Court Ordered Custody

Chapter 12

Court appearances, home visitations, case plan conferences, special hearings, arbitrations, supervised visitations, and training dominated my schedule the next two weeks. Once that period of time and events were behind me, I thought that I could relax. After all, I worked my butt off during that time, not that I never do. But during that time I closed two cases and received five new cases and visited twenty-six of the thirty-six children in my caseload. There was a time I had close to forty-six children. Rumor had it that the ideal caseload was twenty-eight to thirty children per caseworker. I wished, as the saying goes.  

It was 2:00PM and I had just finished supervising a family visit with Christine Crawley, mother of baby Lisa of the 'shaken baby syndrome' case, and her son Brian. Brian was eight years old and wore thick glasses and was pretty much an introvert. He looked to be the brainy type. He was a potentially good candidate for 'nerd-hood' if he'd ever get around to developing a more approachable personality. The only person I ever saw him talk to at length was his mother. Usually when the two met at my office, they'd hang around outside of the office, with me standing a short distance away. With a jar he'd bring along, he would spend his time collecting bugs and whatever insects he could capture. His mother Christine rarely said anything to me during the visit. At times I got the sense that she held some form of contempt for me. She just had that snooty standoffishness about her, especially whenever she was around me. Was she a racist? I never thought that she was. It just seemed to me that I represented the man, the establishment, the system, or whatever, who took her children away from her. But I wasn't there to be her friend. I was there for her children's protection. Whatever was behind her lukewarm disposition with me, I paid it no mind. 

After putting the final touch on the notes I had entered into the system concerning the visitation, I collected my things, bid Phoebe a good day, and headed down to Deland to pick up Doniella B, then transport her to St Augustine for her counseling session and her family visit with her mom Maria.  

When I arrived at the group home forty-five minutes later, Blanche, one of the staff members, told me that the girls had yet to arrive from their after school program but would shortly. In the meantime we sat down at the table and talked. 

"Your girl got into an altercation with one of the other girls last night and we had to put both of them on restriction for the next two days. I'm not sure what's going on but lately she's been a little on the uptight side," Blanche confided. 

"What was it over?" I asked. 

"I think they both like the same boy at school." 

"I should have known," I replied. 

"Well, they're at that age, you know," Blanche said, crossing her legs. She was wearing blue denim pants and a light brown knitted top. 

Suddenly we heard the audible sounds of the school bus braking and then it stopped. Less than a minute later, the girls started to file in. Doniella was next to the last to enter the lobby area. When she saw me her face lit up. 

"Hey, Carl!" she said smiling. 

"You ready to head up to St Augustine?" I asked, as I stood up and stretched.  

"Been ready," she quipped. 

Turning to Blanche, I told her to expect Doniella around 10:00 that night. Doniella's therapy sessions had been moved to six o'clock in the evening the week before. With the therapy sessions and the visits with her mother, and the distances involved transporting her, it made for an extremely long drawn out day. 

As seemed to be the case now, Doniella elected to hear her music on the way up to America's oldest city, which was fine with me. I preferred the quiet jazzy tunes on our long journey back when it was dark and we had to traverse miles and miles of isolated country roads after we left the city area. And Doniella usually fell asleep on the return trip.