[vegaslilqt]

We had our study done thru a private agency since here in NV you have to do foster/adopt, the county will not assist with straight adoption which is our goal.

DH and I are very diappointed with our case worker, here's just a list of our gripes:

1. She has never presented us with any children. We have to do all of our own looking, research, etc. If we find a child I have to email her with all of the info (CW, child ID, fax & email) if I don't have those items she will not send out our study.

2. She never email/calls with any updates on the studies that we have had sent out.

3. We were just matched with a little boy in CA, but. . . The agency refused to let us visit the child, or have any disclosures on him. He was medically fragile, had never lived outside of a nursing home, etc. DH & I were very leary about accepting him. CW kept pushing us to accept this child even though we voiced our concerns that we were unhappy with the communication. She kept pushing us to accept him anyway. GRRRR

4. Now that we turned down the little boy case worker acts 'pissed' at us. I haven't had one phone call or email from her.

5. There are two children that we are VERY interested in & their caseworkers are interested in us as well. Our worker admitted to me that she hasn't bothered to open or respond to these emails since we were supposedly "matched" with the boy in CA.

So. . .from all of you experienced mommies -HELP!! She is the only representative in our state for this agency (no supervisor) . Is it time to give up on her & move to another agency? What should we be expecting (demanding) from her? So far all she's done has take our money & posted about the vacations she's taken on Facebook!! This was a recommended agency, I feel so lost!!

[DianeS]

I completely understand your frustration. It sounds like time to have a sit-down, face-to-face discussion with this worker to learn what each of your responsibilities are, and learn the process you'd have to go through to have a child moved to your home, and learn each other's vocabulary.

Some of this could be mere miscommunication and misunderstanding. I'll use what you posted, and how it usually works here, to explain what i mean by that:

1. She has never presented us with any children. We have to do all of our own looking, research, etc. If we find a child I have to email her with all of the info (CW, child ID, fax & email) if I don't have those items she will not send out our study.

This is how it is here, too, most of the time. Workers do not want to be held responsible for finding a child for you who doesn't work out. Because then you'd be angry at the worker and the agency for presenting the child, rather than at yourself for agreeing to the child. It's considered a liability issue. So here, if you want a child, you do your own looking unless you specifically get an agreement that the worker will look for you.

2. She never email/calls with any updates on the studies that we have had sent out.

In many cases, she probably isn't even GETTING an update. She's sending your homestudy into a black hole just the same as you are. In most cases, the only time a worker is contacted is if her family's case study is selected and matched with the child. So the best you could expect is a phone call from her saying "I don't know anything". Rarely, she might be informed that you weren't selected for a particular child, but is that any help to know?

3. We were just matched with a little boy in CA, but. . . The agency refused to let us visit the child, or have any disclosures on him. He was medically fragile, had never lived outside of a nursing home, etc. DH & I were very leary about accepting him. CW kept pushing us to accept this child even though we voiced our concerns that we were unhappy with the communication. She kept pushing us to accept him anyway. GRRRR

This is what I mean about talking with her about vocabulary. Here, you HAVE to accept the match in order to get any additional information about the child. Accepting a match is not the same thing as finalizing an adoption. You send your homestudy, the child's worker matches the child to your homestudy, and you accept that match. THEN you get full disclosure on the child. THEN you confirm you're still interested. THEN you meet the child. And so on. Here, none of that can happen until you accept the match.

4. Now that we turned down the little boy case worker acts 'pissed' at us. I haven't had one phone call or email from her.

What would she normally have called or e-mailed you about? If she's not doing anything proactive, I don't see why this is unusual enough that you think its affected by your actions, rather than just business as usual. maybe if you explained what she'd normally call you about, it would make more sense.

5. There are two children that we are VERY interested in & their caseworkers are interested in us as well. Our worker admitted to me that she hasn't bothered to open or respond to these emails since we were supposedly "matched" with the boy in CA.

This is the way it happens here, too. You get matched with someone, and have to decide go/no go on that match. It's not considered fair to wait and accumulate multiple matches before deciding what to do about the first one you got, that just holds children in limbo. (Unless you are approved for multiple unrelated children, of course, in which case you can technically say yes to all the children.) Here, everything does pretty much come to a standstill once you have a match, until you either accept or decline the match. If you accept it, everything stops for sure. If you decline it, everything picks up where it left off. So it sounds like you need to have a discussion about procedures where you are.

It definately sounds like you weren't given all the information that you needed at your orientation. I can't know if that's her fault or not, though. She could be just as frustrated with you, thinking "don't they remember *anything* from that orientation/training/pamphlet?"

And as for a supervisor, she has to have one. Someone hired her, and someone has the right to fire her, or to impose other disciplinary actions. It may be an HR department, or the agency head. It just may take a bit of work to find out who.

Hang in there. Once you have a discussion about all those things, the two of you might end up with a decent working relationship. After all, it seems like she is sending your homestudy out to the workers at the time you request it, and she responded back to you when you were matched. It sounds small, but without that you wouldn't have any chance of getting a child at all, so really it's pretty big. Do have the discussion before switching agencies, so you don't end up in a similar position somewhere else.

Good luck!