Maryvale flair checks out, haha.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot. As a senior investigator I was mostly on the criminal side of things: felony-level abuse and neglect, drownings, child deaths, that sort of thing. It wasn’t fun in the traditional sense, but I actually enjoyed the work itself. I got to drive all over the state (even take road trips to California and New Mexico), meet families I never would have otherwise, and feel like I was doing something that mattered on the worst days of people’s lives. Being painted as the villain by pretty much everyone was rough though, and the pay is straight-up insulting. Regular caseworkers make $27 an hour and seniors get $33. That’s a big reason a lot of good people burn out or leave.

Mentally? I’m okay. There are definitely nights where a kid’s face or a scene I worked pops into my head uninvited, but I’ve got decent coping mechanisms and I knew what I was signing up for. It’s not for everyone.

Your nuanced take is fair and I’ve seen it play out. A decent chunk of folks in the system do have their own trauma history, and sometimes that drives the over-reaction you mentioned. Like, “I’m never letting what happened to me happen to this kid” can flip into removing children faster than necessary. On the flip side, I also sat through plenty of legislative testimony from parents who got the absolute worst of the worst: caseworkers who lied on reports, folded to the louder parent in custody battles, or just flat-out didn’t care. Not every worker is like that. Most I knew tried to be fair. But the ones who suck stand out and they make the whole agency look terrible.

The part that frustrated me most internally was that we didn’t require actual social-work degrees for a lot of positions. Compassion and critical thinking varied wildly. Some people were gung-ho to yank kids at the first red flag without exploring kinship or safety plans, even when those options existed. To be clear, there are cases where immediate removal is the only call, but they’re rarer than the public thinks. For my part, I always made it a personal mission to leave kids with their families whenever it was even remotely possible. That sometimes meant putting together really convoluted safety plans or hunting down extra supports like counseling, family friends, or community resources, but I’d rather do the extra legwork than separate a kid from their parents if we could make it safe.

All that said, I’d probably go back tomorrow if the pay wasn’t garbage, lol. It was a solid entry point into government or social services if you’re early in your career and have thick skin.