I think when the children tell you of their abuse, it's a lot different to read it on paper than to have a child sitting in front of you.

And that might not be necessarily the best thing because we should look at all of the cases the same.

But I do think there is a different weight that it holds.

Emily Wheeler is a parent support and intake supervisor with St. Francis Ministries, a foster care organization in Wichita, Kansas.

Some states like Kansas delegate certain foster care responsibilities to nonprofits like St. Francis.

Wheeler's group works with children on the first day they are taken into care.

They transport the children from police protective custody to their first foster home.

Nearly every day Wheeler sits in when a staff member tells children they aren't going home with their parents.

With the children they are unaware most times until we explain to them where they are going.

When we first tell them that they are coming into custody we just kind of let them know that the end goal is to get them back home and that it is our hope that one day they can get there.

And we are going to work on steps to get there and we emphasize to the child that they didn't do anything wrong and that we are a safe place.

Wheeler supervises about 10 employees, half work with children as they interstate care.

The other half supports biological parents during the first 90 days after their children are removed from their care.

90 days is when you see the parents really get a lot of their court orders done if they plan to do them.

Then that is when they can use that support to get them in the right direction.

Often times when a child comes into state's custody the judge will order them to do maybe like parenting classes or a substance abuse evaluation, something like that.

Maybe domestic violence, so all of those orders. We help them find the resources and everything they need to get signed up to take those classes.

Wheeler's team works with children and parents who have experienced trauma. They see families at their lowest points.

It is not surprising that burnout is common in the social work field. Wheeler has seen it firsthand, experienced it even.

For her, it happened early in her social work experience. In her first job out of college, she worked with children in police protective custody.

I remember feeling a heavy weight with every child that tells you every horrific story of abuse and feeling so much emotion that it's like you try not to carry that weight.

And so then sometimes you can do the exact opposite where then you don't feel anything at all.

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