For the past few months I've had this weird sleep pattern happening a couple times a week. I'm super tired and go right to sleep and continue to sleep for about 30-40 minutes. Then, I come rushing awake with my heart thumping, gasping for breath. My mind is flooded with anxiety about some tiny, specific thing like when you've already left for the trip but suddenly remember the crucial thing you forgot that absolutely must, somehow, be retrieved.
I'm so anxious--and sleep-addled like when you can't fully come out of a nightmare--that it takes me 1 to 3 hours to go back to sleep. All the while feeling desperately tired and then angry that I can't get back to sleep. Because being angry sure is a relaxing way to soothe a tired brain to sleep.
Yesterday we got a call from the Guardian ad Litum (the attorney for the girls). It was a brief check-up as it always is. He asks no questions beyond his first "how's it going"; wants few details. But, he is usually a better source of information than the social workers who either don't know or over qualify each statement to such an extent that I get no concrete details. He said that the paperwork submitted by the agency to the judge said the adoption would be done by November. And that really means October since they pad the timeline to give themselves some wiggle room.
If they have this done before October 20th (one month from the last visit) then they probably won't have to do their October visit at all! We may never have social workers in our home again!!
That one feeling flooded me with relief. And I slept right through the night last night. Sleep is a miracle cure. I feel like I'm back in my right mind this morning.
I keep thinking about why these social workers stress me out. They're simple little robots who are easily manipulated. I can handle them. I guess it comes down to feeling betrayed by them.
In the beginning (going back to Feb-Sept of 2018) we were so idealistic. We revealed our deepest thoughts about parenting and children and foster care and relationships. We talked openly about our own past and how that affected our current family relationships. We put complete, unguarded trust into the licensing social worker (the same guy who'd later do the Special Investigation). We shared so much it felt like we had a real relationship with him and could count him among our friends.
Those feelings carried over, at first, to our first foster care social worker whom we met the next day after the girls came into our home. I didn't really click with her--she laughed at all the wrong places and there's nothing more disconcerting than someone laughing when you're sharing something difficult as if you'd told a joke. But, overall, she seemed to be invested in the girls and our family. I felt I could ask for help...and I did.
I asked and asked and asked. I had one major request at that time--can you please refer me to a therapist who specializes in foster care and who accepts Medicaid, the girl's only insurance? I started asking for this in February. I asked by email and text. I asked in person every month when she sat in my recliner and made furious notes all over the magic blue paper. I asked from January to May. And always got a, "yep, I'm look into that" that never materialized into anything.
Finally, at the beginning of May I escalated this to her supervisor. Within a week I had an email with five names on it.
(Incidentally, that same week I'd been notified that our family would be interviewed by a state-level auditor who evaluates foster care agencies. In my complaining email to the supervisors I mentioned that I'd have to bring this issue up to the auditor if it wasn't resolved before her visit. Oh look, that got results.)
From May to now I've continually had to repeat that threat. They have given me two, new, incompetent social workers since June. One is the adoption social worker (in a sister agency to the foster agency, yet somehow she didn't know how to access any of their paperwork on us and wanted us to redo hours upon hours of paperwork) and the other is a new foster care social worker replacing the first one we got when the girls first came. Where did the never-meet-your-needs social worker go? She got promoted. She's now a supervisor. Of course.
These two girls have been a nightmare. They do one thing right and then three things wrong. So I email their supervisors with the I-still-have-the-auditor's-contact-info threat and then, presto, the newbie social workers get some much-needed oversight and manage to do one thing right....before repeating the pattern.
And sometimes the mistake they make isn't just failing to bring the right paperwork, it's catastrophic, like leading the girls to make accusations of physical abuse.
So, what we have here is a complete breakdown in trust. I loathe not really the social workers themselves but the incompetent agencies that can't train and supervise their own staff. That can't even follow through on requests I make to help them supervise. For example, I asked for the adoption worker to please send me a simple updating email every two weeks saying where she was in the paperwork process and to CC her supervisor on that email so I'd know that the supervisor could be overseeing everything. The supervisor agreed that was reasonable and promised it. It never happened. You can't require your worker to send a 1-2 line email once every two weeks!?! That's too much?
I feel duped. We went from loving and trusting to betrayed and harassed. No wonder the thought of them being out of our lives forever led to a good night's sleep.
Because of course all of us have to deal with incompetent workers in any industry all the time. We all brush up against employees who don't do their job. That isn't the issue here. The issue is that young children, precariously under my protection, were put under threat of a colossal screw up that might've removed them from our home and destroyed their lives, again, by these workers.
I don't think there can be anything more stressful than trying to protect children from the very people who, supposedly, are in charge of protecting them.
I'm so anxious--and sleep-addled like when you can't fully come out of a nightmare--that it takes me 1 to 3 hours to go back to sleep. All the while feeling desperately tired and then angry that I can't get back to sleep. Because being angry sure is a relaxing way to soothe a tired brain to sleep.
Yesterday we got a call from the Guardian ad Litum (the attorney for the girls). It was a brief check-up as it always is. He asks no questions beyond his first "how's it going"; wants few details. But, he is usually a better source of information than the social workers who either don't know or over qualify each statement to such an extent that I get no concrete details. He said that the paperwork submitted by the agency to the judge said the adoption would be done by November. And that really means October since they pad the timeline to give themselves some wiggle room.
If they have this done before October 20th (one month from the last visit) then they probably won't have to do their October visit at all! We may never have social workers in our home again!!
That one feeling flooded me with relief. And I slept right through the night last night. Sleep is a miracle cure. I feel like I'm back in my right mind this morning.
I keep thinking about why these social workers stress me out. They're simple little robots who are easily manipulated. I can handle them. I guess it comes down to feeling betrayed by them.
In the beginning (going back to Feb-Sept of 2018) we were so idealistic. We revealed our deepest thoughts about parenting and children and foster care and relationships. We talked openly about our own past and how that affected our current family relationships. We put complete, unguarded trust into the licensing social worker (the same guy who'd later do the Special Investigation). We shared so much it felt like we had a real relationship with him and could count him among our friends.
Those feelings carried over, at first, to our first foster care social worker whom we met the next day after the girls came into our home. I didn't really click with her--she laughed at all the wrong places and there's nothing more disconcerting than someone laughing when you're sharing something difficult as if you'd told a joke. But, overall, she seemed to be invested in the girls and our family. I felt I could ask for help...and I did.
I asked and asked and asked. I had one major request at that time--can you please refer me to a therapist who specializes in foster care and who accepts Medicaid, the girl's only insurance? I started asking for this in February. I asked by email and text. I asked in person every month when she sat in my recliner and made furious notes all over the magic blue paper. I asked from January to May. And always got a, "yep, I'm look into that" that never materialized into anything.
Finally, at the beginning of May I escalated this to her supervisor. Within a week I had an email with five names on it.
(Incidentally, that same week I'd been notified that our family would be interviewed by a state-level auditor who evaluates foster care agencies. In my complaining email to the supervisors I mentioned that I'd have to bring this issue up to the auditor if it wasn't resolved before her visit. Oh look, that got results.)
From May to now I've continually had to repeat that threat. They have given me two, new, incompetent social workers since June. One is the adoption social worker (in a sister agency to the foster agency, yet somehow she didn't know how to access any of their paperwork on us and wanted us to redo hours upon hours of paperwork) and the other is a new foster care social worker replacing the first one we got when the girls first came. Where did the never-meet-your-needs social worker go? She got promoted. She's now a supervisor. Of course.
These two girls have been a nightmare. They do one thing right and then three things wrong. So I email their supervisors with the I-still-have-the-auditor's-contact-info threat and then, presto, the newbie social workers get some much-needed oversight and manage to do one thing right....before repeating the pattern.
And sometimes the mistake they make isn't just failing to bring the right paperwork, it's catastrophic, like leading the girls to make accusations of physical abuse.
So, what we have here is a complete breakdown in trust. I loathe not really the social workers themselves but the incompetent agencies that can't train and supervise their own staff. That can't even follow through on requests I make to help them supervise. For example, I asked for the adoption worker to please send me a simple updating email every two weeks saying where she was in the paperwork process and to CC her supervisor on that email so I'd know that the supervisor could be overseeing everything. The supervisor agreed that was reasonable and promised it. It never happened. You can't require your worker to send a 1-2 line email once every two weeks!?! That's too much?
I feel duped. We went from loving and trusting to betrayed and harassed. No wonder the thought of them being out of our lives forever led to a good night's sleep.
Because of course all of us have to deal with incompetent workers in any industry all the time. We all brush up against employees who don't do their job. That isn't the issue here. The issue is that young children, precariously under my protection, were put under threat of a colossal screw up that might've removed them from our home and destroyed their lives, again, by these workers.
I don't think there can be anything more stressful than trying to protect children from the very people who, supposedly, are in charge of protecting them.
Comments
Post a Comment