Bob is right about not trying to handle this yourself.
You have no idea how this girl's family (or the boyfriend) will react toward the girl OR toward you and your own family members if you try to take it in your own hands. I understand wanting to do something but even as licensed foster parents we are mandated reporters meaning............
Mandated reporters are required to report suspected child abuse or maltreatment – or cause a report to be made – when, in their professional roles, they are presented with reasonable cause to suspect abuse or maltreatment.
Of course, anyone can report any suspected abuse or maltreatment at any time, and is encouraged to do so.
Reasonable cause to suspect child abuse or maltreatment means that, based on your observations, professional training and experience, you feel the parent or person legally responsible for a child has harmed that child or placed that child in imminent danger or harm.
Mandated reporters are taught NOT to try and deal with it themselves they are asked to get the appropriate authorities involved to investigate.
If you make a report to child protection they will investigate and if they find she is in need of help or protection they will give it to her.
Having said that......they have been known to investigate with the school and interview children at school and take them into immediate custody. If that would happen, who knows what could happen to the mini. I doubt the mom or boyfriend would take care of it. I always worry about forgotten or neglected pets in this sort of situation. Our current foster daughter is in long term foster care with us and when she first came to us she had a cat that she'd had since she was a little girl that she was very attached to and to this day she isn't sure what exactly happened to it.
This is a tough one, and who says that child protection would do anything at all. Unfortunately the level of neglect, abuse, etc. has to be pretty high these days and even then you would be amazed at the people that manage to get their kids back after having them taken away and being told to clean up their act and the low standards they have to maintain to do so. The other problem is the good kids that are in the rotten situations but managing to stay out of trouble and attend school and get good grades are the ones that fall through the cracks. Ironically if this girl was truant, shoplifting, getting pregnant, committing crimes herself....child protection would be all over the situation and involved in her life.
It would be great for the girl to be able to keep the mini at your house in exchange for doing chores and helping out with your horses. The very tricky thing is how to go about accomplishing that. Your home would be a wonderful safe haven for her and I bet you would become a second family and much better role models than her own family.
Have you ever considered becoming a licensed foster parent? You sound like a great candidate and like you would be wonderful foster parents.
Kids in the system get a bad rap but for the most part they are good kids and it is the parents that are all screwed up and the kids are victims of the circumstance. We've done foster care for long enough now that we have former foster kids that are grown adults themselves and we see now more than we did back then what a difference we made for them and we've had them tell us so as well.
