I knew that I will drop tears if I read this book - Damaged. However, the knowledge was not sufficient to stop me from reading on the train.A true story that was written by Jodie's foster parent, Cathy, who took her in when Jodie was 8 years old. For the 8-year-old, Cathy was the 5th carer in 4 months! When she first stepped into Cathy's home, she was destructive. So destructive that Cathy announced to her own children that she will call the Fostering Agency that she will stop fostering. What touches me most was her children discussed amongst themselves and told Cathy that they wants Jodie to stay on despite her disturbing behavior.
When Jodie in her own childish way began to revealed to Cathy that she was sexually abused not only by her father but mother, uncle and aunt and granddads, I literally cringe and balled-up in my seat on the train. Face turn red and tears fell uncontrollably. I had to close the book and shut my eyes.
I have never read such bad abuse before. Perhaps the last book I read was Torey Haden's One Child but gosh.. this book was utterly revealing. It revealed how distorted a human's mind can be. How damaged a young girl can be for the rest of her life. It also helped me to see the other side of the social services circle. As I read, I cannot imagine HOW can one girl moved from one carer to another carer, from one social worker to another social worker, yet NOT one person noticed how disturbed this 8 year old girl was! I was so upset because the impact does nothing but ruin the entire life of a beautiful girl.
As this book was written by a foster parent, Cathy was honest enough in her book to share her disappointments towards the social worker and I completely understand how frustrating it can be. Whether the social services are good or not has no great impact on the workers but those who received the fullest negative impact are the clients and in this case, the poor forgotten child.
My boss once said "We are paid this amount of money every month to work with our clients. We jolly well work hard cause we are paid for it! When we get into this line, it's not the "high" pay that entices us but what drives us and our clients should be what drives us!"
As I was going through the child protection re-training again, I kept reminding myself to be on the alert whenever I visit my clients. As a social worker, we can be the voices behind someone who is unable to speak up. If we slack, it's not only work that is not done. It's lives that may be implicated.
I better buckle up, work hard and go forth!