State and County Connection – Part 1

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I think Trish Reedstrom, the Blue Earth County social work supervisor, planned to take Mary from me ever since the day I scoffed at her threat to make up child abuse charges against me if I didn't sign a form letting her place Mary in a foster home in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Instead of giving in to her threat that day, I took Mary home, raised her by myself, and gave her the kind of life the County was never able to give her. And while Mary was busy putting together her life and living with me, Trish was putting together a plan on how she could finally take Mary away from me.

I Call Mary's Social Worker

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I call the Social Services office in early 2011 to talk to Mary's social worker.

Me: "Hi, this is Mary Brosnan's dad. I'd like to talk to Mary's social worker."

I'm put on hold.

Receptionist: "I'm going to have to put you through to the social work supervisor."

Goodbye Social Services

At the next meeting with Mary's social worker and her mom, I told them I was going to raise Mary by myself, and I told the social worker that Mary's mom was okay with this, and, in fact, wanted me to. Karen affirmed this to be the case, and the social worker then made a note of this in her file. I also told them that Mary and I had talked and had decided that she wouldn't be going to a foster home anymore, and would instead stay home with me. I asked them if they were okay with this and they both said they were. I told them I would raise Mary on my own, but would like it if her mother would help out from time to time because this was going to be big task for one person. I told them Karen could (and should) visit Mary often, and that I would keep her up-to-date on how Mary was doing, like we had done with all our girls. I wanted to make sure she still intended to include Mary in her life.

Goodbye Foster Homes

Mary stayed only at my home, even though the understanding was that she would stay at both parents' homes and abide by the week-by-week schedule her mother and I had been on for years. But after that first week, when it was time for her to go over to her mom's house, she refused. And even though I emphasized that this would only work if she followed our parenting schedule, she said she couldn't live with her mom and didn't think her mom wanted her to live with her. I called her mom and told her I was having difficulty getting Mary to go over to her house, expecting to have a long discussion about this, but she said that was fine. She wanted Mary to stay with me. And for the first time, maybe ever, we didn't have our usual "discussion" about our parenting schedule, and I was surprised as to why this was.

Settling Back In – March 2009

Mary and Dad working at the SMILES Annual Picnic

In March of 2009 Mary came home with me. Corrections had dropped her case, which meant the County no longer had any say in her life, and her team had dissolved as well. We were out of their hands, and they were out of our lives. It was now just Mary, me, her mom, and for a while yet, Mary's social worker. And even though we had no reason to have to work with the County any longer, Mary's mother still wanted to work with the social worker, and so I would occasionally meet with the two of them to talk about Mary.

Voice at the End of a Phone Line

My Journal — February 20, 2009

Mary was in court today. When I sat with her alone in the little room we talked heart to heart. Not like the social workers do. And Mary came through and cried because she didn't know what the hell was going on in her life..

There is Something about Mary

Despite our efforts to convince Mary's workers to get her the neuropsych evaluation Forest Ridge had recommended, Mary's lawyer and I were running into a brick wall. Her corrections officer and social worker simply refused to do this for her even though we felt she needed this more than anything at this point in her journey to nowhere. In order to get this done for Mary, her lawyer had to hold another court hearing and convince the judge to order her workers to schedule a neuropsych appointment for her. The discussion amongst the team then turned to trying to decide where Mary should, not only get her evaluation, but where she should wait until she could get her evaluation.

Elmore Kid-Jail – September 2008

It wasn't long before Mary got kicked out of Forest Ridge too.

She was only there about two months, but like her other placements, her behavior was more than the staff could handle and required too many of their resources. Mary definitely was not getting better. Things were getting worse for her and it was tragic. This was the opposite of what we had expected for her when we had placed her over a year earlier, and it was the opposite of what we had been promised. This crazy merry-go-round of group homes she was on was not stopping, and I couldn't see that anything was being done to stop it or to help her. All that was being done, it seemed, was to stop any of my efforts to help her. And so Mary was now placed back in Elmore — the extremely punitive kid jail that had a history of abusing children — so she could wait, while the rest of us... well… we had another meeting.

Round Robin Reprimands — September 17, 2008

Besides being upset with me, Mary's workers were becoming more and more upset with her and blamed most of the problems she was having on her. They would often reprimand her when she came to the court house for her 60-day hearings. I hated this. Not that I didn't think Mary was partially responsible for the problems she was experiencing. She was. But then we all bore some responsibility for this placement gone terribly wrong, and I hated that no one would admit this. None of us were free from blame for what was happening to her, but her workers continued to blame her (or me) and took no responsibility themselves for the mess she was in. I hate it when we blame children for everything. Part of their behavior is due to our behavior — a lot of it actually — and we can't expect them to take responsibility for their actions if we don't model this by taking responsibility for ours.

I Call My State Representative and DHS

I contacted my state representative and told her about Mary's plight. She listened to everything I had to say and seemed very concerned. She told me she would mention my concerns to her colleagues at the State Capital and then get back to me. I called her a week later and she told me she had talked to her colleagues and their advice for me was to get a lawyer, or file a report with a state agency. This was frustrating because, not only did I think calling her was reporting to a state agency, but also because I thought she would do something herself, especially since it seemed like what Mary was going through constituted abuse, and I thought state representatives were mandated reporters.

Doctor Joel Oberstar

A social worker at the State Hospital where I worked had been to the Minnesota State Social Workers conference and was telling me about the keynote speaker — Dr. Joel Oberstar. He said this guy has done amazing things with children at The University of Minnesota, and he told me I should consider contacting him to see if he could help Mary.

Whose Discharge Plan? – August 2008

In late August of 2008 I received a copy of Mary's Forest Ridge discharge plan in the mail, and I was surprised to discover there had been some talk about discharging her. I didn't know anything about this. There hadn't been any discharge plans from the other group homes at this point — at least none that I was aware of. I was even more surprised when I found out that her discharge plan was for her to go to her mom's house and not to my house. This is what the plan said — that she was not to go to her father's house when she came home. I couldn't believe this and at first I wondered if it might be a mistake. I immediately called Forest Ridge and talked to the director, Chad, and asked him why this was in Mary's discharge plan and who had put it there. He told me Mary's corrections officer and social worker had told him this was their plan for Mary because they said Mary's problems were caused by the tension between her parents and that "Mary played her parents against each other." He said their solution was to have Mary live only with her mother.

Social Services' Secrets

When I arrived at the Social Services office, I told the receptionist who I was and that I wished to speak with my daughter's social worker, and that's about as far as I got.

Crazy Christmas

By Christmas of that year, my daughter Grace seemed to be following Mary's example and was starting to withdraw from me as well. Like with Mary, I had always had a very close relationship with Grace. And also like with Mary, I was never told why my relationship with Grace was now ending. She had stopped coming over to my house altogether and was now staying at her mom's house exclusively. We still talked on the phone, occasionally, and she would talk to me if I walked over to her mom's house to see her. But she was returning fewer and fewer of my calls and making less and less time available to be with me. But even worse, she would no longer hug me or tell me she loved me and I didn't know why.