[Suzy]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It does help to know that we are not the only ones this has happened to. I still am in utter disbelief though. It did cross my mind many times that this is the way birth families are treated and that they are usually at much more of a disadvantage than we were.

Graham- you are right, I went to the top very loudly. (My hubby says that these people should have checked with him first about what lengths I would go to for the sake of our family ) Anyway, my name will be recognized for a while. Our agency says they don't know anyone who has ever even spoken to the people at the levels that I went to. I do know that even though the experience was horrendous, God works everything for good. Like you said, hopefully change will come from it. Being me though I'm not willing to sit back and just hope that it happens, so I've started attending the regional foster advisory board meetings. The minutes of the meetings go to the state board, once it reaches there the people that I have spoken with will recognize the incident and know that we are not just letting this go. I know that the child welfare system has made many improvements over the years, but they do still have a long way to go. I know there are also a lot of very good people who work in social service positions and who are in the right job. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people in social service positions who either never belonged there in the first place or are completely burnt out and it is the systems responsibility to also protect children from these people.