The Knock at the Door

The Knock at the Door

At the same time, however, Bell was determined to avoid the fate of her former supervisor. One of Bell’s caseworkers recalls that, in the late afternoon, Bell would lean across her desk and lock eyes with her. “Don’t you think you should go make a visit to that family tonight?” she’d ask, all the while nodding so vigorously that there was no doubt what the answer should be. Often she reminded her workers of the consequences of not being thorough enough: “You’re not going to make me lose my job,” she’d say. “You’re not going to have my face on the front page of the news.” Some workers complained that she made them work even harder than she had worked when she was a caseworker. But her superiors seemed to appreciate her approach. On January 7, 2010, she won an award from the agency’s commissioner: a wooden plaque commending her for her “extraordinary efforts to protect children.”