We've all been talking about the challenges, I guess, is to put it mildly, the train wreck that is a DCS, the Department of Children's Services here in Tennessee, where we have found out just over the last couple of days, even more disturbing stories about what is going on at the Department of Children's Services. I want to welcome on into the program Wendy Rutherford, adoption and custody attorney. Now, Wendy, appreciate you helping to shine some light and maybe help us understand the challenges that is going on there at DCS. And so you worked at DCS while you were in law school. You've worked with DCS in some capacity for, I mean, years, almost your entire career as a lawyer. You spent 15 years on the Foster Care Review Board. And so I'm glad to have you on and thank you for this. I'm sure that you've heard all of the horror stories the last couple of days where we have found out, among other things, that kids are still sleeping in the offices of DCS. There was one kid who had meth while in the offices of DCS and another kid who escaped and escaped with a younger child and trafficked that child. I mean, these stories are horrifying. Were you surprised by all this? Thank you for having me on. And in answer to that question, no, I wasn't really surprised. It is the department is in crisis. Our entire system is in crisis, not just in Tennessee, but nationally as well. We have we do not have adequate treatment for children who are in care and they are coming into care a lot more traumatized. traumatized and with a lot more needs than previously. And it's just been a real challenge. And in Tennessee, and especially in Davidson County, Tennessee, we have just a tremendous shortage of workers to do the job. We have a lot of kids who need help and not enough people to provide those services. We also don't have enough foster homes to house the children. that come into care. So it is a crisis. And most recently, there's legislation that has been proposed to allow children who have been placed in state custody because of dependency and neglect to be basically locked up. And there's a lot of concern about that legislation. So what is the Foster Care Review Board? What is that? Anytime a child comes into custody because of abuse and neglect, we call that dependency and neglect, their case has to be reviewed by a judicial officer or a specially appointed board every six months to ensure that every child has a permanency plan, a pathway to get out of care, to have a goal either through adoption, placement with a relative, return to parent, something of that nature. The Foster Care Review Board reviews that plan, reviews the department's efforts with regard to that plan, reviews the parents' efforts with regard to that plan and makes findings and recommendations to the court. So a couple of things. Number one is I've heard differing opinions as to what will fix this problem. You have some that will say, well, funding is an issue, but you have other people that say, no, no, there's plenty of funding. So from your vantage point, Wendy, what do you say? Is funding the issue or is it the managing of the funding that they do get? I think it's both. I think we do need more funding, but the turnover, especially in Davidson County, is tremendous. We hire people and they don't stay that long. They average about a year, a year and a half. And they're expected to perform miracles. They've got a lot of stuff that they have to take care of. And not only do they have to do that, but they also have to document everything that they do. And if it's not documented, it didn't happen. And that documentation comes in very important later on as we, you know, have subsequent hearings about what's going to happen with the child who's in foster care. So it's a daunting task that we ask these people to do. Now, they're being paid a heck of a lot more than they did when I was employed by the department. I worked for the department in 1986, and I made $13,500 a year. And I think they're at about 50 now. But it's still a very challenging job, very emotionally challenging. And, you know, there's just a lot that's expected of them. Well, let me, Wendy, if I may, let me ask you this. So 9113 on our text line says this, drop the bachelor degree requirement and do on the job training and DCS would have a ton of people apply. What are the I mean, if this is one of the big challenges, what are the requirements? Well, it's a social it is a I disagree with that. I don't I don't think that we should drop the requirement of a bachelor's degree. I think that they do get a lot of on-the-job training when they are employed. It's a civil service position, but we have a certain amount of points that are added to your civil service score to get you up on the registry for things like being a veteran and other things like that, which doesn't necessarily, and now it can, but it doesn't necessarily translate into appropriate skills to be able to do this job. But if you really are compassionate and care about what you're doing, you're going to get burned out. Because it's an impossible thing to do, to carry your emotions that way for that long. Real quick, Wendy, I'm going to check traffic. So hold on. It's going to take about 15 minutes. Then I'm going to come back. One of the things that I'm I'm going to ask you is that there have been accusations made that there are families who are not being told the whole truth about the kids that they are fostering. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm going to ask your opinion on that. Wendy Rutherford is a joining us adoption and custody attorney. So that that was one of the one of the things that I've heard a number of different times is that families are not being told the true challenges of the child that they've agreed to foster. I'm sure that happens, but I don't know that it's necessarily intentional. There's both state and federal laws that require full disclosure when a child is placed. But if you don't know, when a child first comes into care because of abuse or neglect, there's a lot of things that you're not going to know about that child. So you have limited information when you're placing children. And, you know, some of this is just getting to know this kid, getting to understand trauma. Trauma is huge, hugely affects a child in the way that they respond in a safe environment. they respond because they have a heightened sense of, you know, fight or flight. That's part of what happens with kids who've been traumatized. And we don know everything when they first come into care We try to get assessments we try to get a lot of services for them But there really since COVID we have had a lot of treatment facilities closed. We don't have the same amount of services that we've had in the past. And we have kids with a tremendous amount of needs. So I'm sure that it does happen, but I don't believe that it's necessarily intentional. I think it's more, we just don't know. One of the things that was part of the story a couple of days ago that I covered was that they've got funding to build these facilities. And I mean, they've had the funding, but apparently the homes won't even break ground until like late this year, 2026. We're now just getting into March. Why does it take so long to get these facilities built? That's a great question. There's a lot that goes into making sure to preparing for these children, being prepared for them. I don't really have a good answer to that question about why it takes so long. If the funding gets approved, I don't understand why it would take long to build the facility. But as with anything governmental, it takes a long time. Does there need to be some more or some different oversight? I don't know, maybe by the state legislature. I mean, how do we I've been here for 12 years. I've been talking about this same issue. I kid you not for 12 years, obviously off and on. So what is the ultimate answer here as somebody who has been involved with DCS for many years? years and you're an attorney of adoption and custody attorney. Do you have an answer to how to fix this? I don't. I will tell you that there are lots of there are lots of problems. For instance, when parents go in and come into the system with their kids, they've been accused of abuse or neglect. They are entitled to court appointed counsel. Our court appointed counsel are paid $60 an hour. The guardian ad litem is a person who represents the child in these proceedings. They're paid $60 an hour and they have caps. So they can be expected to work long periods of time without getting paid. There are shortages of foster parents. People like to complain about the system, but very few people are willing to put their money where their mouth is and get involved. I mean, you don't have to just be a foster parent. There are also opportunities to be respite parents. There are opportunities to be supportive of foster parents and caseworkers. CASA volunteers, court-appointed special advocates are huge. They're involved in these situations. There's lots of opportunities to get involved, and very few people are willing to do that. And we have children heal in positive relationships. We know that, but we don't have the people that are willing to get involved to make that difference. And until people do, until people start to value children and try to be a part of the solution, we're going to continue to have problems. Let me ask you. No, I agree with you. I do. How do you convince people, though, to become foster parents? I mean, number one, there's all kinds of horror stories out there, as you as you no doubt know. How do you convince people to to to to help these kids? I mean, is there any kind of any kind of a, I don't know, piece of legislation or some sort of a advocacy group that can try to get more people involved? i a person from my perspective i i look at the church and i'm going to say you know replete through the bible you know god is telling his his people his people that they need to advocate for the widow and the orphan that true religion is taking care of the widow and the orphan and i think going to church and sunday school is great it's fun it's wonderful but at some point in time, you've got to step foot outside the doors of that building and start to put your religion to work and to do what's being called of you to do. When I was with the department, we used to have a program, One Church, One Child. We went around two churches and tried to recruit foster parents in churches because that's where a lot of our folks come from. But people just have to be convinced that we that the children are you know I hate to quote this song because I hated it at the time but children are our future I mean we can change the trajectory of society one way or another by taking care of our children children who end up in foster care children who end up in detention have a much higher rate of going to prison than children who don't we need to make the difference we have all these kids uh that are in staying in the the dcs offices and again this has been going on for a long time is part of the solution here investing in i don't know start building orphanages again or or you know boys homes and girls homes that kind of a thing well we do have group homes and they're they're run by people i i'm not a fan of group homes I honestly I mean we do have them and we have secure treatment facilities we have those or we don't have enough of them and there are a lot of waiting lists but where children really have an opportunity to heal is where they are in relationship with caring adults that they can trust and that happens the best in a foster home I've heard a lot of foster parents say I don't want to do foster care because I don't want to get too attached and then have to give that child back. But what people don't understand is we're adults, and we have the opportunity to regulate our emotions. We have the life experience to do that. Kids don't. Kids are vulnerable, and kids need trusted adults to invest in them emotionally and otherwise and to provide a safe place for them to be. And if I could say anything, if anybody's listening to this and wants to be a part of the solution, there are plenty of ways that you can do that. And it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a foster parent. There's a lot of other opportunities. There's a wonderful organization called Tennessee Kids Belong that provides services to foster homes and foster kids. They help recruit adoptive parents for older children. I mean, there's just there's plenty of ways that people can get involved if they want to be a part of the solution. And that's that's the key. Do you want to be a part of the solution or do you just want to complain? Well, I would say, Wendy, you you yourself have adopted a child that you fostered. So, I mean, you are somebody that walks the walk. I did. And I will just say he is one of the joys of my life. He's 44 now, and he is absolutely the joy of my heart. He was not an easy kid, and he spent seven years in foster care. Part of what I do is try to prevent children from having that kind of a legacy. It shouldn't happen. Children need permanency. They need stability. They need to know that they're safe and secure, and that's where real healing starts. and we're not going to we're not going to see that happening until more people get involved and start putting putting boots on the ground put their money where their mouth is do do the do the work wendy thank you very much for joining us here on supertalk 997 a great insight into a perpetual problem here in Tennessee And love what you do It the kind of music that makes you want to drink a monster and punch some drywall Yeah. Wow. Not Mason. What's your name again? Sam. Sam has been dying to play this. He was throwing this in my headphones at like 5.30 this morning. I'm like, dude. What is this? It's terrible. is what it is. Didn't you just say you listen to Linkin Park? Oh, I like Linkin Park. It's somewhere I belong. It's been used in these multimedia memes to describe American veracity in culture. Okay. Thank you, Sam. I'm your memeologist. No, that is Chris is the memeologist. You are the memeologist apprentice. Listen, I am but a humble meme farmer. I tend to my memes and they bear fruit. That they do. I study them and break them down. See, that's where the ology comes in. I pay no attention to them whatsoever, as a matter of fact. That's why we have more fun. You know, my... I'm going to throw something at you. Amy actually loves Linkin Park. And so when we're listening to... I'm going to air quote this. Her music and her playlist. And Linkin Park comes on. All I can say is I don't change it like I do some of her music. Like Cardi B, for example. Talking about all the stuff she listens to from 1995 forward. Yes. Did you see Cardi B came out yesterday and endorsed Jasmine Crockett? What? You didn't see that? Why is that surprising to you, Joan? Okay, well. Cardi B, that tracks. She said Cardi B said, Jasmine be like one of us. okay well good for cardi b and good for jasmine crockett the problem is the the democrat party uh is not on board with cardi b i think this actually pushes jasmine over the edge do you this is what she needed to beat talarico to get that cardi b uh that cardi b voting block people were looking for the cardi b endorsement is that really it might have come too late so uh Can I ask a question? And the four of us can participate in this. Do you have a... I have come up with now a new tradition for the crisscross handoff. Okay. Given the fact that this is my last segment of the day, I have a celebratory cup of coffee from Wally's Bean Machine here in the kitchen. And so my favorite for 835 is the, and this was a Chris Hand recommendation. It was hot chocolate and espresso and milk. Are you doing it with just the regular amount of espresso? Mm-hmm. Okay, you got to add another double shot. I don't know how to do that, though. I don't know how to do that, though. You just go back in, leave the cup there. And press the button, yeah. Yeah, and press the button for two shots of espresso. You'll have to show me. I don't know why you would need the instructions. You would select that option the same way you just selected the hot chocolate and espresso. You know how when the hot chocolate's done cooking, dropping into your cup, and you take the cup away? Yeah. You don't take the cup away, and you push another button. Okay. Joan, will you show me which button? Oh, my gosh. I'm just kidding. Is this what the kids call weaponized incompetence? Yes, that's exactly what it is. Honey, I don't know how to do laundry. I'm sorry. You're going to have to do it in folding clothes? Yep. Do you know that when I got married the second time? I thought your eyes were going to fall out of your skull there. I had to adjust the way that I folded towels. I never knew in a million years that I would have a wife that had an irritation with how I fold towels. My actual quote was, you should be happy I'm folding towels. What's the wrong way to fold them, Dan? My way. She had a way. I don't know. I couldn't even describe. You know what? Okay. I feel like towel folding is a very personal thing. Thank you, Joan. So know what she does, Joan? Maybe you can help. Okay. Dan really wants to sleep on the couch all weekend. I will fold the towels. And when I was, you know, in my previous towel folding career, I would fold the towel the long way. So I'm holding it, like, horizontally, right? And I fold it. That's the wrong way. Yeah, what an amateur. That's like the spring training of towel folding. Okay, so then Amy said, what in the H are you doing? And I had to start folding towels her way. And her way is, I guess it would be considered the long way, but she can fold her towels up when she folds them into little rolls. It's like a towel roll when she's done with it. Oh, my wife does that too. Yeah, it's like a hotel thing actually. It's like, oh, it doesn't come undone if you toss it on the bed. It stays together. Which, by the way, she's listening. She's actively listening to this segment. Okay, good. Hello. She's on the YouTube chat. Sam's wife? No, your wife. Oh, my wife? Yeah. Oh, your wife. Your wife is in the YouTube chat actively listening to this segment. Did she see the eye roll when I said when I got married the second time? I don't know if she saw the eye roll, but I didn't know who she was at first. And she said, my playlist does not start in 95. It starts with music in the 60s. Oh, she had to correct me there. Amy, I'm sorry. You know what? Come into the YouTube chat with a better user handle on the front end. And if she didn't see the eye roll, you could just rewind. It's about the same if you rewind about four and a half minutes. John says most towel folding is different from woman to woman. Is that true? I didn't know that. Listen. Look, there's different ways you can do it, but it depends on how a woman stacks her linen closet. Okay, so do you want to hear a funny dance story? Amy's going to be horrified at this. Perfect. At least she's been warned. Don't forget to hit like while you're in the chat, Amy. So I forget why I did this. But I got mad one time. And I think, have I said this on the air before? I got mad one time because we didn't have any towels. Joan, I ordered on Amazon, I think, 25 to 35 towels. What? On purpose? I get irrational sometimes. So I ordered, like, now we are, like, overrun with towels. And she's like, whenever you get, like, stupid and belligerent, these are the things that you do. And so now, every time we have, like, we have towels hidden all across the house. Because we have no place to put them. Yeah, because we have no place to put them. Riker's got some in his room. I've got some in my room. But why didn't you just throw out the old towels? Because the old towels, if I remember correctly, didn't need to be thrown out. I was just being pee-issy because there were no towels that were clean. So instead of washing them and getting those towels in an hour and a half, you decided Amazon two days or less would be a better move. Yep, sure did. And you didn't think about how you were buying more things for her to wash and fold? Not at the time, but I often hear that now. And if I was a betting man, if I was a betting man, you probably didn't stay with the current color scheme. No. No, I sure didn't. Did you go basic hotel white? I've got, no. The ones that I ordered actually are fluffy and like a bluish hue kind of a thing. Why does that shock me less than ordering plain white? And what was the current color scheme before you ordered those? White, actually. So you screwed everything up. I did. But now I know which towels are mine. The several dozen of blue ones. You got several dozen? I told you I got like 35 25 35 You just jumped on Costco I did You know what I went and I ordered They come in like a six pack and I ordered like six I know. This is what it's like being married to me, Joan. So you ordered 36 towels? I'm so sorry, Amy. Isn't my wife lucky? Yeah. Well, she's definitely... She's definitely dry. She's definitely your wife. Don't forget to bring a towel. And yet somehow, with all these towels, there are still times when I'm wandering around the house at 3 o'clock in the morning looking for a towel. Oh, my gosh. I know. I just don't get it. And then you go in my room, you know what you find? 36 dirty towels. Be chill in the YouTube chat. You got to remember, this is coming from a man who takes bubble baths. Angie says, you Amazon buy hard. I'm not sure what that even means. but like a try hard buy hard buy hard oh okay good anyway yeah i do i take bubble baths so i use two towels a day so use two towels a day and do you require them to be washed as soon as you're done using like do you know i'm not i'm not that persnickety how much time is between towel use like wouldn't it air dry and be ready to go for round two you know it's funny you should ask about that, Chris, because my bubble bath bath is on the second floor. My shower for the morning is in the basement where I do my show prep. Okay. Where my window nation windows are. All right. So it's a whole thing in my house. I'm very, you know. Blessed. I am very blessed that I can stupidly afford 36 towels. By the way, if I did that today, because that's when I was making the big money as a PD. If I did that today, I'd have to sell off a child. To be financially ruined. That'd be financially ruined. I would think twice. Now I'm just buying, you know, scully caps. Yeah. Which is buying two. You'd have a hard decision if you had to buy a new towel. Do you go with a towel or do you go with a scully cap? Doc Scott, 2021. He wraps one on his head, guys. You know, the little shing. Yeah, yeah. 1307 says, I would have thought that Dan was on marriage like 10 or 13 by now. I know. You know what my mother said a couple of weeks before she died? Don't piss off Amy. She's the only one that will tolerate you. Damn. I know. By the way, WallysBeanMachine.com. If you value your employees, this is what I've decided. If you value your employees, go to WallysBeanMachine.com and check them out. Yes. because I didn't even get to, I don't know how we get to where we got. I would even go a step further. I would say if your office doesn't already have a Wally's Bean machine, that's an indictment on the company and they don't value you. Are you guys saying that our company values us? Well, I wasn't going to go that far. No, let's not get carried away. But I was going to confirm it means the other companies don't value their employees if they don't have one. Like how a penny from the 40s would hold its value to today. That's just saying. Okay. That's the value. Chris, you got anything for this? Not really. Okay, good. Joe. We can start talking about my towels again. I'm sure that was riveting. The Washington Post lost $100 million last year. Did they really? Was that after the Bezos buyout? Well, yeah, Bezos was the owner. This came after they lost $80 million in 2023 and 2024. Is anybody reading newspapers anymore? No. Nobody reads newspapers. Okay. And then a second question. Does anybody pay for the subscription for newspapers online? I do. I do. I do two. Which ones? I do Daily Mail and Wall Street Journal. How much are those subscriptions each? He doesn't know. He just pays for them. He buys 35 towels at a time. Why would he look up that? In fact, someone even said, I wouldn't tell anyone if I won the lottery. I would just be buying towels. There'd be signs. It's just Dan sitting in a room with a bunch of towels. I don't know how much I pay for the Daily Mail or the Wall Street Journal. Do you think that they're both valuable? I mean, you do show prep. Daily Mail, I love the Daily Mail. Joan knows. I gave Joan my subscription pass. But for your average citizen, if you listen on the text line, or if you're listening, text in, does anybody actually pay for these things? Like, I get it for us for work. Right. But your average person on the street, are you paying for this stuff in the land of free information? By the way, I also pay for the Tennessean. Ugh. Listen, it's local news. It's local news. And I pay for it so listeners don't have to. Does the dog crap come pre-rolled up in it? No. That's the only thing I find it good for. That's an added extra benefit of the Tennessean. Just a bonus. Yeah, but I don't get it delivered to my house. So, anyway, yeah. So, what are you laughing at? Just the fact you don't have it delivered to your house like a mistress. Secondary location, please, for the paper. this guy. I don't understand. I know, right? I don't get it either. You know what? Either I'm slow and I need more Wally's Bean Machine dot com coffee or I'm just not tracking with him today. But that's fine. You know what? Sam, is it? At least you're not like Mason who somehow managed to completely screw up. Did you hear about this, Joe? I was here. Yeah. It was the best. It really was. I had producer roulette yesterday on the show because Sam was in so mason ran a little bit late which is no big deal like he's great that wasn't the issue but he's right the poor guy's already running late because mason works two jobs and i don't know if anybody really knows that like mason is a match we love mason so he was working till 3 a.m the night before right wednesday night he worked till 3 a.m he said he got home sat down just crashed forgot to set his alarm no big deal he's a little bit late we we all forgive him but the poor guy gets here and he pulls up to the gate and he's a little bit too far away from the the key tapper the key card tapper to open the gates because we have gates around our parking lot because we don't trust the lunatics right so he gets out of his car because he's a little bit too far away and for as big as he is he has he's like t-rex arms you know what i mean yep so he had to get out of his vehicle and as he gets out of the vehicle to tap the key card his front door closes and then locks on him. So his car is running, locked, and blocking any and all employees from also getting to work. How long were employees blocked from getting in? I have no idea. I remember seeing Mason just run upstairs panicked. I'm like, what's going on? And then there was another 30 minutes where I had Bell producing. Oh my goodness. I felt so bad for Mason. Can I tell you the best part about this? He drives a Mercury, which is a Ford product, and it's of the year that they were putting all the keypads on the door handles, so that if you locked your keys in your car while it was running, you could unlock the door with the keypad number and get back in it. And when he bought the car, he never got that information. Oh, so he doesn't know what the keypad number is? So he has the code, but he didn't know. Oh my gosh. He knows it has a code, but he doesn't know what it is to be able to unlock the door. Oh my gosh. Well, that sounds like a Mason problem, says the guy who forgot his locker accommodation a couple of days ago. Yeah. I got it if you need it. I know, and you gave it to Murphy. We're planning something for that locker. So, yesterday when we're taping Mostly Peaceful, which debuts tomorrow, 6am, Matt, who I stupidly told my locker combination to, gave it to Murphy. And so now, I'm bracing, do you know that when I opened my locker up today, I opened it up very slowly, because I thought a bunch of ping-pongs were going to come out, ping-pong balls were going to come out or something. I'm waiting. I know that he's planning and plotting something. They're clearly going to hit you with a snake in a can. They're going to do something. The ping pong balls might even be misdirection. We could be planning something much bigger. You know what? Can we have cameras when that's happening, please? That's why it's taking a little bit longer. Okay. You got to get the cameras working and everything? We got to get the cameras. Stage them in the cabinet in the break room. You know what? You know what? Good luck because to get them to get new cameras, I don't want to go. Let's not bring up new cameras. This is not doing it. Don't be dystopian about this. I feel like we could talk the company into it if they know we're messing with you.
