and they have a plan

Today was what I thought was going to be the transition meeting when we learned about when Val and Alex would be leaving to go to their relatives’ house to live with their parents. It sort of was that, but there was a whole lot of processing and discussion to get to that point and it left most of us (our worker, the kids’ family, certainly me) feeling a bit misled and confused. I’m also pretty sure that if their family social worker had realized she’d need a court order, she’d have filed for one a few weeks ago rather than waiting until this week, especially since she and her supervisor were under the impression that Lee and I were on the verge of disrupting the placement.

That all sounds complicated, but I can at least say that everyone’s on the same page and we have the sort of plan I expected. In another two or three weeks, there will be a court hearing where the family’s social worker recommends that the parents no longer be required to have supervised visits (which I actually thought had happened already and certainly should have given what we’d been told about how much progress the parents had to make to be granted this) and that the relatives whose house they live in be granted temporary custody of the kids while the parents finish everything on their case plan to regain permanent custody.

I see no reason the judge wouldn’t accept that plan, though I suppose I should prepare myself for the possibility. The plan will be that the week the decision comes through, the kids will stay with us through the school week, as usual. Then when their parents come to pick them up that Friday as usual, they’ll move out permanently to live with their extended family.

This sounds like a good plan, though I’m frustrated that we still don’t have a date for when anything will actually happen. I’m frustrated, too, at how much their worker kept assigning blame to other people and minimizing her own involvement or what she’d told all of us in preparation for what turned out to be a mediation session. I could say more about that, but there’s no point.

At any rate, we’re going to make these last few weeks as fun as we can. I gave the family and the social worker a page where I’d written out all the children’s medical providers, their contact information, when the last appointment was, and when the next appointment should be. That way if it ever gets lost in a move or whatever, the worker will have a copy of it all in one place. So that was something that the worker actually appreciated and I’m glad it felt like I was doing something right. I’m glad that progress is being made, but as always it seems painfully slow. I guess we should be used to that by now.

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