Simon Says

When I was a total greenhorn social worker, I was allocated the case of a fourteen year-old boy who was in foster care. His mother had got herself into some strange company which she refused to give up; paedophiles among them, so there had been no other recourse than putting him care. Simon was quiet-natured and not the usual steet-wise young man that frequented the streets.
Before I go any further, I should inform you that foster carers in England are in short supply. Good foster carers are even rarer. Simon, unfortunately was saddled with one of the jaded sort. Let's call her Marion. Marion had been a foster carer since the invention of electricity and didn't really care about anything other than the money she got from giving the children a home. She also had health problems, and didn't have the energy to manage any child, let alone a teenage boy.
On our second meeting, Simon told me in confidence, that he didn't like living with Marion, because she was always niggling at him. "Do this, do that," he said, "And, she doesn't give me any privacy."
"In what way?" I asked.
"She goes through all my things when I'm at school. I know because I always find them messed up and not where I put them."
Being worried about the lack of privacy, I did the unforgivable, (as I found out later), and spoke directly to the foster carer about it. Marion didn't display her anger to my face, but by the time I'd got back to the office, I was met with her Link Worker (a Family Placement social worker working as an advocate for a foster carer), who told me that Marion had been on the phone, incandescent with rage at my having the gall to challenge her. The Link Worker, let's call her Sophie, another jaded person, told me in a haughty way that it wasn't my place to take up a problem with a foster carer, it was hers.
I apologised and asked whether she was have a word with Marion, and could she remind her that a certain amount of privacy is a fundamental right for anybody, especially a teenager in a maelstrom of hormones. The underlying message from Sophie's response was that we must tread warily around foster carers, lest we upset them. My efforts to get her to see the matter from Simon's perspective, came to naught.
The upshot was that Sophie reported me to my line manger, for being so argumentative and I had to explain the whole thing to him, ad nauseum. He, as many social work managers did then, sat on the fence.
When I next visited Simon, I told him he should try not to leave anything around in his bedroom that was deeply personal to him. He said he would carry his photos of his mother and other family members around in his school bag, since Marion always went through his things when he was at school. I also suggested he should try and make things up with Marion, because it was horrible for him to have to live there and not get on with her. "If you don't want to face her, why don't you leave a little note behind," I said, "before you go to school tomorrow." He said he would.
The following day, Sophie burst into my office to tell me she'd just had phone-call from Marion. "Why What's happened?"
"Simon left her a note before going to school this morning."
Feeling pleased that he'd taken my advice, I said, "What's wrong with that?"
"The note read - 'Nosey Cow'"
Now, I'm not the best person at holding back laughter and my gaffaws, I was told later, echoed out of the door and right down the corridor. When finally composed, I asked where the note was placed.
"She said she found it under his matress."
"I rest my case," was my reply.