Back to what we are used to....

As former foster carers we are quite used to dealing with the scrapings of the bottom of the pond of stupidity that turn up proudly wearing the badge fostering support worker. Sometimes though they come up with something that suprises even us. To be fair to Llamau, the mob that currently take money from the local authority to manage us, they have, after a few initial experiences decided to hide under the nearest stone. This last week though, they appointed a new support worker who decided he was going to take his job seriously. The management and I concluded, after out initial phone consultation that phrases like "out of his depth" and "not the brightest button on the shirt" were appropriate. Things went a little downhill when he sent me a series of increasingly irate texts about my failiure to turn up for a meeting about a young person who wasn't actually placed with us. Puzzled? Yes I was. Still, to recover from that, he said he is going to call a placement meeting about the many issues we are facing with L. He said, he had phoned her several times but she would not answer the phone. I thought I would be helpful, I asked if he had read the case notes, he assured me he had, was there anything in there which might explain why she would not SPEAK to him? He assured me there was not. I did have a moment and ask about the quality of their record keeping. Being kind, I asked if he could recall the lenghty converstion we had but a few days ago, he could, there is hope, thinks I, had I mentioned anything that might indicate that she would not answer the phone, he could not remember anything. I thought it best to politely terminate the call at this point, after all, shouting "she is an elective mute you fucking cretin" down the phone might cause offence. I did actually save him much trauma, I got to the phone before the management who would have had none of my legendary diplomatic skills.... L's SW who is really good is back in work this week and we will have quite a conversation. And thats before we start talking about the CAMHS trainee psychologist who has been doing "counselling" with L She is much more academically inteligent so she is even more clever at being stupid. She was tasked with producing a health passport, this is a document that someone with Mental Health issues takes with them everytime they go into hospital, to explain their special needs. I have not seen it yet, management rolled her eyes when she was reading it this morning.