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Child welfare workers to be honored

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PANAMA CITY — Shelf-lives of case workers for Children’s Home Society Florida (CHS) are often short, according to CHS officials.

CHS will be honoring all the child welfare professionals who devote their careers and lives to protecting and guiding abused, neglected and abandoned children for Child Welfare Professionals Recognition Day on Monday.

Many do not see the long-term effects of their work before succumbing to the heart-breaking duty of removing children from abusive homes, said Lisa Aufdencamp, a dependency case manager with Panama City CHS.

“It’s difficult to explain what that is like,” Aufdencamp said. “Strange, but it’s actually easy for smaller children. But if you have to tell an 8- or 9-year-old they are not going to see their parents again, it’s really hard for them because children at that age, no matter what has been done to them, want to be with their parents.”

As a dependency case manager for CHS, Florida’s oldest and largest statewide organization devoted to helping children and families, Aufdencamp said while the rewards may not be immediately apparent, the job is altogether worth it.

“In severe cases we are preventing fatalities,” Aufdencamp said. “In not so severe cases, a constant cycle of violence or abuse would go on if this service was not present.”

A case worker’s job can be emotionally and physically draining. There are times when parents don’t want to have their kids return home and child welfare professionals are the people who explain to a child why he or she is not going home and what process he or she will have to go through to achieve a permanent home.

However, there are those moments when case workers are able to reconnect children with their parents.

To Aufdencamp, this is the best part of her job. She works hard to ensure that children find the stability of a family and receive the love and the support they deserve.

“Some times it’s difficult because you don’t see the rewards day-to-day,” Aufdencamp said. “The initial abuse stops but then the children are put in this whirl wind of events they don’t understand.

“But later on when they are reunified with their parents or put into some different permanent placement situation, they have a better life,” she said. “It’s a better situation for them.” 


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