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Entire Adoption System Rant

This is the email I just got from our Adoption social worker:

Listed are the items I need from you,



-          Fingerprinting

-          Local clearance form for you

-          Alternate caregiver form

-          Family assessment questionnaire

-          Utility bill

-          Verification of income

-          Your health insurance card

-          Car payment statement

-          Car insurance statements

-          Mortgage/rent statement

-          Behaviors Checklist

-          Birth Certificates for (husband) & you

-          Social Security Card (copy/picture) for both (husband) & you

-          Health Information Sheet for both (husband) & you

-          Health Insurance Info Sheet

-          Physical Exam for you/Theo & form for doctor to fill out

-          Physical Exams for James, Gus & Seth (physical form filled out by doctor)

-          Copy of Health Insurance Card

-          Adoption Assistance Rate Negotiation/Determination Worksheet

-          Updated Pet Vaccines

-          Unusual Incident form (signed by both parties at the bottom, I handed to you to keep)

-          Updated Driver’s Licenses

-          Central Registry forms for you, Theo and alternate caregiver with ID attached


For the items listed above, the forms from licensing are either expired or we cannot use those forms as they are (name of foster care agency) forms.  Let me know if you have any questions! 

So we pretty much have to do every single thing over again because the adoption agency does not accept forms from the foster care agency. To explain further: our foster care agency chose the adoption agency for us and, in fact, requires us to use them because they are sister organizations under the same umbrella. But they don't accept each other's forms.

Can someone explain how it's possible for our birth certificates and social security cards to expire? Pretty damn sure they've been the same since we were born.

Stupid little people with stupid little forms. Seriously.

So I forwarded the email to our agency supervisors and pointed out that I'd been assured by them the process to become foster care parents would roll over if/when we decided to become adoptive parents. Because I'm not trusting the word of a 22-yr-old bureaucrat who can't even understand her own forms.

Update: at the end of my email to the supervisors I mentioned that we'd been chosen by the Dept of Health and Human Services to participate in an audit of our foster care agency and that that visit was scheduled for two weeks from now and that I'd be discussing the outcome of this issue with the auditor. Well, that got a reply. Suddenly the top supervisor is giving me her personal assurance this will be investigated promptly and instructing her underlings to CC her on all emails and giving them a 24 hr deadline for responding. Fascinating.

I was kinda pissed when we were contacted that we had to participate in the audit (really, one more social worker walking thru my house testing my fire alarms and no doubt giving me more forms to fill out?). But now I'm a little bit pleased.  

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