This is probably the best job I've ever had.
What I like about this job is being able to make a difference.
This is rough reality.
This would be a horrible job if you didn't care about people.
Well the people who are like, I want to help, I encourage that, I'm ok, well then this is
the job for you.
The job as a CPS investigator is to investigate reports that we receive on a statewide level
regarding abuse or neglect to children. We receive reports based on the county in
which the family resides. Once we receive the report it's assigned to a particular unit
and then a particular caseworker.
When I get a report of abuse or neglect, the first thing I do is look at the history of
the family. From there I go out and visit the children.
I visit people that know the children, the family dynamics, I go to meet with the
parents, get medical information. I do school collaterals and from there I go ahead and
look for resources to help the family out.
When you first knock on a door you can be a little anxious and nervous.
You don't know what's behind the door. Today though I'm revisiting a family who is involved
in domestic violence and they are in north Austin. There is an emergency protective order
in place and I'm here to check the children again and mom to make sure everything is ok
because I want to make sure, one, that he's not trying to come back here and law enforcement
have not come here looking for him so I want to make sure that he doesn't come back
and tries to get in and if he comes back don't open the door and tell your son do not
open the door. Tell him to leave the residence otherwise you're going to call the law enforcement
and so then he'll go, because we do not want him in this house. I do not want anything
to happen. You've got a great kid, you do a good job with him and you need to be here
for him.
When investigations determines that the family needs more assistance, that's when they send
it on to Family Based Safety Services so that we can help them strengthen their family,
strengthen their parenting. We have a lot of parents that have not had the experience
of having good role models as they were growing up so they don't know how to do a lot of things.
Maybe they don't they're not very good at cleaning and I have to show them, you know,
this is how you organize things. Maybe they're not very good at talking with their children.
We want our families to succeed because children deserve to be raised by their parents, they
deserve to be there, parents deserve to be part of their children's lives.
So when the investigator determines that a child is not safe in their home one of the
options is to remove the children and when that happens the children can be placed either
in foster care or in what we call a kinship home and a kinship home is a family or friend,
someone the child knows and is comfortable with where it's safe for the child to stay
in the meantime.
So today I've got three visits scheduled and my first stop is a kinship caregiver but she's
basically like the children's grandmother. She's tried to be there to support them, she's
championed the things that they've done well and she's tried to help the parents make better
decisions. This is the kid's room. Oh, and that's mother kitty. She's the queen of the
house. Is she a mother? Yeah, she was once upon a time but she's no longer doing those
duties. Both girls are still on the bottom and Eli's on top? Yeah, he's on top. And we
may have to do something different if you become a licensed foster parent so, you know,
if you need to get a bed let me know, there are ways we can help with the bed also. He,
that's in the works, hopefully.
Our role is to ease the transition for the families.
Foster families have been through a lot of training, they know what they're getting into
whereas kinship families often don't really know what they're getting into, there's a
lot of complications with the CPS system, with the legal system. They may not realize
what's really happening in the home with the children, they may have a lot of things to
deal with with the parents and so in kinship our role is help them through all of those difficulties.
What we do is we help children who have been removed from their home and placed into foster
care or kinship placement. Kinship placement is when they're placed with a relative.
We give the family the opportunity to get the child returned to them. They have usually
have between 12 and 18 months to get the child back and to do that, they have to go to court
with us and demonstrate that they've changed their behavior so that the child will be safe
in their care. We also montly visit the child to make sure the child is safe in their current
placement. So can you read me a story?
Twinkle twinkle little star, a bedtime story. We facilitate visitation with the child and
parent. We sometimes assist the parent with transporation
to various courses and classes they have to take so they can learn new skills to make
them safer and more capable to be a parent for their child.
More often then not, the parents starts their time with CPS hating us. They don't like us,
they don't like the fact that we're involved with their life and normally I get told that
they didn't do anything wrong, CPS is wrong for interfering with their business and so
their just already angry by the time I get the case.
It's my job to try to de-escalate the situation to talk to them to get them to work with me.
Sometimes I'm successful and then sometimes I'm not. I've had parents who just refuse
to work with the agency at all and that's very frustrating because we're here to help.
In order to adopt a child the process can take anywhere from six months to one year.
We need an adoptive home study. They need licensed to adopt. We interview the family.
We present the child's case to them so once they're chosen to be a permanent home the
child will need to be placed in the home for six months before we can proceed to consummate
the adoption. This agreement is showing that you are in
agreement with making your home for an adoptive placement from today until the adoption.
In order to match a child with a family, first of all we need to know the child very well.
I need to know his life, his diagnosis, what kind of behaviours he exhibits at home, at
school. Do you all get along well? Yeah. You all don't
fight right? The reason we wait six months is to provide
support services and ensure that the child is well adjusted, that the family is able
to manage and that it's a successful placement. We want to be supportive for all these adoptive families.
If you like things that are regimented and predictable, this is not the job for you.
What I tell my caseworkers is the only thing that's constant about investigations is change.
And it can be fast paced because everybody wants it now. They want to make sure that
child is safe, then they want you to get everything documented, um, then you're put on another
case while you're documenting this case, trying to contact this family member while you're
also trying to go back and revisit other familes, and other cases, so you juggle.
I can plan for just being in my office all day long but then I get a call and I have to
go out. I have to go pick up the kid because the placement broke down. I have to go transport
a child to a doctor appointment because the parent can't all of a sudden. There, you just
never know sometimes what you're day's going to be like.
We're up early in the morning. I've met clients at seven o'clock in the morning before they
go to work. I drive around and meet them on their lunchtime. I've gone on construction
sites to meet with individuals so we do what is necessary to get that information to make
sure the child is safe.
You definitely cannot take the bus to do this job. You're going to need your own car it's
going to need to be a reliable car and you're going to have to be able to pay for all the things
that are going to be required to do the job. Eventually you will get paid back, mileage,
you get a mileage reimbursment for it but when your car is being driven an extra 500
or 700 miles a month then you're going to have more maintenance costs as well so you have
to be prepared to do all that yourself.
You can't go into this job expecting everything to be rainbows and roses. There are going
to be hard times. There are going to be times where you're like, why am I even doing this
because you feel as though you've failed. You have failed.
It takes an emotional toll because you're seeing situations that you have no control
over that you can't make better or you see children being hurt.
The most frustrating part of this job for me is the removal of a child or child death.
I, that's heartbreaking. You have to recover from that and you don't really get a time
to process it because you have to go on to the next case.
One of the cases that really sticks with me is involving domestic violence. We recieved
a report concerning domestic violence between mom and the father to one of her children.
She was, she appeared very protective and we had given her resources to the local
domestice violence shelter for counseling services and the actual perpetrator, the aggressor,
he was not living in the home, and mom signed plans to the effect he wouldn't be
in the home, and then on Halloween, following about a month after the investigation
had come in, he entered the home and he murdered the mother and then he shot himself
and you always just look back and think what else could have been done? I played that investigation
over in my head a multitude of times, and felt that as an agency we had done what
we could, we had offered services, but people are just unpredictable and there are
just a lot of things we can't control.
One thing that I do in particular when I have very bad days, um, I will go and visit my
daughter and my grandchildren, just so that I can sit and watch them and say this
is why I do what I"m doing because every child deserves to have a happy home and to grow
up like this, and then it makes it OK then I can go on for another day.
When an individual is hired to be a CPS investigator or an FBSS specialist or a CVS specialist,
they're going to go through a training program where they'll be given an individualized training
plan, also called the ITP. With the ITP they are assigned a mentor. The mentor can be a
certified mentor whose been with the agency two years or more or it can be a mentor candidate
whose been with the agency a year or more. That protege, that new hire, will follow that
mentor throughout the duration of their day so if that mentor works 8 to 8 then that protege
is with that mentor from 8 to 8, 80 percent of the training is going to be on the job
field training and 20 percent is going to be in the classroom. The proteges are followed,
they're given regular feedback, they meet with supervisors weekly, they meet with their
mentors every day, they are actually able to work on real cases, they're seeing
real families, they're seeing real services, they're seeing real home visits and they're
doing more inside the home than working with actual investigators then spending time in
a classroom.
If your unit is really connected and really supportive of each other then they can help
you out. Also, they're someone to talk to when things get difficult, when things get
overwhelming because they're in the same boat as you and sometimes they have techniques
that you're not aware of to help them cope, help them get things done quicker and sometimes
they're finished with whatever they had to take care of and they can help you out.
To do this job I believe that it takes a character, a type of character where you're gonna
have a passion for what you do, you have to put everything that you have into this
job, in terms of, if something is not done at the end of the day, then you
could potentially be leaving a child at risk.
The skills necessary to be successful in my job is, first of all, having people skills,
you have to be, you will be engaging with people all time.
And you're talking to people who are angry and upset and, you know, the job is to help
whittle through what it is that they're upset about and, you know, help them out with that
and if you don't care you're just going to get worn out. It's going to beat you down,
and it's going to happen quickly.
A good investigative caseworker needs to be organized, they need to be very detail oriented.
They need to be well spoken and well written. They also need to be able to adapt to change
and that is very constant in this agency. They need to be able to work long hours and
handle the stress, that comes along with this job.
The qualities necessary to be a good caseworker are patience, a willingness to help.
Have sympathy, empathy, and a passion.
A person has to be willing to roll up their sleeves, get in the middle of everything,
and clean up.
You can't have a chip on your shoulder, I mentioned that earlier and you can't go in
here thinking, ok, I dislike this person because of what they've done. I dislike this person
because of the way they dress. You can't do that. You have to go in and be polite, be
nice.
I think there are many people that probably are not suited to handle this job. You have
to separate your emotions, at the end of the day you have to make sure you have
a good balance. You have to make sure that you can separate your work from your personal
life. You have to make sure that if the work does affect you in ways that is becomes
concerning that you reach out for help and that you ask someone for help but it does
take a particular type of character, to do this job and to be able to have that separation.
I think one of the biggest perks of working here is the mobility, all of our caseworkers
are mobile, you have the ability to work from Starbucks if you'd like. You have the
ability to work from your home if you'd like. You have the ability to spend your morning
documenting and then doing afternoon home visits or vice versa, um, you have the ability
to schedule your day how it best works for you.
For me, I would be horrible for just sitting at an office so I like to be out and doing
things. I don't like to be doing the same thing, you know, day after day, I want to
be meeting new people and for me, that sort of keeps me going.
Seeing my kids graduate from high school is one of my favorite things to do. I love going
to the graduation, being there, getting to clap for them, celebrate with them afterwards.
I love seeing my kids. I spend time with them playing on the floor, reading books. It's
just so rewarding to see these kids succeed and go on and do better things after what
they came from.
If you're thinking about a career in CPS, you have to ask yourself, you know, how hard
are you willing to work because this is not going to be a job that is easy, um, but if
you do care about making a difference with children then you can make a huge difference.
I do this job because I like seeing a difference in a person's life. I like to see a success
story and, um, that's what we're looking for and sometimes you don't get success stories
but when you do get one it just makes you just feel great inside, energetic.
What I like about this job is being able to make a difference, being able to change the
lives of children, change the lives of parents, change generations.
If someone is thinking about taking this job I'll tell them that if they're doing it for
the money, it's not the job for them. But if they want to help, if they want to go out
there and change somebody's life, if they can be flexible, this job might just be the
one that they're looking for.
This is probably the best job I've ever had. I've worked at this agency for seven years,
um, I have a passion for it. I can't imagine honestly can't imagine working anywhere else.
If you have the passion and you have the drive and you have the want to be here this is definitely
the job to have.