One of the positives from COVID was that it shut down all my regular activities and gave me the time to focus on writing my first book, Children at Risk. The book is a thriller and I wanted to write it for forever. COVID gave me the time and opportunity to do it.
Many years after I worked as a front-line social worker, I am haunted by some of the difficult and heart rendering situations in which I was involved. Though my story is fiction, the emotions of the main character, Lillian, are real.
After having worked as a social worker for forty years, only briefly in child welfare, I was fed up with the inaccurate portrayal of the social worker’s role in movies and books. Police, doctors, and emergency personnel are well represented in a variety of ways in the media, often with a positive slant. Social workers are either portrayed as ineffective and hard hearted, or bleeding hearts with no common sense. This was not my experience in the profession. Hence, I wanted to represent some of the ethical and professional dilemmas faced by competent social workers.
I also wanted to write about children with disabilities that get caught up in the child welfare and justice system. As the parent of a deaf child with additional disabilities, I am sensitive to the complex role of meeting their needs. What happens when a parent is not capable or willing to do what is in the child’s interest? The book gives a shout out to the deaf community for whom I have developed a significant appreciation; two of the children in the story are deaf.
The book can be ordered on-line through Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Friesen’s Press.
Karen Van Rheenen
Author.
See all articles by Guest Author