Thirty Stories from Thirty Years: Story Number 2

By Tammi Pitzen, Executive Director of The Children's Advocacy Center of Jackson County

This is story #2 in Tammi Pitzen’s series of 30 stories from her 30 years working in child welfare.

You can read all the stories here.

For me, this reflection on my journey is more about examining moments in time that helped me to build my resiliency, than merely telling “war stories”. Things that allowed me to continue and strengthen my self-care skills.

I want to just acknowledge some things that my training did not prepare me for in anyway. I chuckle as I think some of this is still missing from general “core” training that many child protection workers are required to complete in order to start “field” work. In my case my core training was all about Geno-grams, and how to ask questions that motivate families to do better. All good stuff, but did not prepare me for the nitty-gritty everyday work.

1. In no way was I totally prepared to recognize and respond to threats against my safety.

I remember my very first “serious” level two case. It involved a child with what appeared to be a burn on his arm. It was in a very rural area of our very rural parish. It was not uncommon for families out in literally nowhere cow pasture Louisiana to live in shacks made of particle board. In fact, for laborers who worked on the farms, it was quite common. It was part of their pay.

I had already talked with the child at the heart of this report at school and made my way to the “house”. When I arrived I was greeted by a very angry tall man cleaning a rifle of some sort on the front porch. The school had somehow gotten in touch with him to let him know I was on my way out. I still haven’t figured that one out. He did not have a phone. It was light years before cell phones were a common and there were no neighbors for miles.

I took a deep breath. I got out of my car, stood tall and flashed the biggest smile I could and introduced myself. I was in heels, pantyhose, and a dry clean only dress, trying to balance my state-issued black Day-Timer and yellow legal pad so I would be able to take whatever notes I thought I might need to take. The dress and panty hose at that time were pretty much the expected dress of any female state employee.

He was a large man decked out in plaid flannel, jeans, and worn cowboy boots. His first words after I introduced myself was, “Do you know that I can hit the bullseye on that target 100% of the time?” I turned around to look at a target that was pinned on a tree a fair distance off. Without skipping a beat, I smiled and said “Wow that is impressive! Maybe you can show me after we finish talking?” I looked him in the eye and stood my ground. We went inside completed our business and as I was leaving he offered me some iced tea. I politely declined, even though I had “cotton mouth” from what I probably would recognize now as anxiety.

The whole time I was in this shack, I was trying to plan escape routes. I had made the mistake of going in and allowing him to enter behind me. There was one window and I was hoping against hope that I could run and jump out if I needed to, as he had positioned himself between me and the only exit. When I returned to the office to staff the case with my supervisor, she asked me why I didn’t leave. She said you should have left. I sort of laughed and said, “No one told me that was an option. I assumed I was going to have to get some answers about what happened.” I did not want to have to work with this family and he think I was scared of him.

Which leads me to:

2. In no way was I prepared to have to leave kids in situations where I was pretty sure they had been hurt by their parent.

In this particular case, the child was unwilling to tell me what happened. The school was not cooperative with my investigation, but was very protective of Dad. No one single person was able to tell me that the round spoon shaped burn on his arm was caused by anything other than an accident. Even though I had followed every avenue to get that story. Even though the child told me that he would get in trouble for talking to me. I remember sitting in my supervisor’s office sort of flabbergasted that we were closing out that report as unsubstantiated with concerns. I was equally surprised that no other reports came in on that family. At least not while I was working there. It could have been that it was an accident. It could have been that having me on the front porch was as scary for the Dad as it was for me and that was enough of a deterrent. I will never know which it was.

Which leads me to the caveat about learning self-care and building resiliency.

When working in such a volatile and trauma filled field, you need to always do the best that you can. You need to always follow all the information to the end. You need to always do your best work. But when you have done all of that, and you are told there is nothing else you can do, you need to accept that and move on. It’s harder that you think.

I never did the moving on part easily.

Part of how I dealt with that helplessness for a really long time was to hold my cases open past the permissible 60 days. I argued a lot with supervisors regarding what I thought needed to happen. Sometimes I got to move in the direction I wanted and sometimes I did not.

The best way to care for yourself is to know your lane and stay in it. When you drift, you need to ask why you are drifting into someone else’s lane. It may be vicarious trauma.

3. My core training never prepared me for the courage and integrity needed when working as an investigator of child abuse.

You have to be able to do what is right even when no one is looking. You have to be able to let the record be what the record is, even when that does not lead to the result that you feel is necessary. This work demands that you not be afraid to see something all the way through and that you do so with grace, compassion, and empathy. Anything else leads to global failure of the system. You also have to do what is scary and right, even when it means you are working more than a 40 hour week, even when it means your paperwork is three times as much as it could be, and even when it makes you face things that are both personally and professionally hard. To do anything else leads to global failure of the system. The risks are high. The rewards are beyond what you can imagine.

4. My core training never prepared me for the amount of politics that are at play in the child abuse field.

I am leaving number four as it is for now. The story behind the lesson learned will wait for another day.

The thing I hope that those who work in this field take away from this…is that it is okay to take care of yourself.

Not only is it okay, it is required. You need to set and enforce boundaries that are reasonable. You need to recognize that sometimes those boundaries will result in you changing employment maybe even leaving the field. The truth of the matter is the work is the work. It isn’t for everyone and that is okay too. There isn’t much that can be done to make it easier. Organizations, state departments of social services, and other agencies that provide a service or intervene in child abuse are not at liberty to not respond because they are over capacity. Recognize that. Recognize that it is okay to say no. Recognize it is okay to say yes.

In the end only you can decide what is okay for your own health.

If you are a supervisor working in this field, the thing I hope you take away from this is to always respond with empathy. When your staff messes up, help them learn and move on. Sometimes staff needs to hear from you what safety means because like me, they may not fully recognize what unsafe is.

Set a culture in your office that allows for self-care.

And…remember the work is hard. The work is what the work is. We can’t make it easier. We can help people take care of themselves.

Lastly, if you are a regular Joe, a regular citizen, recognize the system is flawed.

But also recognize that it isn’t something that one person working in your local child welfare office will be able to resolve. Recognize that, as in all walks of life, you have really good workers and sometimes not so good workers. Do not paint everyone working in the system with the same brush. Recognize that sometimes those workers you are trashing on social media are the good guys. Sometimes it is a system failure and not an individuals’ failure.

Sometimes that person that you are raging against is just as frustrated as you are.