[Suzy]

Our adoption will be final soon and we are looking forward to our first Christmas with our children but I'm going through some stressful times right now and having a hard time dealing with it.

We've recently had a very traumatic experience with our state's child welfare organization. Our children's previous foster home is under an investigation that was finally begun after a year of us pursuing the issue. The stories about what happened there are bad, bad enough that we can't go about our daily lives knowing that other children could face the same things our children faced. But now I question whether we did the right thing or whether we've just place our children in a position to be further damaged by the system. If the investigation had begun immediately and they were interviewed then I think it would have been okay, but now they are to be interviewed a year later after much work for them to feel safe in our home and attach to us as their parents.

The short version is that the investigator that initially called us thought we were the ones being investigated and refused to back down even once our agency got involved on our behalf. It was a loooooong couple of days, spent completely on the phone, during which we were threatened and informed that we were not the children's parents and weren't entitled to voice our opinion about whether interviews would be detrimental to them. (okay, so no surprise that a system worker isn't sensitive to adoptive parents, but is it really necessary to rip your heart out and spit on it when you are within a month of finalization?) The final result was that this person was eliminated from the investigation after I reached someone at the very top of the child welfare system. Although it is a relief, the experience was so traumatic that I'm having a hard time picking myself up and going forward. My hubby and I had planned on continuing to do foster care in the future, but now I just don't know. I find myself not able to trust anyone in the system. Not trusting that they will do their job competently, not trusting that anyone cares about the welfare of my children or the impact of the system on children in general, not trusting that someone can interview my children without doing serious damage to the progress that they have made since they have been with us. I guess I'm scared. I don't know what to expect from these people anymore. I don’t know what to expect from my children after an interview where they’ve had everything stirred up again. I've tried to convince myself that I'm being irrational, that what I'm feeling is not based on reality, but the scary thing is that my fears are based on reality. We were threatened, albeit indirectly, with having our children removed because we refused to accept the investigator's behavior as professional and chose to voice our grievances to that person’s superiors. If I’m not making sense, its because I still cannot make sense of any of it myself. I just plain cannot reach a point where I can figure out what these people were thinking when this all happened.

I've talked to our agency therapist and felt somewhat better but... I suppose I'm just looking for some empathy from others who know how vulnerable we as adoptive parents are. All I want to do right now is celebrate the adoption and the holidays, this is just not the time in our lives or the children's lives for this to be happening. And as I say that I remember that my signature has Ecclesiastes 3: 1-9 and begins "There is a time for everything..." How ironic is that?

[Dianna]

I know the feeling you are talking about Suzy. That kind of experience leaves you feeling like the world is crazy, dangerous, and unpredictable. It was our inner strength that held us together until things calmed down and straightened out. And they did. Do what you need to do to protect yourself right now and know that it will get better. Best wishes and prayers your way. Happy Thanksgiving anyway.

[Graham]

Dear Suzy, the only consolation I can offer is that you are not alone in your experience; not the first and not the last. Even if we created the perfect system we can't completely control for human error. And the system is very far from perfect. You did the right thing, and maybe caused some minor system change, by going straight to the top - loudly.

For far too long State and County systems have treated foster parents and preadoptive parents as subordinate pawns in a system that focuses almost solely on process rather than outcomes. It is a basic poker game wherein the bet is that you will put up with virtually any affront out of fear for the removal of your children. What a surprise that birth parents in the system report feeling exactly the same way. To be fair to child welfare, and especially many wonderful social workers, its generally a better system than all the other ones we deal with; planning depts, probate, divorce court, the IRS, the INS, and now the Homeland Security Administration (or Bill of Non-Rights as someone said the other day).

I read today that a NYC police officer has been suspended for 30 days for refusing to arrest a homeless man, whose only crime was sleeping in a parking lot. Maybe change is in the wind at last....

Graham

[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.

[Angeleyes]

I thought you would find this funny Suzy.

I was chatting with someone on line last night who was trying to adopt kids out of the foster care system and when I told him it could take several months to get all the TRP's done (the 3 kids had the same birthmother all had different fathers). He said but the process is not that hard and that it should take no longer than a couple weeks cause it was not difficult =) He then went on to tell me how the state has a timeline that they have to place the kids in.

I just wanna know where he lives at so I can move there...

Angel lol

[Suzy]

I'm cracking up, rflol !

I guess what is so funny is that most of us can say we have believed something similar. How about that a homestudy only takes a few months to complete? Every time I hear a worker tell someone that I want to jump in and ask when the next shuttle to their planet leaves! I'll hope that the guy doesn't land too hard when the gravity of reality sets in.

Take Care Angel!

[Angeleyes]

I consider myself lucky if the workers call back within the month I had my worker call on a child and if she tells me to go to H#ll right away instead of jerking me around for weeks.

If you are not nutty when you start this process you will be by the time you are done. LOL.

Angel

[Suzy]

Well, the interviews are over and we can finally put this behind us. Whatever happens to the previous foster home now is in God's hands. Thankfully the after-effects on the children have been minimal. The littlest ones were relatively oblivious and disinterested in the investigators questions and just played with the toys in the room. The oldest was mad that he was being asked questions over and over. He told me the previous day that he had already told us everything. I tried to explain to him why it was necessary to answer the questions, but it obviously didn't take. He got to the point where if they repeated a question he would snap at them and tell them he already told them the answer or he would start spelling out the words. I still wish that they would have at least considered our request to be present rather than on the other side of a 2-way mirror. They took away his sense of safety by isolating him from us and he did not respond well to it. He was very negative on the way home and had a rough morning the next day, now he is being pretty clingy. Even if they wanted to interview him again I don't think he would stand for it. We've noticed that all of the kids have gone to a new level of attachment with us where we are now the center of their universe. Maybe its because they know adoption day is almost here!