[Archive]

Once again I am totally frustrated! Please advise me what to do.

 Here is the recap...started adoption 15 months ago for a specific sibling group, had paperwork and homestudy completed before classes were finished, took agency 7 months to take homestudy to committee for approval. We were told that we had approval (not true) homestudy was never submitted. Waited another 2 months, finally approved by SNAP.

Contacted by one siblings case worker stated oldest sib needed to moved out of foster home within 7 days... okayed with our SW to "observe" sibling in a classroom enviroment, one of their caseworkers got wind of this and went ballistic, started telling lies to the case manager, it was the strangest thing I have ever experienced..so my husband and I said okay enough game playing we are finished..so we started looking for another sib group..in december we were matched with a sib group of 3 and these sibs who were teens decided to stay in the group home where they had been for 6 years..fine, we could understand that. Contacted by original sibs case manager, and formally interviewed for the original sib group. Feb. we received the news that we were a match for 3 of the five..great..now we thought we were getting somewhere..NOT! CM invited us to a sib visit to meet the kids and when we got to the visit we were only to observe no interaction.. Three weeks later we are summoned to court because one of the sibs has special needs and the foster mom wants to adopt him..(they had been actively recruiting and adoptive family for these kids for a year and a half). Court ordered that this sib stay with foster mom with the intentions of her adopting him..fine we thought that was the best place for him..Court awarded us a different sib instead,again we thought fine.. In the meantime the sibs are transfered to a different case manager..and she is the only person in the world that COMPLETELY frustrates me....

She has her own way of doing things...she felt that the oldest sib would be moved in rather quickly and she scheduled the transition over 8 weeks..( live in same town, 2 visits a week)this frustrated us how quick is 8 weeks? (at this time the CM assured us that the other two sibs would be moved very quickly, actually she said shortly after school is out which is the 8th of June)....she would not let us meet the other two sibs until the first one was completely moved in and the new sib would need to be approved by SNAP at the end of April..( we call the CM on the day of the SNAP meeting and she told us no he didnt need to go to SNAP it was court ordered, so here we have wasted 5 weeks waiting for nothing)...doesn't that seem weird? what if the other two never worked out..and we have become attached to the first sib..we pleaded with her to let us at least meet them before hand..she absolutely refused our request multiple times..we even called her boss and she absolutely didnt care and called a meeting with our SW. Still we didnt get to meet the sibs. As I was calling around trying to find someone who wasnt directly involved with this agency I found out that the Head Hoochalay of Office of Family and Children is trying to get all 5 of the sibs in our house. At this time I was told by another SW of these kids that this crazed CM even went around to all the sibs and asked them if they wanted to live together...when were they planning on telling us this? they still dont know that we know...

Yesterday we met with the other two sibs, what cute kids! Guess when they are moving in? August! CM told foster mom yesterday that the littlest one will have to be transitioned very slowly because she can see how attached this little one is...fine..what came next really blew us away..Foster mom is going on a week vacation and the kids are going into respite care..and the kids were signed up for 2 weeks of summer camp in July..in the middle of an adoption transititon?! I asked the CM, she said that the foster mom has a lot of kids and has had them for sometime and needs a break..in the middle of transitioning to a new home? what about her vacation? and how can the little one go to respite when the foster mom says he cant be out of her sight for 10 minutes without going ballistic? Everything this CW had told us she has gone and done..she has contridicted everything she said she was going to do.. Our family has been in 15 months of chaos waiting for these kids to be placed..this is only a few incidents that we recently have had.. I would like to call the Head Houchalay of Office and Famiy and Children and talk with him...would you advise this? Is there a rule book regarding adoption?

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Pam

What a mess. We had a similar experience with an adoption from Illinois, with the dingy social workers, changed plans, etc. etc. etc. We went all the way up to the Adoption Director of the State of Illinois. We had to. It was getting bizarre. Plus they threatened to revoke our license (which was ridicules...we had no violations). They didn't care w hat we did either...they just kept on being goofy, but we won in the end. I empathize with your battle. My best advice to you is to fight on. Sounds like you'll get the kids eventually. Sometimes I really wonder about some of the social workers. Seems their egos are more important to them than the k ids. Good luck

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Devon

I'm really upset when I read such horror stories!

This is happening with such increasing frequency! That insanity of the domestic adoption system just blows my mind! For me, it's a last resort. In the meantime, I'm heading off to Eastern Europe where it might cost more but there's not as much insanity! After I have my child/ren, I plan to see what I can do to encourage investigations into this situation. It's really terrible!

So, my advice? Look into international adoption if you have an inkling to do so. Or do both at the same time?

Devon

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Pam

If I were adopting overseas, I'd go anywhere but there. The kids have a very high incidence of RAD...the orphanages don't hold the kids...the kids have no concept of love. I would even be afraid to adopt a one year old from there. Fetal alcohol syndrome and effects are rampant and not always correctly diagnosed. I've seen more horror stories from there than from anywhere else. I disagree that there is sanity there at all. If I were adopting overseas again I'd adopt a child from a country that puts kids in loving foster homes (often Korea is one; kids from China seem to do well; the asian countries do well). Kids in poorly staffed orphanages or who live on the streets have the same or worse problems than our kids right here have...and there is often no way of knowing what happened to the kids (ever). And there is no subsidies or medical cards to help with expenses. I know this sounds alarmist, but I've read SO MUCH about Eastern Europe that I'd tell anyone to check it out carefully before going there for a child. Foreign adoption can and does work...I have a wonderful child from Korea that we got as an infant. Her foster mom, who had her from three days old until she came to us, used to carry her on her back and sleep with her, and she came well-loved and very happy and is one of my VERY attached children. Eastern Europe is a mess....if you still want to adopt from there, I would adopt a very VERY young infant and make sure you double check for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I don't want ANYONE to have the mistaken idea that going overseas, especially there, is better than our system....it's really not true....just a lot more expensive. I do wish you luck.

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Pam

Sorry 'bout that. I got carried away. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you luck