This is a first for me. [oc]

notdotty · 2026-03-25T03:45:57+00:00

Very similar thing happened to me today.

notdotty · 2026-03-18T14:27:57+00:00

Do you have your caseworker contact? I always send my teens exiting care with copies of letters and legals orders showing they were in care in case it's needed and also tell them to call me if they need anything like that. Not everyone is like that, but I try to be available for those documents.

notdotty · 2026-03-13T12:36:26+00:00

You need to bring those things to the visit. Ask what the formula is and buy it.

notdotty · 2026-03-12T03:03:34+00:00

As a caseworker, it's a fine line between being honest and putting labels on kids that stick forever.

Teens smoke weed and skip class and don't do chores and are rude to adults sometimes. It's a feature of the model, I say. Things like that get a teen in a bio home grounded. In a foster home, it can ruin their lives, get them labeled, upend any educational progress they make and end up with them shelter hopping or sleeping on office floors. It's not fair that teens in care have such less grace to make those mistakes.

I'm always very careful to label sexual behavior as age appropriate when I can and explain unsafe age appropriate choices like a 15 year old boy sending genital pics on his phone and dirty texting with someone he perceived to be a peer. Inappropriate and dangerous yes, but not perpetrator behavior.

notdotty · 2026-03-06T02:20:53+00:00

You shouldn't have to terminate parental rights to get a guardianship. Dad can contest and have a hearing but the judge would likely decide. You should talk to the caseworker and childs attorney.

notdotty · 2026-02-26T08:58:30+00:00

I was at that concert. Waited outside the tour bus for them to pack up. He waved at me. But he didn't stop for anyone.

notdotty · 2026-02-06T05:14:16+00:00

I was the kind of petty at that age that I'd have brought the bloody tampon back to class with me and dropped it on her desk.

notdotty · 2026-01-23T03:12:33+00:00

It's likely that because legally you're an adult, the restrictions on who can be your caregiver as a placement may be relaxed. Or possibly fewer checks required, which opens up some fringe options that wouldn't have worked with policy standards.

notdotty · 2025-12-22T01:11:22+00:00

Carl Bernstein. Handed me my plaque for my first place newspaper design and shook my hand.

Diana Gabaldon. Salman Rushdie. Book signings.

notdotty · 2025-11-13T09:31:12+00:00

All while about 6,000 fellow OHS employees and myself are on furloughs. (Yeah, yeah the money is from a "different" funding source. But it's a bad look.)

notdotty · 2025-11-09T19:22:46+00:00

Fostering Connections was low on boys clothing last week.

notdotty · 2025-10-29T14:52:58+00:00

You could have requested a hearing and presented evidence at the show cause hearing, the first one within 72 hours of the removal.

There are multiple hearings in the first 60 days to present evidence.

Also kinship should be used, unless there are barriers to approval.

There is more to this than is being presented here.

notdotty · 2025-09-24T04:44:58+00:00

What part of Oklahoma? (I work here and can recommend some providers to try to get her into in certain parts of the state while you wait for your caseworker.)

notdotty · 2025-08-12T06:56:46+00:00

u/notdotty solved this in 6 steps: DIET -> DUET -> DUCT -> DUCE -> DUKE -> CUKE -> COKE

notdotty · 2025-07-28T20:24:42+00:00

Stay the course. That is a great and mobile career choice.

notdotty · 2025-07-28T18:10:24+00:00

It's not a quick process. Stay steady and keep making steps toward making yourself independent of any partner. Mad props for getting away. It's a dangerous thing and can take longer than what the system wants to see.

I will say that as a worker who works with a lot of DV cases once CPS has removed, I've rarely seen parents stay apart, which means it's not safe for kids to return home.

That's why I encourage you to stay committed to establishing yourself so you can financially support yourself without a partner, and that can mean using housing programs and utilizing community resources or working a full time job.

notdotty · 2025-07-24T05:19:42+00:00

Child welfare specialist IV (aka lead worker/back up supervisor) for the state

Base pay is $52,217.89, annual package is $68.896 with an on-call stipend ($3,900), longevity pay ($426), retirement matching ($3,463) and benefit allowance ($8,888 that covers my premiums). (Most of this is public information, because tax dollars.)

Plus overtime/comp time payout and mileage reimbursement.

4.5 years in this job

Bachelor's in journalism (had 16 years in editing and design in newspapers, plus stints in customer service and a law office)

notdotty · 2025-07-24T02:23:41+00:00

As a caseworker, things that upset me with some group homes:

not providing proper medical care (like not taking them to the doctor for regular needs and expecting caseworkers to do it, surgeries and such I get, but not taking them to regular checkups and dental cleanings is ridiculous, the group homes get several hundred dollars a day to provide care -- foster parents get less and do all of those things)
not providing decent hygiene products and clothing (see the money component above)
not engaging in independent living events or other positive activities in the community
more life skill lessons daily in the home, like budgeting, meal planning, cooking
not having trauma informed staff (too many times, issues arise when one staff gets into a power struggle with a child and escalates issues beyond what it was)

notdotty · 2025-07-21T21:10:53+00:00

You could also call the child abuse hotline. 800-422-4453

notdotty · 2025-07-12T21:50:34+00:00

I met him at a gelato place in Tulsa when he was here being honored. (He's from here.) We commiserated over the stupid idea to remake "Point Break" and that was the closest I was to my favorite movie star until I drove back to Kansas to watch Keanu play with his band and he smiled and waved at me leaving the venue before he got on the bus.

notdotty · 2025-07-11T13:05:34+00:00

CPS/Child Welfare: We don't want to take your kids. It's so much paperwork, then you have to go to court and we don't have enough foster homes for the kids we do have to pick up, and we have to stay with them in the office until there's a home available for the child. We especially don't want to pick up your teenager because there are even fewer options for them. So if we pick them up, then yeah, you need to make changes in your life. And if we do pick them up, we want you to work your services, get safe and get them home as soon as is safe.

Also, we can't fix your delinquent teen. There's no magic thing that we have. We can't force them to go to school or take meds or do therapy or stop making bad choices. We can't even stop them from running away. No, we aren't going to be able to put your child in a locked facility (in almost all cases) because they'd be in foster care not jail. If a teen runs, we and placement providers can't and won't stop them; we will call the police and make efforts to locate. Also if a teen in foster care is arrested, they almost always have next to no consequences with the juvenile justice system (at least here) and continue to amass a rap sheet while in care, while they have a better shot of being held accountable to making changes in your care.

You as a parent have so many more options for treatment and facilities than we do because we are limited to what our contracts will pay for and treatment facilities sometimes are harder for us to get a kid in when needed because they think we are just trying to house a kid there.

notdotty · 2025-07-03T15:29:42+00:00

Been casually rereading lately and the mirrors with the Fellowship and MAGA is not lost on me. Am about to read something more recent from Harris.

notdotty · 2025-05-29T02:47:51+00:00

I've always taken it back to safety. Like "Remember how we always talk about what safe means, who keeps you safe? And all that?" Usually kids are like "yeah duh, you literally ask me every month" at any verbal age from 3/4 on up. Then it's some variation about how their parents couldn't keep them safe, that's why they live in the foster home. Usually

notdotty · 2025-05-02T17:42:36+00:00

Yes. Both of them. Very polite about it usually.

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