Paperwork, paperwork, emergency late night phone call, driving, and more paperwork. That about sums up the life of a foster care case manager.
You are on the job 24/7, 365 days a year. No problem is too small or too big for you to look into and offer guidance about. People ask you great questions and they ask you mundane questions, but you have to answer them all.
Being a case manager is kind of like being a superhero. You are working to make society a better place—saving abused and neglected children from really bad situations and placing them with families who will love them and take care of them. Just like a superhero you have to fight, not with your fists but with your words and your time. You fight through reports, conversations, and court sessions. You’ve probably taken time out of your personal life to place a child (sometimes in the middle of the night) or help a foster family with an emergency.
At the end of the day you go back home knowing that the problem of child abuse is still out there, and it’s harming the most vulnerable of society. You know that the next morning you have to get up—bruises and all—and fight all over again. But still you get up and you fight because these kids are worth it.
Actually, you’re more like one superhero from a team of superheroes, all fighting for abused children. Foster parents, CPS case workers, counselors, church families, and donors are all fighting alongside you, and just like you they wake up each morning—bruises and all—and get back to work protecting those who can’t protect themselves.
At the end of every superhero movie, there is rejoicing that the bad guy has been defeated, but there is also the foreshadowing that another evil is ready to rise and take his place the very next day. The suggestion of another evil is so discouraging, how do superheroes keep fighting knowing that the fight may never end?
I don’t know how superheroes keep fighting, but I know how the case managers at 4KIDS keep fighting—they have God on their side. Yes, the world is discouraging and the fight against child abuse seems never-ending, but child abuse is sin and Jesus defeated sin on the cross. One day He’s coming back and He will make all things right. There will be no more child abuse or any other kind of sin.
So that’s why 4KIDS case managers get up each morning and keep fighting. They know that although the fight seems never ending right now, they are on God’s side and He will end the fight one day in His perfect timing.