I found out some more this morning about the sexual abuse allegations in Mark’s family. Based on that, caseworker (call her Marge) asked me to take Mark to the hospital for one of those all-inclusive sexual abuse medical exams. Yippee!
I hustled up some babysitting from family, called several different numbers at the hospital to find the right place to take him, and once I finally got the correct office, found out they don’t do the exam until after the child advocacy center interview. (Just like the therapist.) She was surprised Marge didn’t know that, so it must be pretty standard protocol.
The problem with getting the CAC interview is that the abuse took place in a different (very far away) county. The initial removal from their parents was in this county, but the relatives were all far away. So that far-away county has to schedule the CAC interview and transport from here, turning it into a whole day ordeal. And Marge made it sound like that county isn’t keen on getting the interview to even happen. Even the GAL down there is leaning towards not doing an interview – too ‘traumatic.’
Come on. From what I know, this abuse has been happening for some amount of time, probably a few months. The other allegations might even include STDs. If this CAC interview thing doesn’t get resolved early next week, I’m getting pissed.
But I did manage to get their enrollment papers done in less than 24 hours, so as long as their old district gets their records over to ours ASAP, the kids can start back to school in January with all the other kids. Nikki is not happy about leaving her class, but our kindergarten teacher is AWESOME so I think she’ll be okay. Mark probably also is not happy about leaving his class, but he’s not admitting it.
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 18, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Snarky Mom
In my old county, if there was a delay in being able to do the CAC interview the social worker could petition the court to have the CME (Child Medical Exam, basically the forensic sexual abuse exam) done immediately. If it was court ordered, the CME could take place. When we had this issue, the social worker just had to mention STD and the judge ordered the exam. Wouldn’t want the STD to do permanent damage and leave the state open to a lawsuit.
December 18, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Where's the Party
I did ask the case worker if we could get the CAC court-ordered, and I think if it comes to that, we will try. But I suspect there will be lots of feet-dragging and “Just a little more time” – ing, like usual, plus there’s that holiday coming up. This is when I wish I was still a GAL, so I could go holler at DSS and bust some butts. Sigh. It’s so hard being ‘just’ a foster parent.