Conversation with Tim Siminski

Tim is the leader of Investigation of Child Maltreatment Team of Berks County Children and Youth Services. He deals particularly with cases of sexual abuse, but helps closely with departments dealing with adoption, foster care, in-home services, out of home placement, and truancy. Tim has been employed with Berks County social services for twenty-two years. Now Tim is a supervisor of the cases for the county, but for twenty years he was an investigator in the streets handling cases on his own. One logistical challenge that Tim has dealt with during his entire time in social services was the fact that there is no real schedule, the work is unpredictable just as the crimes are. Along with this comes the issue of how cases are treated, sometimes you will expect a case to be horrendous and you get to the house and the story doesn’t check out, other times you will be in a situation where you would expect no problems, and the situation is much worse than expected. The definition that the social services department uses ties them closely with county detectives because of the nature of the cases usually things that break social services codes also break crime codes. While working with the kids it is a strong point that the department makes to fix the issue in the home when possible, so that the child can stay with a relative that is not a guilty party. Removing a kid from a home and putting them an entirely new situation is not always the correct answer for every situation. He is also involved in the foster care program of Berks County. This involves placing children in the correct homes as well as making sure foster care parents check out and are properly educated.