oh thats what that smell was

I think I got a home for Suzie, yay! They are spending some time together tonight and then I will do a pre-placement meeting with the foster parents tomorrow morning to see if they want to go forward with placement. YAY again! Going to a structured placement will be a bit of an adjustment for her, but I think they will be able to deal a bit better with her behaviors which aren't that a-typical. Hope all goes well. Also my coworker Lilly was able to take Suzie to school and back so I didn't have to get up as early. Whooohooo! One of my least favorite things is to get up early!!! probably good thing I don't have kids of my own :)

Did a supervised visit with Jamie and her dad. Mom got a detox bed yesterday so she couldn't be there. She called during the visit saying she didn't think she will stay (at detox). Sure hope she does because I'm afraid she will overdose again, and this time not survive. Also its probably easier to detox there, then at jail. I think dad was on something (if he wasn't on something, he wouldn't probably be functioning-hard to go cold turkey on a 10 balloon habbit). Unfortunately he is probably going to jail Monday after drug court so he'll get to detox there. I actually feel realy bad for him and his wife because detoxing from heroin is a horrible, horrible thing.

Speaking of that the one thing that makes me sadder and madder then anything else is babies born addicted. BABIES SHOULD NEVER, NEVER, NEVER have to go through that. Here in my state we have a huge probem with perscription drugs, so even "normal" looking people have babies that are addicted. They don't screen babies unless they start to show signs of withdrawal. Many babies on opiates, don't even start showing signs until 48 hours after birth and by that time they are discharged. So they get to withdraw without any medical intervention. Lucky them. If the mom continues to use and breastfeed then they don't withdraw as bad, but if she uses and doesn't nurse, then she is high and can't take care of the baby while he/she withdraws. Thus setting up the awful cycle of neglect.

CPS talked to me about a baby today thats pretty bad off in the hospital with a bunch of different drugs in his system. Although this is a sad situation, he is going to receive medical care, and he will be placed in a home that can nurture him and meet his needs giving him a chance. I know this won't chance some of the effects of the substances he has been exposed to, but in a good home he can receive the interventions that will help him do the best he can with any limitations.

On a lighter note (probably only funny for those of us who deal in this sort of area), on the last visit with Jamie and her parents, they found a pipe in the diaper bag. They were whispering to each other about it and thought I hadn't noticed (I was typing notes). Hello! I'm there to supervise I'm going to be watching and listening to what you are doing even if I look busy at other things! Anyways they decided to put it back. After the visit I talked to foster mom who had no idea what I was talking about, and said she had been through the diaper bag. So I had to explain what a pipe looks like. Pipes are usually ordinary objects that have been altered a bit. In this case it was a pen tube (ie the top and bottom screwed off and the ink thingy removed) that was singed/burned on one end. It was pretty funny because she had wondered why there were so many of these broken pens around when they cleaned out the bedroom (this is a kinship foster mom).

Our local drug task force offers good trainings on what to look for if you are worried about drug use and I would highly recommend everyone, especially people with teens, take similar trainings. In one of them they even lit some pot so people would know what it smells like (don't worry, it was old stuff and they did it so that you couldn't get high!). After that, I finally understood what it was some of my highschool aquaintances were doing during lunch :)