social work – Bifocals and Barbells

The makings for greatness were there. The movie’s main character was a social worker. It is an action movie in which said social worker (SW) is going to be a bad ass. It had some great actors including consummate dysfunctional role players like Brue Dern and Fran Grillo.

It could have been a good movie.

It wasn’t.

With many other of the ingredients being on point, it begs the question about if what screwed it up was trying to make the SW out to be sparkplug of action.

For the most part; when SWs show up in films, they are either too heartless (“Nothing you can say or do will stop me from ruining your family”) or to heartful/self-important (“Your life will be perfect because I am going to raise you as my own” or “I am saving you”).

Real social work shouldn’t happen on either of those extreme ends. Sometimes it does. The results are typically some kind of disastrous.

As a result of the common role SWs hold in movies, I was genuinely excited to see Gateway.

I tried not to look for accuracies or inaccuracies as it went along; but I couldn’t help myself. SW drove a nice Monte Carlo SS to complete his field work, false. SW had a maladaptive way of coping with the stressors of the job; truer than I’d like it to be.

For Parker (“Badge number 2261” *eyeroll), alcohol and drugs were how he dealt with the emotions of his chosen field. I wanted to call out the to TV, “Parker! You can’t do some blow in your Monte Carlo before you go in and talk to a family about the importance of sobriety!”

Parker seemed to have forgotten that he chose social work. While there are associated feelings with the work; acting caught off guard about it would be like the bridge builder crumbling at the thought that his job includes building bridges.

Get your shit together Parker. Go to the gym or buy something shiny to deal with your feelings like the rest of us. It’s call pro-social activity, figure it out.

Some of Parker’s interactions tracked pretty well to SW. He was well intended. He wanted safe families and absence of trauma for kids. His desk was a fucking disaster. He had a chi vampire co-worker. And like many of us child welfare social workers, he’d had a pro boxing career before signing on to social services. (*eyeroll again)

Maybe it was his incredible passion for his purpose, or maybe it was his dysfunctional upbringing; but Parker was broken.

(Not sure if anyone intends on watching this “movie”; but there’s spoilers coming)

One night while Parker was social working his heart out in what he called the projects. His car was broken in to and he saw two young men run away with his stereo. Later, Parker takes himself a little bump of cocaine off his hand while sitting in his car at the gas station. He then hops out of that car pointing a gun at those same men. They ask him if he’s a cop. “I’m your worst nightmare! I’m a social worker with a gun!” (*MEGA eyeroll!)

Yup. That is a nightmare. As was the movie. It brought me to the point of checking the run time on it, 91 minutes, short enough to justify watching all of it to make sure I could effectively complain about every second of it. There was a death scene that made me long for some side character to just come over and shoot the dude again to get it over with.

Nevertheless, I’ll keep watching SW movies and hoping for one that captures the task as I see it. But I recognize that may not happen. There’d have to be slow motion capture of filing, or hype music as the sternly worded email is written.

Even though I’m ready to lend my expertise to the actress who’d play me (probably Scarlett Johansson bwah ha!), she wouldn’t get it. She’d try to overact the role. There’s not likely to be a movie with a strong SW lead, because SWs aren’t leads in the stories we’re a part of. The families are responsible for their glorious successes or for their other outcomes. We are just there to try to help.

My SW friends and I probably won’t be involved in shootouts with cartel members we’ve accidentally stolen drugs from; at least I fucking hope not. But we will have the chance to think about the work we are doing. Continue to make decisions based on if they further your goal of helping the kid or family. Ask yourself if the work you’re doing “feeds the bulldog.” If it does, you’re doing the work of the greatest movie that will never be made.

Thanks for reading!

Child welfare is an interesting gig. Until about the 1900’s, there were far more rules protecting violence against animals than there were for the protection of human children. Child welfare in it’s modern sense came into being around the 1970’s when there was an increase in the role of government trying to ensure that children were safe in their own homes.

Since that time, nearly everyone has heard a story about a time that Child Welfare didn’t intervene enough. And nearly everyone has heard a story when we intervened too much.

It’s a very difficult balance that people who chose the field as their career take very seriously. Fortunately for the families we serve, they are entitled to privacy about the events that led to our intervention. However, this makes the work seem like we are transparent to those outside the field.

By the time the events take place in which children are removed from the care of their parents, things have happened. Things that those with the legal ability to remove children (cops and courts) have determined have made it so the children can not currently be safe in the care of their parents.

Whatever those things are, stacked up with the removal of kids, are a lot for families to endure.

Social workers constantly meet 6-year-olds who experienced more in their short lives than they themselves as adults have experienced. It can be hard, but the depth of the experiences our families have had also make them some of the strongest people ever.

Most often, things have just gotten a little out of hand for a minute, and they need an opportunity to reset. There’s tools in place for that. Tools that really do help. But in the meantime, kids need a place to rest their souls while parents work.

A great foster parent is one who will be there for those little ones in an unsettled time in their life, and be prepared to support them when it’s time to go home.

It’s a very big ask. Love them like they need, but don’t love them so much that you get in the way of them going home. And, if they can’t go home, go back to wanting to be their forever solution. Open your home to scrutiny, and your heart to potential breakage.

It doesn’t sound like a good sales pitch. But somewhere the night is putting a child into your care; a child who’s had a really bad day. And they need a foster parent who’s in it for the right reasons who can help them get through it.

The foster parents who are best at what they do are the ones who are able to balance the many many hard things with the rewards of knowing they helped a kid through some tough times or got to see kids go back to homes where they are loved and safe.

Unfortunately, there’s a constant need for folks who can fill the complex role of fostering. If it sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, or something you’ve heard someone else express interest in, please don’t hesitate to ask a social worker about it.