Must Laugh About This

I have to laugh because otherwise I will cry and rage and scream.

M's caseworker is changing. Already.

The good news (I guess?) is that the old one isn't leaving DFCS; she's just not going to be our case worker anymore because she's actually a supervisor and isn't supposed to be working cases at this level. So, in theory, she will still be available to the new case worker for questions on the case.

My meeting with the (old) caseworker for next week is cancelled and the new one is out of the office until early next week, so we don't have a rescheduled one yet.

The case plans that were given to the parents last week state that the goal is reunification. (I think that's why M's mother thinks she's coming home soon.) The (old) caseworker says this is an error that will be corrected at court later this month; the case plan should be concurrent planning. I'm told the (old) caseworker and the (new) caseworker will both be at that court hearing, so there shouldn't be any "I don't know, I just got this case" delays.

M has to be officially "excused" from attending court every time it happens. This involves the caseworker submitting a request to have her excused (on the grounds that she is too young and medically fragile to be in that environment) and waiting for approval. The (old) caseworker hasn't done that yet. No idea if the new one will be on the ball enough to get it done, so that I don't have to take the baby to court. My plan is to assume that she's excused unless I get told explicitly otherwise. I have reasonable grounds for such an assumption -- she's been excused from every other court hearing so far. (And, if I get told explicitly otherwise, my plan is to protest. There's an outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) in our community; I'm not exposing M to any germs that that I can avoid.)

The "staffing" is still scheduled for early May, but no one seems to know now what they are going to be planning to do in this case. BioMom is working her case plan some, which should be encouraging, but is also, sadly, what she did on her two prior TPR cases -- she worked it some at the beginning, then slowly stopped altogether. She claims this one is different because BioDad is holding her accountable, which would be a good sign if he hadn't also been involved in her life at the time of the two prior TPRs....perhaps he only holds her accountable to get her child back if it's also his child?