Good thread, Katie!
I'm a foster parent AND an adoptive parent, so I have several workers.
My foster care worker is GREAT! I wish she was my adoptive SW. She's really down to earth, we get along really well, and she has a lot of common sense.
NOT true with my adoptive worker. I've had 3 in the last 11+ years. My first was good, a lot of fun, but honestly was not "connected" enough in the special needs/adoption from the foster care world. She had switched from another type of adoption, and just didn't have the connections to help me out. Great lady, though.
Then I moved and had to start over at another agency. My first worker at that agency was an older woman, and seemed empathetic but again without connections. She also seemed bored with her job. That would bite me in the butt later, which I'll tell you about in just a sec. My second (and current worker) at my agency is a stinker. She prefers international adoption, and is an international adoptive parent herself. She also likes infant/domestic adoption, but OF COURSE, does NOT like special needs/foster care adoption. She is aloof, unsympathetic and honestly seems to have NO understanding of the frustration and heartbreak that waiting families go through. I wish to God I could change workers, but she is the only worker at our regional office. (Main office is 4+ hours away). And, as I've already paid half the fees, I can't financially afford to walk away. So I'm stuck with her until I get a placement.
She is irritated that I know more about special needs adoption and have quite a few contacts on my own. Which is funny since she and her supervisor asked me to help write a guide to help other special needs families at our agency! She never admits when she is wrong and can be quite verbally nasty and condescending to me. It's very frustrating.
You'd think that she'd want to be rid of me. Like I've always said, "once I have a placement, I'm out of here!" And she knows it. Ugh.
~~~
Here's my "SW bored with her job" story.
I had traveled to Newark in September 2001 to pick up my son J. I flew in on September 10th. Of course, as you all know, the worst imaginable happened the very next morning, as I watched from the roof of my hotel. I watched as the 2nd plane hit, the towers burned and then fell to the ground. It was horrible.
Worse yet, my J was still at his foster home. Unfortunately, his workers were caught up in the 9/11 tragedy - family members had died - and were unavailable to get him to me. I did get to see him for a half hour or so a day or two later, when it became apparent that the attacks were over.
I was lucky, and hadn't given up my hotel room yet. I'd also rented a car, stupidly thinking I could drive around myself
, which was sitting in the hotel garage. All I needed was to get J and drive back home, as my family could not find a train or bus ticket anywhere for me to return to MN.
But when I tried to arrange for J to leave with me, I discovered a HUGE error. My SW had NOT sent the right paperwork. Phone service was spotty at best, and I tried for two days to contact her. By the second night I was panicking, and my family was screaming at me to just forget J and drive home, possibly to pick him up later.
Well, hells bells, nobody knew what was going to happen. It could have been the start of WWIII, and I sure as heck wasn't going to leave him there!!!
Finally that night, she called, but before I could explain what was going wrong, she told me that she decided that she was having a midlife crisis and she needed a change in her life and had decided to become a psychotherapist. So she quit.
I said, "Are you f***ing kidding me? I watched the towers fall from my g***amn hotel, and
you're having a Life Crisis?????????? HELLO!!!!!!!!"
Then of course, the phone lines died and I sat there in shock.
So the next morning, I called the main office of my adoption agency and asked to speak to the director. The receptionist said he was busy in a meeting. I told her where I was and how I'd watched the towers fall, then she said, "Ohhhhhhhhhh. Hold on." I was patched into a staff meeting and put on speakerphone. I told them who I was and where I was and that my lovely SW had quit.
Yah.........well it turns out she hadn't quite called the director to tell him that.
It got really quiet and I panicked, thinking the phone line had died again. But then I heard the director take a deep breath, and start issuing orders to the workers around the room for them to get the paperwork done and faxed out to me ASAP.
J and I were able to drive home two days later. Yah.........with an 11-page set of directions from MapQuest my mom had faxed me as there weren't any maps or atlases left. I rode from NJ across the US to MN, holding up this stapled packet of directions, I am such a dork.
The important part was obviously J and I arriving home safely, almost a week later.
For pete's sake.
As for most adoption workers............I think I have a different perspective from most domestic and international folks. I believe a big part of it is money, to be honest. The fees (and yes, we do have to pay fees, contrary to popular belief) we pay are a lot lower than infant and international adoption, so I think we're just not as high on the priority list.
But the kids' adoption workers aren't much better. A big part of it is them being overwhelmed with just too many dang cases, which is bad, but easy to forget when you're trying your hardest to bring your child home and the workers are too busy to make decisions and get necessary paperwork in.
Honestly, I think even with interviewing workers and agencies, it's just the luck of the draw. Agencies and workers can be sweet as pie when they're trying to sign you up and take your money for a homestudy - but the true test is after that, when the hard work starts.
It's just too centered on money and NOT centered on finding the best families for kids, as quick as possible. The system is broken and we all know it.
I'm just glad to hear that some folks had a lot more positive experience than I had.
Sandy