Fractured

Social workers: overworked, under-resourced, misunderstood. Still showing up.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to work with some of the nation’s most vulnerable children and families? 

Jenny Hurst is a Child Protection Social Worker entrusted with the Season children. Can she support this family to stay together, without falling victim to her own burnout? 

Lisa Season only ever wanted to be a mum. Is the prospect of having her children permanently removed enough to motivate her to make the changes necessary to avoid losing them? 

All Autumn Season wants is to be part of a normal family, like her best friend, Starr. Will her mum do what it takes to keep Autumn and her siblings together?

Fractured is a novel informed by the author’s experience of working in child protection social work in the UK and Australia.

Fractured is available through most major retailers including Amazon, kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and Apple Books etc… You can purchase your copy of Fractured in e-book or paperback here or here.

You can read a sample chapter of Fractured below…

Jenny

Jenny moved her little magnet on the main office board from ‘out’ to ‘in’ and grabbed the pile of mail from her pigeonhole before downing a cup of water, stuffing the last couple of bites of her chicken salad sandwich into her mouth, then dashing upstairs to her desk to sift through it all. She was tired, thirsty, and busting for a pee, but she had a mountain of notes to write up before she left for the night and a report that had yet to be written but was due in two days – which left only one day for writing it and another for discussing it with the parents before submitting it to the court. She’d have to text Alex and tell him she wouldn’t make it home for dinner. Again. He would be unimpressed.

            ‘Mr Cockburn is on the rampage,’ warned Anne, the duty social worker, as she passed by her desk. ‘You’d better call him back quickly before he has his solicitor call you.’

            Mr Cockburn was fast becoming the bane of Jenny’s working life, the one man who could successfully twist her stomach into knots of anxiety at the mere mention of his name, his disdain for womankind evident in his every utterance. There was always one like that on her caseload at any given time.

            ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’ She was just about to write ‘CALL MR COCKBURN’ on a colourful pink post-it and attach it to the edge of her computer screen along with the twenty or so others when she caught sight of another dreaded green file, strategically placed on her keyboard so that she couldn’t claim to have missed it. Oh God. Not another one.

            ‘Oh, and Sue said to tell you she’s allocated Season to you. She would’ve told you herself only she’s got a regional meeting this afternoon and it’s got a two-day KPI. I know she agreed in supervision you were at capacity, but she reckons this one’s a none-starter anyway – just a visit and a phone call or two and you’ll be able to close it off.’

            Sure, thought Jenny, like she’d never heard that before. She smiled politely as though she wasn’t ready to either have a panic attack, burst into tears, or both. She glanced at the spine of the folder – though their records were all kept predominantly online nowadays, every case still had a paper file to keep originals in like court orders and such.

Season, she read. Summer, Autumn and Winter Season. Honestly, thought Jenny with a sigh, as she wondered what delightful cocktail of drugs these children’s parents had been on when they’d managed to come up with those names, and if she could have some. At least, for once, each of the names were spelled correctly. It could’ve been worse – it could’ve been Summa, Ortum and Wynta. Perhaps the mother was still awaiting the coming of Spryng.

‘And Belinda Wright called for you before,’ Anne continued. ‘She’s been going on about relinquishing young Kai again. He’s broken a window and scratched her car apparently, the little terror, once she found out he’d been lying to her all week about going to school. Sue said you’d better call her too – see if you can persuade her to sustain the placement ‘til next week so you have enough time to write that court report and organise a new placement.’

Sure, thought Jenny, blinking back tears so that Anne wouldn’t get so much as a whiff of weakness – she knew how that had ended for some of the colleagues who had gone before her, and she didn’t want to be next in the firing line. ‘Sure!’ she said aloud, swallowing two paracetamol to stave off the tension headache she could feel building up, before writing out yet another post-it note and powering on her computer. ‘I’m onto it.’

Autumn

From the moment Autumn got home from school that afternoon, she knew it was going to be one of those days and her stomach knotted with anxiety. Her mum was on the couch, out for the count, a carelessly discarded bottle of pills beside her, the TV switched onto the cartoon channel in the background playing babysitter. Her stepdad, Kev, was nowhere to be seen and it wasn’t hard to hazard a guess as to where he might be or what was likely to be in store for them all once he got back if he’d suffered another loss at the dogs.

Winter’s saturated nappy was hanging down to his knees, his toys spread everywhere so that she had to step over them as she carefully negotiated her way towards her little brother, who was conked out on the floor where he’d dropped, fast asleep, a crayon in one hand and a dishevelled Oaty, his comforter in the other. Autumn was just about to lean down and pick him up when her face wrinkled in disgust as her sock landed in something cold, thick, and sticky that had been hidden by one of Winter’s soft toys. Vomit.

            Autumn retched. She gingerly pulled off her sock and discarded it to be dealt with later, then gently scooped Winter up into her arms and carried him to his cot where she kissed his warm, peachy cheek then placed him down as carefully as she could, nestling Oaty in the crook of his arm. His nappy would have to wait, and besides, she’d looked everywhere and there were no more nappies. She’d have to check her mum’s purse and dash to the shop before her sister got home, then get the dinner on before Kev got back from blowing his fortnightly payment on bets and drinking.

            She returned to where her mother lay sprawled on the couch and put her cheek as close to her mouth as she could to watch for the rise of her chest and wait for the reassuring exhalation of breath to hit her face. It did. It smelled foul, but Autumn exhaled her relief.

She moved her mum’s lighter out of Winter’s reach, tipped out the overflowing ash tray, put the safety cap back on her medication and placed the bottle in a high cupboard, then she dampened a towel to scrub the vomit out of the floor before shoving all of Winter’s toys into a basket so she could see the carpet once again. She’d found more of his scribbles on the couch and a little at the bottom of the wall, so she used what was left of the baby wipes to attack those, making a mental note to add wipes to her shopping list as well. 

At least her mother had had the wherewithal to make sure the front door was locked so Winter hadn’t been able to let himself out onto the road again. Last time, Police and Child Protection had come calling not long after he’d been located by a worried bystander who’d found him a couple of streets away dressed in nothing but a saggy nappy, socks and vest on a blowy day, and she knew that both her parents were keen to avoid a repeat visit. She made a mental note to remind her mum yet again to keep her lighter out of reach too before he set the house on fire. She shuddered. She would just bin the lighter – she could always claim Winter had lost it.

The front door opened. Summer was home. Autumn ran to the door to tell her to be quiet in case she woke up their mum or Winter, but the reek of alcohol gave it away before she saw Kev lurch into the porch, his cheeks ruddy, his nose pitted and red. By the looks of him, he’d had another unsuccessful day.

‘Look at the fuckin’ state of this place! Where’s your mother? What the hell’s she been doin’ all day while I’ve been out earnin’ a livin’?’ he demanded.

‘Shh, she’s sleeping.’

‘Sleepin’? At this time? I’ll give her bloody sleepin’. LISA! Gerrup and sort this place out, you lazy cow!’

‘No!’ Autumn yelled. ‘Just leave her be. Please? I’ll tidy up!’

But he lurched unsteadily over to the couch where her mother lay oblivious, picked up the glass of water Autumn had left out for her and threw it over her face and hair. Her mum jumped and spluttered in shock then leapt from the couch. Autumn begged them to stop – prayed for them to stop – as her mum and Kev pushed, shoved and screamed at one other. Soon after, the police arrived.

Jenny

When Jenny first told people she’d chosen to study for a Social Work degree at university, the reactions of those she knew and loved were not what she might have expected had she chosen any other career, especially when she’d said she wanted to specialise in child protection as opposed to mental health, disability, or older people – which might have been marginally more acceptable in their eyes.

            ‘Don’t do it,’ Pamela, her mum’s social worker friend had warned.

            ‘Why not?’

            ‘Where do I start? The massive caseloads, the stress, the pressure, the lack of support, the deadlines, the paperwork… It’s not quite what you’d imagine it might be.’

            ‘But what about making a difference? Keeping children safe?’

            Pamela had shaken her head, wearing the sort of sympathetic expression one might reserve for a small child who, despite umpteen warnings, still hadn’t fully understood they would get burnt if they touched the hot thing. ‘Honestly, save yourself the heartache and run the other way.’

            ‘So, you want to be a child snatcher?’ her grandad had asked. ‘What on earth for?’

            ‘It’s not like that nowadays, Grandad,’ Jenny had told him earnestly. ‘They’re all about keeping families together now.’

            ‘I bloody hate social workers,’ said the friend she’d gone to school with. ‘They ruined my uncle’s life. He hadn’t even done anything wrong, but he still lost everything! We never see him now.’

            Jenny didn’t think she could’ve gotten a less encouraging response if she’d said she’d decided to take up pole-dancing or pursue a life of crime. As if that wasn’t discouraging enough, the media was even worse, for never was a social worker referred to in a positive light – they were either branded as incompetent or interfering do-gooders or scapegoated by the press when things went horribly wrong. Nevertheless, Jenny’s application had been accepted, and she was about to embark on her dream career.

She’d had all the qualities of youthful optimism in spades. Passionate, motivated, enthusiastic – but most of all she’d cared, and she’d genuinely believed that social work would enable her to make a difference to the lives of children and families in need. This was enough to get her through her studies and placements relatively unscathed. It wasn’t until she was about eighteen months in, no longer a sheltered student but well and truly thrust into the thick of her chosen career that she’d realised she’d made a terrible mistake, and that she should have paid greater heed to all those who had tried to warn her.

            And now she’d just pulled up outside The Three Seasons. She took a deep breath and picked up her paperwork. Environmental neglect, she scribbled, noting the broken living room window and an assortment of household items, empty beer bottles, and rubbish leading from the lawn and obscuring the path to the front door. Alcohol use. It was time to go in.

Lisa

Lisa saw the headlights through the living room window and somehow, through the medicated fog of her mind, she just knew it was them. She’d thought she’d done a good enough job convincing the busies that everything was fine, but obviously not given they’d still told the bloody kiddie snatchers to come. Inwardly she cursed Kev. She knew he’d gone too far this time, what with Irina, the old curtain-twitcher next door listening in, but did he take any notice of her? Not anymore.

            ‘Christ, Kev, it’s them again! Quick – hide your cans! Autumn, tidy round for me. Summer, you too, love.’

            The girls whipped into action, and even Kev was quick enough to get off the couch and do as he was asked without argument for once. Lisa stubbed out her cigarette, stuffed the remnants of their takeaway into the already overflowing bin, nudged the dog into the kitchen and closed the door. Then she flicked on the cartoons to distract Winter and told the girls to get on with their homework – all in the space of a few moments before the dreaded knock on the door. She scanned the living room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either, thanks to Autumn’s whip around earlier. Either way, it would just have to do.

            ‘Say nothin’!’ Kev warned, before answering the door with what was meant to be a smile but looked more like a grimace. ‘Come in, pet,’ he told the social worker.

            Jenny looked to be around mid-thirties, her long hair highlighted and swish, her waist tight. It was obvious she’d never had a baby in her life. Did any of these bloody idiots even have kids? If not, who the hell were they to come in and tell her what to do with hers?

            Kev offered her a drink which she politely declined, not that Lisa could blame her judging by the tip of the place. He gestured for her to find a spot on the sofa as she scanned the living room with an eagle eye and smiled. Jenny perched gingerly on the edge of her seat, an ear on the dog they could all hear scratching from the next room, one eye on Kev, and one eye on the nearest exit. For a moment. Lisa realised how important an awareness of the nearest exit must be in Jenny’s line of work, especially when dealing with someone like Kev. She hoped he wouldn’t kick off.

‘Scoot,’ he said to the girls. ‘Go and play with your brother.’ They didn’t hesitate to obey, and Autumn ushered an eager Winter along with them. Thank God for Autumn. Lisa didn’t know what she’d do without her.

‘Hello,’ said Jenny. ‘You must be Lisa Season? And you must be Kevin Black? I’m Jenny Hurst, a Social Worker from Dunstonborough Child Protection. Do you have any idea why I’m here?’

            ‘Not at all, pet, everything’s grand. Enlighten us,’ Kev lied.

            ‘Well, there’s been a report – two on the same day, actually. While you might be able to hazard a guess as to who the reporters might be, their identity is protected by law so I can’t disclose that information to you. One of the reports is that since our last involvement with your family a few months back, the girls still haven’t been attending school consistently or are often turning up late, sometimes without lunch. The other is that police were called to an incident here earlier this afternoon, yet the last we heard you two were separated. Can you tell me any more about that?

            How much did she know? thought Lisa, wondering how much she could tell without telling, giving just enough information to get children’s services off her back.

            ‘Now, I realise this isn’t your first rodeo,’ Jenny continued, ‘and that no-one likes a knock on the door from one of us at the best of times. I realise it can be intrusive and uncomfortable. But just to be transparent, I’m going to take notes of our conversation that will be recorded on your children’s files. In a minority of cases these notes get used in the children’s court, but they most often simply form the basis of our assessment and record keeping. Shall we start with you, Lisa? Kevin, would you mind stepping out while Lisa and I have a chat?’

            Kevin exhaled loudly as though to say he didn’t see the point of all this palaver, then gave Lisa a menacing stare that only she could see on his way out. Shit, thought Lisa, sending up a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that she wouldn’t lose her kids.