I do home studies of person's for which Child Protective Services (CPS) is considering placing children that have been removed from their biological parents. These are normally "kinship caregivers", i.e. people who are related to the children somehow. Perhaps they are an aunt, uncle, grandparent, cousin, or "fictive kin" which means they are just some kind of "friend" to the child or their biological parent. Normally, it's a grandparent. My husband always teases that we are giving the grandparents a "do-over", since it is their biological child that is either drinking, drugging or both and so has lost custody of their child. I do not say this to be snide or smug ... it is a very sad situation here in America. Generations of families that are repeating this cycle of poverty, drugs, multiple partners, domestic violence and more over and over again.
I grew up in a "middle class" family. I worked to earn most of my college expenses and graduated with $3,000 in federal loans which I paid back. My parents were normally behind on their bills and certainly did not have money for extras, vacations or college. But we all worked hard from about the age of 14 on. Back then, restaurants would hire a 14 year old waitress. My logic in choosing my college major was "how can I make the most money with a 4-year degree". I worked 20 to 40 hours a week, attended school full time and counted the number of pieces of bologna in a package each week for more than 4 years (to see how many sandwiches I could make before the next pay day).
Had a great career, married late and am blessed to have a good husband and wonderful children. We have lived "small" so that I could stay hometo school my children, pay cash for our used cars and try to stay out of debt. Three years ago, as my children are older, I was looking for some type of work that I could do from home so I could still supervise their academics but also contribute to the household income. Fortunately, after some special training, and because I have a Bachelor's degree, I found I could work for as a contractor for the CPS to "study" families and write 20 page reports about them so CPS could decide if these folks could be the caregivers of the children in question.
A home study involves spending several hours with the potential "caregivers", asking them many personal questions about how they were raised, their relationships, their past, their finances and their health. It means interviewing family and friends, interviewing their adult children and reviewing their criminal and CPS histories. When the referral documents are over 35 or so pages, I know I am in for an adventure because there are either lots of extra criminal history pages or CPS history pages or both.
This blog is a place to document for those of you who don't know how the system works, what benefits I see these people getting. I think you will be surprised, perhaps even shocked. Rarely, does one of my studies involve a family that is not subsisting on government income. I am convinced there is some sort of "underground" manifesto on "how to get government benefits" that us middle-classed working people are not privy to. I have literally left studies and cried all the way home wondering why in the world my husband and I work for a living, that we must be just plain stupid.
I've shared some of these stories with friends and they have strongly encouraged me to write a book. Don't have the time ... have to work! But I thought perhaps I could blog one case at a time and educate those of you not on the government dole about where your tax money goes.
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