Tell me if I’m wrong – I let a motorcycle club walk my client into a courthouse and now my supervisor is threatening to fire me.
I’ve been a social worker for nineteen years. I’ve had cases that keep me up at night, cases that made me want to quit, cases I still think about on holidays. But this one – this seven-year-old boy named Dustin – this is the one that might cost me my career.
Dustin has been in foster care since he was four. He was supposed to testify against the man who hurt him. His biological father. The same man who sat in that courtroom every single hearing with his whole family behind him, staring Dustin down in the hallway like he was trying to break him before he even got to the stand.
Two weeks before the hearing, Dustin stopped eating.
His foster mom, Brenda, called me crying. She said he was hiding under his bed every night, saying his dad’s friends were going to “get him” if he talked. I reported it. I flagged it. I requested a comfort dog, a separate entrance, anything. My supervisor, Denise (52F), said the county didn’t have the budget and to “prepare him emotionally.” That was her answer. Prepare him emotionally. He’s SEVEN.
So Brenda told me about this group she’d heard of. Bikers Against Child Abuse. Actual organization, been around for decades. They escort kids to court, stand outside, make them feel safe. Big guys on motorcycles who show up and basically say, we’re here for you, nobody’s going to touch you. I looked into it. Legitimate nonprofit. Background-checked members. They’ve worked with courts in other counties.
I called the local chapter. A guy named Rick picked up. I explained the situation. He said they’d be there.
The morning of the hearing, fourteen motorcycles pulled into the courthouse parking lot. Dustin was shaking in Brenda’s minivan. He hadn’t slept. He’d thrown up twice on the drive over.
Rick walked up to the van, knelt down, and said, “Hey buddy. See all those bikes? Every single one of those people is here because of you. Nobody’s getting past us.”
Dustin got out of that van and WALKED into the courthouse holding Rick’s hand. Head up. Not shaking anymore.
His father’s family was in the parking lot. They saw the whole thing. They called Denise. Denise called me before Dustin even took the stand.
She said, “You brought a GANG to a courthouse. You are done.”
I tried to explain. She cut me off. She said I acted without authorization, that I put the county at liability risk, that I involved “unvetted civilians” in an active case. I told her they were vetted. She said she didn’t care, that I went around her, and that she was filing a formal complaint with the board.
My friends and family are split. Half of them say I did the right thing and Denise is covering her own ass because she denied my requests. The other half say I should have gone up the chain instead of going rogue, that I handed Denise the ammunition to bury me.
The board review is next Thursday. But that’s not even the part I can’t stop thinking about.
After Dustin testified – after he actually got through it – Brenda pulled me aside in the hallway. Her face was white. She said Denise had called her too. And what Denise told Brenda about Dustin’s placement –
What Denise Said
She told Brenda they were reviewing whether Dustin’s foster placement was still “appropriate given the disruption to case management.”
That’s the language she used. Disruption to case management.
A seven-year-old who just testified against his father, who just did the hardest thing he will ever do in his life, and the county’s response was to float the idea of pulling him from the only stable home he’s known in three years. Brenda has had him since he was five. He calls her house home. He has a drawer with his stuff in it. He knows which cabinet the cereal is in.
And Denise called her to say that might be under review.
I don’t know if it was a real threat or a pressure tactic. I don’t know if Denise was trying to punish me through Brenda, or if she genuinely thinks the placement is compromised because of what I did. I don’t know which version is worse.
Brenda was shaking when she told me. She kept saying, “They can’t move him now, they can’t move him now.” Like if she said it enough it would become policy.
I told her I didn’t think it would go that far. I said it to calm her down. I have no idea if it’s true.
Nineteen Years of This
Here’s what people outside this field don’t understand.
You don’t last nineteen years in child welfare because you’re a rule-follower. You last because you can tell the difference between a rule that protects kids and a rule that protects the county from liability. Sometimes those are the same rule. A lot of times they’re not.
I’ve followed the process. I’ve filled out the forms. I’ve sat in the meetings where we talk about “trauma-informed approaches” and “child-centered practice” and then been told we don’t have the budget for a comfort dog. I’ve watched kids get failed by the system in real time while I’m holding a clipboard.
I’ve also seen what happens when a worker goes rogue for the wrong reasons, makes a call that feels righteous in the moment, and a kid gets hurt. I know that’s the argument against what I did. I’ve made that argument myself, about other people, in other situations.
But Dustin wasn’t eating. He was throwing up in a minivan at seven in the morning because he was terrified of the people who were supposed to be nowhere near him. I had documented that fear. I had requested intervention. I was told no.
So tell me what the right move was. Because I genuinely want to know.
What Rick Actually Said to Me
After Dustin was inside, after the hearing started, Rick stood out in the parking lot with his guys and I walked over to thank him.
He’s not a big talker. Big guy, gray beard, hands that look like he’s worked with them his whole life. He just nodded when I thanked him and said, “We’ve done this a lot.”
I asked him how they got started, the organization. He told me the founder was a therapist who worked with abused kids and kept watching them fall apart on their way into courtrooms. Said he saw a kid once who was so scared he couldn’t get out of the car at all. The hearing got postponed. The case almost collapsed.
So the therapist reached out to a local motorcycle club. Asked if they’d show up. They showed up.
That was 1995.
Rick said they’ve escorted somewhere over a thousand kids since the local chapter started. He said the thing that works isn’t the size of the guys or the leather or the bikes, exactly. It’s that the kids feel like someone chose them. Someone showed up on purpose, just for them, not because it was their job.
He said, “Your boy walked in there like he had an army. Because he did.”
I held it together until I got to my car.
What the Complaint Actually Says
I got a copy of Denise’s formal complaint through our union rep on Tuesday.
It says I “coordinated with an outside organization without supervisor approval,” “failed to document contact with third parties in case notes prior to the event,” and “created potential liability for the county by introducing unvetted individuals into an active court proceeding.”
The unvetted line is the one that gets me. Because I have the documentation. Background checks, 501(c)(3) status, letters from three other county courts where BACA has worked without incident. I had all of it. I sent it to Denise the morning I called Rick, two weeks before the hearing, with a note that said I was exploring options given that the county’s resources were insufficient.
She didn’t respond to that email.
She didn’t respond, and then when Rick’s crew pulled into that parking lot and the father’s family started making calls, suddenly I had acted unilaterally and without authorization.
I have the email. My union rep has the email. The timestamp is two weeks ago.
Denise knows I have it. I think that’s part of why the Brenda call happened. I think she’s trying to establish that this whole situation is chaotic and unmanageable and I’m at the center of it.
I might be wrong about that. I’ve been wrong about people before.
But I’ve also been doing this for nineteen years.
Thursday
The board review is in four days.
My union rep, a woman named Carol who has seen everything and is not impressed by anything, told me to bring documentation, stay factual, and not editorialize. She said the email is good. She said the BACA organization’s track record in other counties is good. She said the fact that Dustin testified and held together is, in her words, “not nothing.”
She also said Denise has been with the county for eleven years and has friends on the board. She didn’t say it like it was a death sentence. She said it like I should know the terrain.
I know the terrain.
What I don’t know is whether doing the right thing and keeping my job are going to be possible at the same time. I’ve watched that happen to other people. I always thought I’d feel cleaner about it if it happened to me.
I don’t feel clean. I feel scared. I feel like I’m going to sit in front of a board and explain why a seven-year-old needed fourteen motorcycles to feel safe enough to tell the truth, and I’m going to have to make that sound like policy rather than just what it was.
Which was: a kid was drowning and I threw him something to hold onto.
Brenda texted me this morning. She said Dustin asked if Rick and the guys were going to be at the next hearing too. She said he wanted to know if he could bring them a drawing he made.
He drew fourteen motorcycles. One for each of them. He labeled it “my army.”
I don’t know what happens Thursday. I don’t know if I’ll still have a job by the end of next week. I don’t know if Denise is going to find a way to use Dustin’s placement as leverage, or if that threat evaporates now that the testimony is done.
But I know that kid walked into a courthouse with his head up.
And I know his drawing has fourteen motorcycles in it.
That’s what I’ve got.
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If this one hit you, pass it along. Someone out there needs to know this organization exists.
For more stories of standing up for what’s right, even when it puts you in a tough spot, check out My Foster Daughter Asked If Anyone Would Be There for Her. I Made One Phone Call., or read about what happened when My Superintendent Told Me to Act. Then I Opened the Envelope.. And you won’t want to miss the intense situation when I Grabbed a Teenager’s Arm at the County Fair and Now I Can’t Stop Thinking About What Curtis Filmed.
