Breaking Point
Casey Watson

It’s a balmy day in July when Casey is called by her supervising social worker, Christine Bolton, who is desperate to place a 15 year old boy who needs a ‘really robust’ family to help turn his life around. Daniel has been rejected by everyone. His mum left when he was eight, his drug-dealer father is in jail, and for the past three years, despite several attempts to find him a family, he’s been languishing in a children’s home, where he’s now involved in drug-dealing himself. 

Given Daniel’s age, this is the final roll of the dice, and Casey and Mike,  

just home from holiday, are brought straight back down to earth. They are also concerned by Christine’s use of the term  ‘really robust’. Do they have what it takes to control this out of control teenager? After much soul-searching about what might happen to the poor lad, they decide to say no.

But that turns out not to be the end of it. A week later, the Watsons are asked if they will take a 14 year old girl for a weekend, before joining her new foster on the Monday.  Bella is a delight, and can’t wait to move in with her new family;  she tells Casey she has been in a children’s home for four months and  has hated every moment. She says she made only one friend there -  a boy called DJ, who had always had her back and stuck up for her.

When Bella leaves, she swaps numbers with Casey and promises to stay in touch, and two days later Casey receives a text message from an unknown number.

Hi, I’m DJ,’ the text reads.  Bella’s mate. I think youse are the ones who was asked to take me but said no. That’s alright, I’m a lot to deal with haha, but anyways, TY for making it easy for Bella, she’s a mint lass, so cheers.

Casey is a bit miffed – this must be Daniel, and he’s obviously been told they’d refused to take him, when he should not have been told anything about it. Christine, when Casey tells her, can’t apologise enough. ‘We certainly didn’t tell him, Casey,’ she says. ‘I’m guessing one of the staff at the children’s home did.  I’m so sorry.’

But something about that text makes Casey and Mike have a rethink. Perhaps they should take the poor boy  – as long as it’s strictly on a trial basis. And within a matter of two days, ‘DJ’ is setting up his Playstation in the spare bedroom.

The first evening goes as well as expected. Dan is polite but seems to want to spend all his time in his bedroom. And it’s from there, at 4am, that Casey gets her first glimpse into the troubles that might lie ahead. Woken by the sound of loud shouting and swearing, she runs to Dan’s room, her knock on the door drowned out by a stream of explicit language. Dan’s in the middle of a playstation game and clearly arguing with someone he’s playing against online. ‘You f**king pussy boy!’ he screams, not even noticing Casey’s appearance.

After a major confrontation, Casey goes downstairs and disconnects the wifi, at which she hears an extremely loud’ f**k you!’ from upstairs, followed by a bang. She runs back up, but Dan’s now curled up with his back to her, his computer off and his controller on the floor. Guessing that’s what he’s thrown, she tells him they will discuss it in the morning.

But it will turn out to be the first of many sleepless nights as Daniel lives up to the  reputation they’d been warned about, and tests them to the absolutle limit. Do Casey and Mike have it in them to get this boy on a different path? Or have they just made a terrible mistake?