Quote:
Originally Posted by Flybone McTimmerson
My wife and I both work evenings. When we arrived home from work Friday night, there was a letter on the door saying that Child welfare URGENTLY needed to meet with us. This was extremely odd. We have one son, that is 2 1/2 years old, and I consider him to be taken care of very well. I immediately went into panic mode, as I assume a lot of parents would. I do spank the kid when necessary and use time out with it. Never hard spankings, though. Just enough to get the message through.
So, I ask my wife if he's had any weird bruises(I assume all young kids get a lot of bruises because kids are a bit reckless on their own). She say no.
I next start to worry if some random weirdo driving by didn't like something I was doing in the yard with the kid. Our driveway is off of a highway, but the house sits back about 200 yards. He is outside working with me a lot. He loves riding the mower, so we do that quite often. Sometimes it's spur of the moment, so he's not always wearing his ear protection. We also check the mail with the mower which requires driving right up to the highway. I always make sure there's not even any cars in sight though, so that there's no danger. Anyways, I started nit picking stuff like that to see if there was any way some random asshole reported us as they drove by.
I also worried that maybe the babysitter was under investigation. Maybe he was being harmed there. Lots of crazy shit went through my head.
Like I said, we got this notice on Friday night. Their offices are closed until Monday. We were left to worry about this all weekend.
I called them first thing this morning. The lady who left the note was out in the field, and she didn't call back until 1:30 this afternoon. She casually explained to me that they put the notice on the wrong house.
I was relieved and pissed off all at the same time. I calmly explained to her the worry that note caused and that maybe they should create a policy of not leaving those kinds of notes on the doors of people on Friday afternoons if they have yet to have any initial contact with those people. If it's someone who already knows there is an investigation going, then fine, leave a notice if you want. But leaving us that note left us on the dark and worrying for 72 hours.
Am I crazy for suggesting that?
|
1)Yes, you are crazy for suggesting that.
2) If they were actually investigating you for something serious, they would not have left a note on the door. Do you think they tip off people accused of child abuse? They were probably looking to interview family and friends of someone under investigation. Or it was an assist from another county. Or non abuse call.
3) CPS has deadlines for ensuring children safety, usually 24 hours. Therefore, no one who is actually being investigated will wait 72 hours to learn what it is about. The number one priority is the safety of children. That doesn't wait for the weekends.
4) CPS does not "close" on the weekends, anymore than police "close" on the weekends" They have on call staff and supervisors. If you were so "worried" you could have gotten a hold of a supervisors who would have cleared this up for you. Anytime Friday or Saturday, or Sunday. Even if the worker who left the not wasn't on call, they are still required to work the cases they have on weekends if that is when they get a hold of the party. See number 3 for why.
5) Sorry someone made a mistake and distressed you. We are all human and CPS is one of the hardest jobs out there.