I am a social worker in the US and I am telling you, the system is not broken, it has been fixed to do exactly what it has done and I think traditional witches might have a lot to say about this.

I have been a social worker for roughly 20 years. I am a pretty good social worker. I love my job. I am very good at helping traumatized people heal, kiddos thrive, and elder folks stay connected in their communities. That’s what social work used to be, and that is what I was trained for.<br>The foster care system was designed to be a great big safety net, and it was. There was a lot of room for improvement but like any organization, it was only as good as the people in it. I have worked with a lot of great people, but the last five years have been intense.<br>I worked in foster care when the opiate crisis was getting worse, I worked when DBT and CBT and TF were the only modalities anyone wanted to hear about, then I worked in a program for homeless teens and tweens. I worked in private practice for a few years, and now I work with elderly, disabled, and medically fragile individuals. The foster care system was always kind of a meat grinder, and the US has never prioritized the care and feeding of children. But I usually felt like I was helping at least a little and I could always find people to work with who were also trying. That’s over now. I have been saying it for five years, which is how long I have been calling CPS in different states and watching nothing come of it. The foster care system is not broken, it is fixed, and it is doing exactly what it was designed to do. <br>I went back to school to be a social worker because I believe in intergenerational care. I believe that the best way to get babies through the perilous years between 0-5 is to have a lot of eyes on them and a community of people to help take care of them. I believe that older, disabled, and medically fragile people are a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom about the world and the past. If we want to build a better future, I firmly believe this is where you start.<br>I have been doing this work for 20 years now, and I have seen a great many changes. The foster care system is in free fall collapse and has been for five years. It was bad when I started looking for outside help, and it is much much worse now. I have never, ever in my life seen a child actually thrive in a foster home, but I have seen kids thrive after going home, I have seen kids thrive with relatives, I have seen kids placed with adoption that thrive. But I have never seen anyone thrive in foster care. I have also never seen a foster home that was run like a family, have you? It’s always six kids to a room, split up from their sibs, no contact with mom and dad. The kids are usually all split up, and they get one visit a month with their parents and one with their siblings. That’s the best case, but usually visits are once or twice a year if they happen at all. And this is all ostensibly temporary. That’s the whole idea of foster care, to be a safe place to stash a kid while you get their parents ready for them to come home. Or until you find them a forever home if the parents can’t be fixed.<br>I have never seen a foster kid get to go home. Not in 20 years. Paid foster homes are usually it for the kid, and by the time they are old enough to want to find their family, their worker has quit or the system has lost so many records it would take a miracle to find them.<br>Foster care was always bad, but it worked because there were a lot of good people trying. They had training, and they had tools, and they had oversight. There are no foster homes anymore. There are no licensing workers anymore. The minute a child enters care, they are considered “other” and they lose their rights. There is no consent for anything, medical, education, anything. A foster kid is basically a prisoner, and most foster parents view them and treat them like property. And the system is set up to allow this and to cover for it when it happens. <br>I am currently working with an elder who is in a skilled nursing facility. I have worked with her for three years and placed her in the skilled facility during the height of the pandemic because she was still ambulatory and still cared for herself independently. She didn’t need to be in there, but I could get her into that facility quickly, and she didn’t have any support in her apartment. And her major concern was that she would catch Covid. The facility I placed her in was small, it was non-profit, and it had a lot of staff turnover. Because of Covid, they were short staffed, and the administrator was working as a CNA. The food was bad and the place was dirty, but they always had someone available to take my client out in the courtyard to walk around a little. They would sit with her when she was sad and lonely. They would just sit and hold her hand and listen to her talk. And they loved her so much. <br>I have placed a half dozen clients in this facility and the staff are like family to a lot of them, and they were like family to my client.<br>Fast forward three years. A chain has bought this facility and they have fired half the staff and moved the administrator to a different facility. The CNA’s don’t have time to walk with my client or sit with her. I called to see if they could have someone sit in the dining room with her for a few minutes so she could eat her supper. They answer the phone and tell me they are busy. They are always busy, and they are always telling me they can’t do anything. The last time I called, I said I would come down and sit with her so she could eat supper, she has lost a lot of weight and is very dehydrated. I was told they were short staffed and I couldn’t come in. They didn’t have anyone to supervise me. <br>I have taken my client outside to sit and walk after supper, made sure she got ready for bed and even brushed her teeth, made sure she got into bed and brings her cat into bed with her. I have fed her supper, made her snacks, made her drink after drink after drink. I have gotten her up in the morning and fed her and made sure she got cleaned up and put on clean clothes. I have sat and talked for hours with this wonderful lady, and she is always grateful. I am grateful too, because I love her. But this is not care, this is what she needs to survive and thrive. And she is not getting it.<br>I have called the oversight agency for this facility dozens of times. I have called adult protective services dozens of time. I have called the local ombudsman dozens of time. I have gone to court. I have spent hundreds of hours trying to get someone to fuckin CARE for this lady, and no one will fix it. They all say they are short staffed. They all say it’s not their job. I have come to the conclusion that the system is not broken, it’s been fixed. Just like the foster system. <br>I am a very stubborn fucker and I am good at my job in a lot of ways. But I am starting to feel something that feels like burnout. I just don’t care as fuckin much anymore, because no one will touch it and no one will fix it. No one will do anything to make it better. I usually get in people’s faces and get shit done, but just like with foster care five years ago, I am just so tired. I have been saying they fix the foster care system to abuse kids and destroy families and get children who are cute and young and adoptable to rich people, and they have fixed the elderly and disability system to warehouse people and harvest their social security and medicare/medicaid. I think they have the foster care system closed and the elder/disabled system on the way to being closed. What’s next? What else needs to be “fixed”? And where do we go from here?<br>So I am coming to you, witches. This feels like a big work of magic to me. It’s like the whole system is bound up and hidden. I work in this system and I can’t fuckin see it. I can’t get anyone to do anything. It’s so fixed, but it’s not starting from the top down. It’s starting with foster care workers and CNA’s quitting and not being replaced. It’s starting with people not training or new people not being hired. No one knowledge559s what the fuck is happening. No one knows what to do. No one will listen.<br>What do you think is going on? What do you think we should do?