what kind of tactics could be used to help these little ones. Hope you're doing well!
Oh, man, you really don't want to hear everything I have to say about the cult situation in Texas. It could fill a journal. ;D Interestingly enough, we touched on it more than once during the discussion yesterday. It has to be a systemic nightmare. No system, no matter how large, can absorb 471 children into their foster care system. And the sheer number of interviews needed has to be staggering. The trainer was trying to convince me to volunteer my services because they will need all the help they can get. But, really, you'd have to pick up and move because that fiasco will be court involved for years to come.
You don't want to know what I think about the prognosis for the children. Really. It isn't good.
Yeah - I agree with you - I'm afraid they won't do well at all - they've already been traumatized by those horrible people they had for parents, and now the separation will only make it worse for them. Here's a link to an article I just read on the subject: http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080423/480eb440_3ca6_1552620080423-524292913In this one case, I do wish you could volunteer your services in some small way - maybe not working directly with the children, but in helping them develop some sort of program or systematic means of helping them. But I answered your poll on LJ that it was perfectly OK to retire if you could and not feel guilty about it. Anyway - hope you're doing well. | |
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