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Hi, may I please complain? And has anyone in other countries heard this sort of comment from SWs?
We are waiting for approval of our second adoption application, so we can officially be waiting. My nerves are getting frayed because I was told it would come through by the "end of the year" and our relationship with our current SW is terrible. Here's what happened. We live in the Czech Republic. There are no private agencies here. You can only go through the regional government, period. For our first adoption, we were on the caseload of the head psychologist at the region. But when we put in the second application we were transfered to a SW colleague. My first conversation with her was terrible. She said, "I don't think it is fair that you don't have to wait as long as other applicants, so I think you should wait longer for the application to be approved in the first place." This is because if you want a healthy, white infant here, you wait 3 to 5 years. We waited three months for a healthy, Romani infant. This country is insane. :grr: (If there is no open-minded applicant approved at the local level, Romani infants simply wait in the orphanages until they are a year old to be eligible for foster care or international adoption.)
After that she blocked us from entering the mandatory parenting classes required for approval (even with a second), and eventually I was forced to make a complaint to the national government. She was reprimanded and told that she "was not fulfilling her lawful responsibilities." She should never have known I was the one who complained but someone who I consulted with on the internet tattled on me. So, she was furious and told me, I had "shed doubt on my competence as a parent." But the psychologist who worked on our first adoption is still the one who writes the psychological evaluations, so she was forced to let us into the class and supposedly will be forced to issue our approval letter.
But so far the letter hasn't come and, of course, what is worse is that she still has to recommend our file for any potential match with a child. There aren't likely to be many other local applicants for Romani children, so she should in the end be forced to refer us, whether she likes it or not. But being at her mercy is still stressful. We aren't able to transfer to a different SW.
Do professionals act like applicants open to minority children are somehow cheating in other places?
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OMG!!! This lady sounds like a huge B****!!! So sad because basically should hold the key to your adoption. Is there anyway to request someone else?? I have no idea how to deal with this because our SW was amazing. He actually sped up the process at my request. So sorry you have to deal with that crap.
Oh yes, I think they do. I've said for years that it's sooo bad CW'ers (SW'ers) are able to inject their own personal opinions/prejudices upon hopeful adoptive couples....but they do. This is particularly popular in the foster care system, IMO. And, last but not least, the small group of people in each state that make up the ICPC boards. *They* hold soooo much power over each and every adoption, yet they take that power and override the approval of parents who have appropriate and honorable homestudies approved to adopt!!!!
And.....when I read your post about this, I also thought of how some adoptive families---still waiting----will hold a grudge to those who've already found their baby and going back to adopt again. Why wouldn't people just realize the right baby comes along for the right family? I don't know.
What you're going through is crazy and HAS to be incredibly frustrating to say the least! Somehow though, our family has found that 'if it's to be, God puts things in place---regardless of what some power-hungry, eogtistical cw'er might think or do'. I suspect the same will happen to you...your next baby will come---regardless.
My best to you and yours....
Sincerely,
Linny
When our agency and SW were doing pretty much nothing we found a match through a referral service. The SW still did our post-placement visits and repeatedly said how fast everything went for us - as if it shouldn't have happened that way. It sure didn't feel fast, and there was some delay caused by her (ie based on her comments about her light caseload she could have completed our homestudy much faster, and followed up to realize it got lost in the shuffle at the main office). I agree with you that a SWs perception of and feelings toward your family have a lot to do with how quickly your file gets completed. And that is just here in the US - when you get outside of this country everything is a different mindset and different ballgame.
So sorry you are going through this.
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Our social worker has been awesome. She's told us from the beginning that we probably would not have to wait long, but in a supportive way--not snide. However we went through a private agency, not family and children services, so maybe that made a difference?
Our home study social worker got everything done really quickly. . .our biggest hangup was getting the FBI fingerprints back. Luckily we did not run into any difficulties from the professionals involved.
aclee
I've gotten snide comments before, but never from a social worker! That's so awful. It makes me wonder what her personal connection is. Maybe a close friend has been waiting a long time or something. Not right of her at all. Hope you get your letter soon!
alys1
Really? You haven't had SWs lie about you, haven't sat in court and listen to them quoting teachers but lying about what the teacher said?
GrumblersRidge
If there is no open-minded applicant approved at the local level, Romani infants simply wait in the orphanages until they are a year old to be eligible for foster care or international adoption.
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I don't actually think the government wants it this way. I doubt they get much, if anything from international adoptions. As far as I understand they have agreements with the Netherlands and Denmark where money idn't a big factor and that's where most of "our" Romani kids go. Besides, I only had to call the national government office on adoption once and they investigated and reprimanded this SW. So, I don't think it is a conspiracy. It is just hard because we are still stuck with the same SW even after that and she found out that I was the cause of the reprimand. She may be racist, but from what I have heard over here it seems that mostly the SWs forget that the clients are the children, not us the parents. They aren't supposed to consider adoption as a service to parents, which is the basis of the whole "It's not fair" thing. Even so,
I think there are good SWs here as well, people who know where their focus should be - finding the best possible homes for children in orphanages. Our first SW/the psychologist was very strict to the point of appearing unfriendly to most people, but she did everything by the book, ie. legally, and that, in hindsight, seems just fine. I asked her if we could just transfer back to her and she said it isn't possible. We would have to file a legal petition to transfer SWs and that would put us on such a blacklist with all SWs that apparently we would have no chance after that. At least that's what we're told.
I generally haven't found other parents to be jealous that our process went faster. As far as I have seen, they all understand that they could have the same situation, if they changed their criteria. I feel sorry for people who have to wait 5 years and in many cases I think it is good that they don't take on the issue of Romani children when they are culturally and educationally unprepared and living in this country that makes it so intense to have a Romani child.
Linny
And.....when I read your post about this, I also thought of how some adoptive families---still waiting----will hold a grudge to those who've already found their baby and going back to adopt again. Why wouldn't people just realize the right baby comes along for the right family? I don't know.
It sounds to me like her problem may be more to do with racism than with problems about adopting quickly. It may be less to do with not feeling that you deserve a child quickly and more to do with not wanting families in the country for Rom children. I'm not sure how licensing works in the Czech Republic; is there a licensing or other professional board that you can make a complaint to? I this country that would be unethical practice that could get her license revoked or at least censured.
Sleeplvr
This is why some agencies have split their programs into minority or CC programs. Training classes are done in groups so it was very painful for some people seeing how quickly other parents took placement and to top it off the requirements for each program may be different. The agency we used did not accept people in the CC program if they had bio children. If you married someone who already had bio kids you were out of luck.
I'm thinking that SW has some axe to grind about people who adopt quickly. She must have a relative or friend who is waiting to adopt.
Many countries are doing their best to expel Roma so she may want them held for international adoption. She's definitely got some sort of agenda... you may have to work the grapevine to figure out what it is... somebody always knows the whole story.
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I have no doubt that her internal racism instigated the issue. The point is that she simply couldn't care less what happens to Romani children. Some friends of ours, who were approved in the same batch as us, waited less than a month longer than we did and were matched with a little Czech girl with suspected brain damage. They are now applying again and have not been harassed for not having to wait longer, even though the little girl turns out not to be disabled but only to have fairly mild epilepsy.