Ann's Story Part 8: Jan 2

To the social worker:
January 2, 2003

To Ruby:

Hi, me again. We did not get to see the psychologist's recommendations when we met wth the PO, so I do not know what it said about where Ann should live. So I don't have any idea what amount of time you were thinking of for Ann in the two houses.
I wanted to recommend that Ann spend the school week here and weekends with the Mandy and John’s. I don't know if she should go every weekend or just some of them. I personally like this idea better than moving her back and forth by whole weeks partly because she has been doing her homework here. I suspect she gets more sleep since she can leave an hour later in the morning. We can also use the school bus to switch houses...perhaps take the bus from the Mandy and John’s on Monday mornings and then back of Fridays.

Just a thought.

Yesterday was a hard day for Ann. She said that January 1st is the day that Mandy and John opened presents. She said that she wanted to go home, that her mom and dad did not want her because she was bad. Whenever she tells me that she wants to go home or misses her mom she always also tells me that she likes it here.

Mandy sent us a document describing Ann's behavior while she was there. It sounds like Ann had more good days than bad, but that she got into loud quarrels with the other girls on the 24th and the 29th. On the 24th it started with Ann telling the other girls how much better life is here (in what way I don't know) until they asked why she did not just move in with us permanently. Ann became furious and said that she might as well as no one there wanted her. It sounds like things went from bad to worse.

Again on the 29th Ann had an argument with one of the girls that seemed to be centered on whether she was wanted and whose fault it was that she was not there full time. One of the girls told her that Mandy must want her the most because none of the rest of them would be allowed to come back if they behaved as Ann did. Again things escalated.

Mandy seemed frustrated when she dropped Ann off.

Ann was very sad yesterday and said that she likes it here, but that she wanted to go home. I asked her if she thought she could work with her counselor to develop some strategies for dealing with the foster girls at Mandy’s. She said that she tries but that nothing works. No matter what she does she ends up fighting with them.

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Reflections Aprill 2008:
Sigh. So optomstic was I. They were going to work out a sort of shared custody agreement ANY moment. There was certainly no guarantee that it would be permanent, but it would be indefinite.

Part 9