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Originally Posted By Pam

I could never go over ALL the things that the crazed social worker in Illinois said about us that were outright lies, but I am going to post a few things and tell you what, if anything, really happened. My purpose is to warn people that this can happen to anyone. It has happened to people besides us...people we know well. We hired a lawyer to fight these lies and found that it was not possible for us to get this false record erased nor could we really sue this agency and win (they have better, more expensive lawyers than we do and have been sued and investigated before...and they survived). I just want everyone to be a bit on guard. We weren't. Being naive hurt us badly. First of all, we did not know what was going on at our agency. The worker we had such a good relationship with, Marie, was not in favor with this agency, but we didn't know this. They brought in Julie to replace her, but they didn't tell us that. Instead, while training her, they made Julie the Licenser (sic?) of the agency. But she was the one really in charge of us, although we didn't know it at the time. We would call Marie for advice about what to do and get some, and we'd follow her advice,t hinking she was our social worker/representative. Julie would then call back the next day, literally telling us we had done everything wrong (although it was what Marie had told us to do). Little did we realize that a 27 yr. old recent grad, with a 5 1/2 month old baby (no other children), who came to our house one time for maybe 45 minutes, would be the person who was really in charge of us. We just thought she was inspecting our house, and we got a letter shortly after she came out to the house that stated that our house was in compliance. But that was BEFORE a few things happened. First of all, she scared us from Day One, and I'm not quite sure why, except that I am very perceptive about people. I called her Supervisor to nicely explain that I felt uncomfortable with her and would prefer to just deal with Marie. That enraged Julie, I heard. She called us back and tried to be reassuring and nice, but I could hear the bite behind her civilized words. Insiders later told us, she was livid...she is a very controlling person. After that, we were on her "list", but we didn't know or care because we thought Marie was t he one who mattered. She knew us. She visited us once a week. We talked to her almost every day. This newcomer didn't matter to us....we had no idea that she had so much clout. In March of the year we adopted Lucas, I went to an Adoption Fair, at the urging of Marie, to look for siblings to adopt. At the time, we were looking for a sib group to adopt after Lucas was finalized. I went alone. My husband had to work. I did not find any kids there, but I did find a list of available kids in The State of Illinois. Two little boys were in our age range, so I called their worker who was ecstatic. Right at the onset, she talked about how much she wanted us to adopt them and how they were her favorite kids. There WAS a catch. They weren't legally free yet. But that didn't stop her from telling us that we could adopt them. Before we even met them, she had it in her mind that we were going to adopt them and all but promised them that we would. It was very bizarre. Well, we met them over the July 4th weekend, and they were very wild, even with hub and teenager helping me. We figured it was the excitement, the change, and the holiday. They did not respond to firm reprimands, but that, too, didn't bother us that much then, although it did make us uneasy. Our next visit was one week later and was supposed to be for 11 days, which I thought was a LONG time for a second visit. It was clear by the fourth day that this adoption wasn't going to happen. The main problem was our son Lucas. He was, back then, unmedicated ADHD with so much energy that someone had to watch him all the time. The problem was, these boys needed to be watched just as closely. The 9 year old would talk off on anybody's bicycle, even a neighbor's, and disappear around the neighborhood (and we were responsible). He disappeared constantly. Once he took Lucas with him, which scared the daylights out of us as Lucas wasn't even 4 yet. The younger one, who was close to Lucas' age, kept running across the street and dodging cars. This was with us chasing him. He thought it was funny. In the meantime, Lucas was howling because he wanted to run across the street too, and my teenager had him by the hand while he fought to get away. They didn't sleep. We were very stern about how they had to quietly stay in bed, but they wouldn't. They were not left alone. They were in a room together on the main floor of the house and could see us. Naturally, that meant Lucas didn't sleep either. By Day Four, we were wrecks. I often ask myself if we could have parented these boys if we hadn't had Lucas and I think we could have. It was a moot point because we DID have Lucas. So we called marie and she came over and we spent hours telling her what was going on and crying and telling her that we didn't want to ruin the boy's lives. She was very firm and told us that we had to think about our family first and that the boys would NOT go without a home nor would they be ruined for life if we didn't go thru with an adoption. She told us that pre-placement was to see if the child would be a good match and that nobody would be angry with us if we said it would not. She also pointed out that the boys were not legally free, still saw their birthmom (although she was in and out of jail) and that this was going to be long and drawn out anyways, even if we did decide to try to adopt them. She saw for herself how uncontrollable things were. While I sat and talked to her, my hub and daughter tried to keep the kids safe, and while my hub was talking, me and my teenager tried to keep the kids safe. Marie's last message to us was, do what is best for your family. With a heavy heart, we called the boy's worker and said we couldn't adopt them. She flipped out on us and called Julie who called back to tell us that if we didn't keep them we would ruin them for life. We said we couldn't and tried to explain why. She told us we'd never EVER adopt a child again from the State of Illinois and hung up. Use your imagnation for the time between then and when the kids left...lots of crying and hugging and then getting yelled at by more Julie phone calls. She convinced the rest of her agency, not including Marie (who wasn't even included in this decision) that we were unfit, neglectful parents who would have our license revoked. When we got her certified letter,a copy of why our license should be revoked, we found that she had made things up and even gone back in time to when she hadn't been with the agency to fill things in, usually without dates and names, such as "Worker found sharp knife in the house that could hurt Lucas." Yeah? And which worker was that? And why weren't we told and warned? We read, in disbelief, "The agency they belonged to before they came to us took every single child they ever placed in their home away from them." THAT lie stuck out the most. First of all, our first agency, before them, had only given us two kids and one of them was Lucas and he was still there. Secondly, the other child had gone to her aunt. We have never had a child removed from our home from any agency. We called our old agency and they sent them a letter, with a copy to us, stating as much, but Julie still wouldn't take it out of her complaints about us. The agency was very arrogant. It took back nothing. Not even when we hired a lawyer. They said we had bugs in our house, medicine where Lucas could reach, dangerous things laying around...it was already generic and always "worker" claimed with no name or date. It certainly wasn't Marie. And what worker wouldn't write up a family that had these violations? We had no licensing violations. The fact was, Julie wanted to discredit us and, since Lucas was doing so well, she certainly couldn't say we were unfit parents, so she tried to make up things about our house. The tidbit about the other agency taking all the kids they placed with us away from us still puzzles me though. Did she think Lucas dropped out of the sky? Her agency hadn't placed Lucas with us. And the letter? It meant nothing? If we had been rich, we'd have hired a lawyer suing the agency for slander and lies and I am pretty sure we could have gotten them to revise our file. But we aren't rich. We couldn't afford that kind of money. And, luckily, our agency here seemed to pretty much disregard what they said. The vague "worker" with lack of dates puzzled them too as did the "all the kids were taken away." But not everyone is so lucky. A lot of agencies WOULD have believed this. A hell of a lot. You don't think so? I know people who have been thru what we have, and have not been as lucky as we were. I do not know how to tell anyone to avoid the sort of situation we got ourselves into. I don't know if there is any way. I just don't want anyone to be as naive as we were. We truly thought the agencies were in business to help needy kids. The last gem here is that, while Julie was trying to write up her secret little letter to get the state to revoke our license from us, she got a call about a 17 yr. old boy who needed a place to stay for a few days AND SHE CALLED US ABOUT HIM! We had him for a few days and it is NOT in our records, nor did we ever get a board check for him. Now we dont' CARE about the board check, but, the fact is, she must have placed him in our house without even telling the State he was here....a big error on her part. But since there is nothing in our file about him, we can't even prove he was ever in our house. My best first advice is to log everything. Journal all. Until the finalization keep records of everything. because we were trusting, we LAUGHED at this advice, but it is critical. Take pictures of every child placed in your house to prove the child was there. And don't think it can't happen to you, because we never dreamed this could happen to us. We had adopted two times already by the time we got to Lucas. Ok. Have a nice day RAYON IS COMING APRIL 20th and I have to run out and get our newest little boy a few things!!! ))

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Originally Posted By Kena

I can only imagine what a nightmare this must have been for you and your whole family!! I am so glad it is over and Rayon is coming home. I want to thank you for sharing something that must be so very difficult to even think about with the rest of us, especially those of us who are just starting. I feel I have learned so much from you, and everyone on this board. Although we cannot make sure we don't encounter similar circumstances, at least we are going in with our eyes OPEN, and I have been keeping documentation of everything connected to our adoption organized in a three-ring binder, from the very first letter we received from our agency after visiting their table at an adoption conference. So far, I feel very lucky... We really like our agency (a small private agency specializing in special needs adoption -- they have no kids, but work with the foster care agencies to place), have had only positive experiences so far, and heard really good things about them. But "there but for the grace of G-d go I", and I appreciate your honesty and input.

Now, kick back and finally experience the joy of expecting your son!!!!

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Originally Posted By Rinda

It happend with my last foster placement. This SW had no kids, but five cats who ment the world to her. (She went to my kids school and asked them if they thought I was pulling one of the kids hair out. (mind you this is a kid who has been in and out of foster care because of her four times since he was 20 months, 5 1/2 when he left and has been pulling his own hair out since he was 25 months old.)) I had very bad "vibes" from her from the get go. I wish I had put a stop to it early on.

The kids therapist was trying to explain the whole thing to me. That sometimes workers get their jobs because they like to "play God" and have some kind of a personality disorder. The kids therapist was on mind side, but the SW decided not to listen to her, even though she is one of the few "experts" for foster/adopt kids in this area.

One of the things she kept holding aganist me was when I said to the little boy "But you won't even get to go to the Christmas party," when she pulled him out of my house (a year before the school thing) and sent him to live in a motel room with his drug adict/ drunk father who was shacked up with a woman for Christmas. I was trying not to cry, scream, cuss the lady out, and ask for permision to take him to the party which we had been building up for weeks, had special clothes for, etc...(the little boy spent Christmas away from his sister and brother (they were one year older and one year younger then him, and had the same jerk of a birthfatherlisted on their birth records) for the first time and missed all the Christmas fun, he came back into care three 1/2 weeks later because he didn't want him (he told the kid this, he was almost five years old at the time)

I keep playing the whole thing over and over and the only things I can think is 1. when I first got the ucky feeling in my gut I should have said no/enough to her and had the children moved 2. I should have offically, in writing complained to her supervisor 3. and of course document every thing (this actually saved me, because I had most everything written down (kept all reports and had because I asked for most of the offical letters written by his mental healthcare providers) and I think when I read back over the phone to one of the supervisors, my unoffical child abuse investigation stopped) I am a teacher, I would have lost everything!!!!

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Originally Posted By Jeff

Thanks for the posting. I am currently battling a similiar situation. But being a single man, it is MUCH worse. There is a case worker who is a very warped individual who needs some serious psychological counseling. She has made up some very serious lies. She even had me arrested. I just received the police report on the investigation which by the way states "case closed/ Unfounded". She claimed to be a witness to "certain" activities. This women has never even been to my house and we have only met on two occasions, once for a 30 minute interview and a second time for 5 minutes while I picked up the children. She is 175 miles away yet claims to be a witness? She has done a good job at trying to teach the boys to say the "correct " things. Though, during the investigations neither boy would say what she wanted them to. One of them only agreed after they told him what to say. I am fighting back. I have a hearing schedule for 4 days of testimony in July. And I am filing charges in Supior court. We foster/ adoptive parents do have rights. and when the state workers or private workers violate our civil rights we need to take them down. A few huge fines against them as individuals should help to deter them a bit.