Whistle-Blower #1

    In 1982 my senior social worker, Sue Royster, came to me, her supervisor and Director of Williamsburg Social Services in Williamsburg, Virginia with a problem. One of our foster children, Steve, had been under pressure by his girlfriend Tammy to marry him as she was pregnant with his child. Steve was conflicted by this, explaining to his social worker, Sue Royster, that he really didn't want to marry Tammy and start raising a family as it would be, as he put it, "children raising children." Sue wisely suggested counseling, and he agreed.
Tammy had a very strong personality and was very much the decision-maker of the two. Steve's counseling was going in the direction of him becoming certain about his initial reluctance to get married. He was also working on finding the resolve to tell Tammy this. Sue Royster was an experienced social worker. Before I hired her, she had been a social work supervisor in the City of Hampton's [Virginia] social service department. She had supervised more people than I had in my office. The city of Hampton was large and densely populated whereas Williamsburg consisted chiefly of the College of William and Mary and Colonial Williamsburg. My social service agency was the second smallest one in the state of Virginia. Rural Bath County in the mountains was the smallest.
    Senior Social Worker Sue Royster's problem that she came to me about was that she presciently predicted possibly fatal acting out by Tammy if Steve told her he would not marry her. To Be Continued. Peter Nickerson, MS,MSW
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