Home

He's back home after a dramatic and irresolute day at court.

In short: this was a detention hearing, simply to determine where T lives while we sort this all out, but we presented proof that he didn't commit any crime.

The prosecutor argued that they have a strong case against a different kid, someone known to T - T's attorney, of course, pointed out that a case against a co-defendant is absolutely no legal justification for holding T whatsoever. Much drama ensued that I shall not recount.

In the midst of this craziness, T's social worker, for reasons that can only be described as diabolical, filed a report with the judge asking him not to release T back to us, because we have been deemed "unsuitable foster parents" by DCFS (her) due to the fact that we did not report T's problems to them in sufficient detail. This is an outright lie, and stems from the fact that she is currently being sanctioned in the dependency court (the court that handles adoptions, not juvenile delinquency matters) for failing to complete his adoption. She, confused as usual, reacted by sending this report to the juvenile court judge. Her evidence of our unsuitability was the fact that THREE YEARS AGO, we declined wraparound services in favor of family counseling through a local university. Do you feel crazy yet just reading this? To whom did she propose that he be released? Nobody. She wasn't even there. Had the judge agreed with her, T would have remained in juvenile hall for wont of another option.

Thankfully the judge looked at the report from DCFS for less than five seconds, looked right at T and his attorney and said, "I am not paying any attention to this report. I have an EXCESS of confidence in these people, they have been present at every court hearing, they have given him a HOME. They have done nothing but consistently act in this child's best interest."

Finally we were allowed to take T home, but we have to return for a pre-trial hearing and perhaps a trial, despite the fact that the DA appears to have absolutely no case whatsoever.

T is quite a bit more resilient than I am at this point. Last night, he told me that I needed to "count backwards from ten and visualize pleasant imagery" because I seemed a little stressed. Out of the mouths of babes.