I’ve settled into my routine for the weekdays. Wake up at 6:30am, get ready, catch the metro at 8:00am, eat lunch and go to CVS with the other interns (seriously, we are there everyday), leave at 5:15pm, then come home and rest. I have never loved my bed as much as now!
Me and Angie on our way to CVS…who knew?!
Jenn and me outside our building. The security to get into this place is the bane of our existence!
Fun in the intern cubicle during lunch!
Speaking of work, it’s been crazy. I feel as though I’m not going to pursue a career with the government as far as an assistant attorney general goes, but I’m not going to discount it either. I like to write, and to my enjoyment, I have been able to draft a few stipulations. I take out facts from a petition and write out these facts with careful wording. For example, instead of saying “Ms. Mom hit Child”, one would say, “Ms. Mom acknowledges that she used physical discipline on Child.” The point of the careful wording is that you want the mother to stipulate to the facts and pass an evidentiary trial. This seems to be the only creative outlet as far as writing goes with court documents, other than a joint pre-trial statement. The others have templates and information is simply filled in to complete the document. There is not a lot of room to add more text to permanency hearing orders, dispositions, initial hearings, etc.
Last week was interesting as far as court hearings go. I sat in on a revocation of protective supervision hearing. The process behind this is that after a child is initially removed from the home but the mother shows a level of commitment to the child, such as taking them to therapy and attending any other court ordered services on a regular basis, the court places the child back into the home of the mother under supervision of the court. If a mother slacks off her court ordered services or neglects the child again, then the court holds a revocation of protective supervision hearing, in which witnesses are called to testify to whether the child was neglected or not. The mother in this case contradicted herself on the stand under oath and did not do what she needed to do for her child, so the judge ordered a revocation of protective supervision. The mother became so upset that the judge had to call the U.S. Marshals in to gain control.
In The Child Protection section, you realize that everyone present is there for the parent(s) – it is not like a criminal trial where one party is for the government and the other party is for the defendant. The mother in the revocation hearing said, “That AAG got what she wanted!” which is untrue in all aspects. After the revocation hearing, my AAG stated she did not want to say she “won” the trial, because she really did not win at all since the goal is reunification of the children with the mother. The social worker who removed the children from the home is for the parent, the AAG who represents the government is for the parent, the GAL is for the parent, the parent’s/parents’ counsel is for the mother, the judge is for the parent – it is a joint effort to help this parent/these parents be the best they can be and achieve their goals. It can be compared to a mother punishing a child for bad behavior. They only want the parent to learn from their mistakes and become a better person because of them.
In terms of roommates, I’m still glad I have mine – they really are the best!
The roommates minus Florieli
The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution
Yes and I with my metro coffee cup. It’s a little tourist-y, so I leave it at home, but secretly I LOVE it!
Advice for the day: If moving to D.C., invest in Verizon as a cell phone carrier. They have towers in the underground parts of the metro, and let me tell you, that would be nice to have since most of the places I travel to are underground. T-Mobile should get wise to this. I can’t get any service until I’m about 3 feet from the top of the escalator.
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