Case Plan -- sort of

The agency worker emailed me after talking with the state worker. This is where things stand:

In order to get custody Gary's dad would need to have the divorce finalized, have a job and a home, take parenting classes, and show stability which in her mind means 6 months of living in one place.

For the foreseeable future, she insists that all visits be supervised at the department. He is not to come to our home or call our house phone. He may call Gary on his cell phone. This is apparently not because he is a danger, but that he can be ornery, loud, and irritable when he doesn't get his way and she doesn't want for us to have to listen to it.

The next permanency hearing is at the end of summer, and the most that could happen then would be that the judge would approve a reunification plan. Whether he does would depend upon whether he had actually done anything, which she doubts he will.

I have so many different emotions, it is difficult to sort them out. Relief is certainly one of them, but so is sadness for Gary. No matter what happens he is not going to get to move in with his dad before school starts. He may not get it at all. The agency social worker says that everyone who knows his dad is skeptical that he will carry through on this plan.

Gary may get his heart broken and I get no pleasure from that.

I am also anxious about how his dad will respond to these restrictions. He said before that he would "not accept" supervised visitation. I'm not sure what that means. The state worker thinks that he might refuse to visit Gary under those circumstances and that if he does it would significantly lengthen the reunification process...if it happens at all. Part of me wonders if this isn't over-kill. Do they really think that it isn't safe for Gary to go to lunch with his dad? Do they think he will drive off with him? Really? They can't be too worried about what he might say to Gary, as they see no reason to restrict their cell phone conversations. I don't think there is any reason to be worried that his dad would physically hurt him. I am inclined to think that he is more likely to behave badly if he cannot take his son out to lunch unsupervised, but I don't really know the history of the case. The file I got was about Gary, not about his father.

Knowing that nothing is immanent helps me not to feel anxious for myself, which makes it easier to remember that this is so not about me. It is about Gary. My role is fairly minimal. I just get the privilege of taking care of him for as long as he needs me.

The rest is pretty much out of my hands.