For ‘Barefoot Bandit,’ Life on the Run Started Early - NYTimes.com
Having worked group care with severely emotionally and behaviorally disturbed adolescents for six years that group of kids was and is my favorite population. The abuse done to them as young, vulnerable little ones with no one to turn to for protection can manifest to acting out as they get bigger.
As a child protective services intake and investigations worker for Washington State DSHS - CPS, one day a referral came in. A young father recognized his brutal upbringing by his mother was effecting his parenting of his child; and went in for counseling. The counselor made a CPS report. The young man called me, was livid on the phone, yelling loudly at me. As a child his mother brutally beat him and CPS came out and did nothing to help. When CPS left his mother beat him even more.
I told him on the phone I would be right out to see him and got in my car. He unloaded about his childhood and CPS not protecting him as a child. Me being the witness to listen to his story helped him. Then because I worked for a bureaucracy that messes up, the referral got assigned to another social worker as well to investigate the same referral; and when he went out (unknown to me), the young man horribly frustrated yelled again about the work of the agency.
My co-worker came back to the office, came by my Dilbert cubicle and said, "That guy's an asshole." I explained that CPS didn't protect the young father when he was young.
My supervisor called me into his office. "That guy's an asshole", he said and the non-verbals told me I was supposed to agree with my boss and co-worker that this young father was an "asshole".
I explained to my boss that CPS didn't protect the young father when he was young. He had strong feelings about that. He hadn't been violent, he hadn't been threatening.
I tried to get the young father on one of those citizen advisory committees you hear about that are supposed to be open to the public to be a member, so called citizen oversight, you know? They wouldn't put him on the committee because he criticized the agency.
When I read this background news article (above link) on Colton, his mom and CPS I know the failures of the bureaucracy beast that is DSHS - CPS. It is beastly and unkind for government workers to angrily and mockingly vent about the clients they are paid to help. My co-workers would get off the phone from talking to a client; and in those Dilbert cubicles, the rat mazes of state government, another co-worker would call out, "Sounds like the family from hell." And off they'd laugh and mock the client.
When I took exception to this name calling about clients, I was put down and told this was "venting" and by "venting" when they did meet with clients face to face they would then be respectful. I disagreed. You cannot hate someone energetically behind their backs and it not be manifested in person in some fashion to a client.
I took a train the trainers course for teaching mandatory child abuse reporting to get my certificate to teach that class. The government social worker who taught the course said that 45% of CPS social workers come from child abuse backgrounds. Which is higher than in the general population. When I asked how many of them were in touch with that childhood abuse and how many of that 45% were healed, she didn't know.
Denial is a strong defense mechanism for those abused as children. As an adult if you are not in touch with it and haven't healed you can't help your clients. Around the mulberry bush you'll go.
My witnessing and speaking up for our DSHS clients resulted in most of my unit turning on me.
Who's going to help Colton Harris-Moore now?
He's obviously a very smart kid who was trying to survive with no adult help. I'm hoping Frank Abagnale, Jr from the book and movie, Catch Me if You Can, will be in contact with Colton. The good father figure Frank finally got was the F.B.I. agent, Hanratty, that caught him.
Abagnale turned his life around and he caused more havoc than Colton, was on the run a year longer than Colton and had millions more in restitution to repay.
Which he did and now Frank Abagnale is a millionaire helping the banks he hurt foil criminals. If you haven't watched, watch Catch Me if You Can, it's a wonderful film.
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