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I am SO upset. Can any other military families help??
My husband and I are having SERIOUS issues with our home study agency. We spent the past 2.5 months compiling all the requested documents into a binder in order to have our home study interviews conducted. Towards the beginning, I emailed them and basically said, "My husband has done 2 tours overseas, and so although he physically lived in Iraq & Afghanistan for a year each, he didn't actually LIVE there - he was DEPLOYED. So we can't run background checks on those places." She emailed back and said, "You will need to get those checks if he lived there." So I reply with, "There is no way we can run a background check for him for those countries, because the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan technically don't know that he, specifically, was ever there. Only the military knows and they have no "background check". But rest assured, had he done anything while deployed that would show up on a background check, he wouldn't still be in the military, that's for sure.. So those times in his life will be unaccounted for in terms of background checks."
She basically left it alone after that, leaving me with the assumption we were good, and I spent the next TWO months gathering papers and physicals and documents, etc.
They are reviewing our binder this week, in hopes of doing our interview within the next week or two, and they JUST NOW email us again saying they NEED these background checks. My husband called them and basically told the lady that she was not understanding how this works. DEPLOYMENT does not equal LIVING somewhere, as if he just decided to move to Iraq or Afghanistan for fun. He was with the Army as part of OIF and OEF.
So Tuesday she says she will talk to her boss and call us back the next day. Wednesday, when the day was coming closer to a close, we called them to see if there was any news. I think she dodged our call, only to have their agency send us an email (EMAIL?!) stating that they could no longer work with us because we were not providing them with the documentation the state of Indiana requires. But get this - at the end they go on to say something along the lines of "Sorry if you think we're too conservative for your case, but here's a list of other agencies you could see about helping you..." [If our issue is a "state of Indiana" issue - then what help is ANY OTHER agency going to be?]
They were rude with how they went about this. They should have told us this was a deal-breaker when we started TWO MONTHS AGO. They didn't do anything to really look into it or help us by offering better solutions, such as "We've worked with other military families and this is what they did..." NOTHING helpful. It's like we were just too difficult so they gave up - and let us know by email when they said they'd call after seeing what they could find out.. We weren't unwilling. If they did their jobs (because that's what we are paying them for), they should be able to say, "Here's who you call to get this form" and we would GLADLY do it. We just don't know where to go or how on earth to get anything remotely like what they're asking for...
Sooo... MILITARY FAMILIES... Tell me...
1. Did you need background checks / clearances for the service member's time deployed? What documents did you submit, and how would we even find this?
2. If this doesn't get resolved, who can I possibly write to or call to get this either taken care of, or put out there for the world to know about?
I'm giving them a few days to figure this out, then I am all over BBB's website, and visiting JAG, writing to a state official... WHOEVER I have to. The fact that my husband was deployed does not give them the right to do this. Ugh, sorry for the rant but I am so upset. :grr:
Ok, my husband was active duty for over 20 years, and we dealt with confused folks during our homestudy, too. Here is the deal:
Your husband did not live overseas. He was deployed there. Therefore, for his background check he LIVED where you are. We were in Germany for my husband's deployments. They still based our homestudy on where his driver's license said we lived. Not where his feet touched soil. It was explained to us that it was done this way because anything reported would follow that address. If you were stateside for his deployments (let's say at Fort Hood, for example) and his license said he lived in Nebraska (because it was his POE) you would list Hood still because it was his last and returning address. For all intensive purposes, deployments count as business trips for a home study. If he were a doctor going to a medical conference in Vegas, you would not list Vegas as one of his homes. Deployments are considered the same way for homestudies.
I hope that helps, and good luck.
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Armywife0731
So sorry you are going through this. I am not having the same homestudy problem or issue BUT my friend and her husband hit a few snags during their homestudy process. We are in a different State BUT the previous poster is correct that he did NOT live their he was deployed. My friends husband did have to provide documents (deployment verification papers). He did several tours of duty and had to provide verification for each one and dates.
Hope you get this worked out (with a different agency of course).
Best of luck to you guys! Thank you for the job you guys do each day for our Country!
There is a yahoo group for military adoptions. And they frequently have those questions.
[url=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdoptionSupportGroupForMilitaryFamilies/]AdoptionSupportGroupForMilitaryFamilies : [Mil-Fam-Adopt][/url]
My husband also had two tours, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. We were also stationed in Germany for just under four years. Our SW said to put the address where WE lived/were stationed. So, we were at Ft. drum when he was deployed to Afhanistan so they ran a background check for NY. We had to have background check to include five states but they said they weren't worried about our time in Germany because if anything had happened it would have been reported to the military and be in his records. So, my advice is, don't list his deployment addreses, just where his home base was at that time. Good luck! It should work out. You may have to talk to someone that can better understand your situation.
Did you lose money with them?
I cannot believe they are that dense to not understand the difference between "deployment" and "living" somewhere. I have not advise but I wanted to sympathize. This is not professional behavior on the agency's part at all.
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We are adopting through foster care so there is quite a difference. However, my husband has been on 5ish deployments and what they did was run the fingerprints, fbi background check, check on our previous state of residences records. Did his drivers license change while he was deployed? No. Did he give up his citizenship? No. It was merely a trip as he did not pack up all his belongings and family to move for fun. I would find a different agency in my opinion that is more pro-military.
How ridiculous! Since this is an older thread, I hope you got it resolved or were able to find another agency. What they are saying is absolutely untrue and they shouldn't be in the arena if they don't even know how state laws work. His residence is where the military says he lives (not counting home of record for tax purposes) like his address, just because he was overseas for a period of time does not mean he lived there, it means his physical location was there.
At any rate, APO AE addresses are US addresses so under no situation would anyone who was deployed ever have any kind of documentation from the country.
We have just started our adoption process and I am really hoping to not run into these issues!
I hope you did contact the BBB!