[Gemme]

Originally Posted by AtLast

When I worked in foster care supervised visits were never at the home. The parent came to a visitation site and interacted with their kids and there was always a therapist or social worker in the room for the duration of the visit. Also, other people working in the office were present. Sometimes, when the kids were going to be re-united with a parent within a time frame, visits took place at somewhere like a McDonalds or public park. Again, the entire time was supervised.

I was totally taken back by any such visitation with a parent that was a suspect in the murder of the kid's mother and had just been ordered (week before) to take a polygraph and have a psychiatric evaluation! That is just nuts! The police had also just found child porn on the guys computer and these kids had dropped hints to their grandparents about their mother being in the trunk of a car! What the hell was going on with this judge? I don't think that this guy should have had access (supervised or otherwise0 at this point- certainly not until the evaluations were done and reported to the court.

When I was in the system, that's how they did it too. My parents had to come see me where I was and it was 'semi' supervised. Basically, we stood in the front yard and talked.

I do just have to point one thing out in the name of being accurate. The 'porn' found on his computer was CG and not of 'real' people. So, because of that, it is not categorized as 'child porn'. I think that puts it in a whole different category too, in terms of 'seriousness', although sadly...we're aware of just how serious things were at this point.

I'm really frustrated with how lazy the system's gotten over the years. I realize that it's stretched to capacity but there's GOT to be a better way. Those kids should still be here.