When TikToker Stephanie (@stephaniephil) used to work at CPS, she was a conservatorship caseworker, which meant her job was to reunite families after parents got the services they needed and children got the help they needed.
“I wanted to help families to be better together, not remove children from their homes,” said Stephanie. “No matter what the situation may be, I just did not want that to be my job. So, I got the conservatorship caseworker job, just like I wanted. I was super excited and couldn’t wait to begin.”
At first, her cases involved drug use or parents fighting a lot in the house and needing anger management. As long as the parents were getting help for their problems and willing to work together, they could bring families back together again.
Unfortunately, it didn’t always go the way she wanted. She would advocate for these families in court, but she wasn’t always listened to.
After a few years, Stephanie was promoted into a harsher unit. She was working on the type of cases that you often see in the news.
They involved putting babies in boiling water, parents killing their kids, and severe physical abuse. In these situations, she tried to place children with other family members instead of foster homes.
The case that caused her to quit was with a three-year-old girl. Her dad was out of the picture and nowhere to be found. She was removed from her mother’s custody because her mother and the mother’s boyfriend were trafficking her out of a hotel room.
The little girl was placed in a foster home, only to be trafficked out there as well.
“I want to say, the entire time that she was there before I found out was a week, which is a long time to be in a situation like that,” said Stephanie.
“When I found out, I was at the office with her visiting, and I noticed she was wearing the same outfit that I had just seen her wear just a few days ago. So, she has not been changed. There was just so much dirt underneath her fingernails.”
The little girl couldn’t stop crying, and the only way Stephanie could calm her down was by reading a book to her. If Stephanie stopped reading or walked away, the little girl would cry and hyperventilate to the point where she was gagging and throwing up.
Stephanie could see that the little girl was struggling badly, so she contacted the child’s attorney and her supervisor to let them know something was off at this foster home.
The child’s attorney started digging a little deeper and discovered that the little girl was being trafficked out of her foster home.
Stephanie wanted to remove the girl from the home, but she was told that she would go to jail if she did. This was the case that made her leave CPS, as it highlighted just how corrupt and unjust the system really was.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
