Prioritizing

It is so hard to be patient when you know something is right. I know it is time for Akila to be placed out of home. I know it in my head and in my heart. This has been a very hard realization to come to, but I am there. And I am not very patient. Not when being patient means watching my other 3 children be attacked, and myself and Michael as well.

But here is a hard fact. Funding is slim for county and state in this area. I can so easily see this placement committee, whenever they finally have a meeting which is another beef of mine, placing a family asking for out of home placement before us, because we might be viewed "as having our act together". We are a two parent home, I am sure there are some in a similar situation without two parents involved. We are probably economically doing better than a good deal of families they are working with, although we are still quite behind from the 3 months of unemployment. We are probably more skilled than many of the families in a similar situation.

Does this make sense? Not to the person who is sitting here getting their butt kicked (that would be me). But I can see from the county case worker's perspective, that it might make sense. If they have 4 placements available (that is a random number I threw out), and they have 10 families asking for out of home placement, they have to look at these kind of factors. This is assuming that all 10 of these families have children who are being violent or somewhere on the same continuum of issues.

I wish someone would open their eyes and stop shoveling money into juvenile detention centers and prisons, and put it in these programs so we can prevent kids from getting involved with the legal system. I am assuming it is less expensive to put them in a group home than in juvenile detention or jail.

When we are feeling down, or frustrated, there are always others who's lives seem more challenging and we can look and say that we don't have it so hard compared to others. I know there are probably families who have a more difficult time. But that is pretty hard to think about when we are in constant crisis.