With the schedule that I keep I wasn’t able to get an appointment for a ride along. I was however able to get in touch with a social worker and was able to get insight of what they do within the legal system. I had a lovely phone conversation with Shelly Johnson who works as a social worker within the human services department of child protection also known as CPS. She was able to give me an insight what she deals with and sees on a daily basis. Currently her cases load is almost double that of a social worker due to budget cuts and being short staffed, but she does her best to try to get to every case in a timely manner. The first thing I wanted to know was what calls do they take serious and pursue to do a home visit to look into further. She noted that all calls are taken seriously, families are contacted and from that initial contact they decide if further investigation needs to be done. She said that many of the calls come in regarding children who aren’t getting enough to eat or being sent to school in not enough clothing. She said that the winter months are the hardest for some families and many of those families get some sort of CPS contact regarding their school age children. I then wanted to know more about what was the worse that she has seen since working in this division. She told me a story of two kids who being abused at home, and that it took both children being admitted to the hospital before anyone even knew they were being abused. Their mother was hitting, scaring, and bring them in places that couldn’t be seen unless the children were in a state of undress. One night the after a brutal beating the daughter who was 10 at the time went to a neighbors house once her mother passed out and passed out in front of their door. The neighbor wasn’t sure how long she had been in front of her door before she arrived home, but will never forget the state she was in when she got there. She called 911 and officers w