Well, at least I am not the only one driving these kids to these visits. Sometimes I feel like I am. I have always hated that at our agency the bio family AND the foster family come in the same door and park in the same tiny parking lot...seriously, there should be some type of privacy available to us foster parents and our license plates don't you think?
BUT...I would not like having the kids transported I don't think. I would feel SO out of the loop!
Anyway, I am curious...when was the first time you found yourself finally standing up for yourself or family when it came to your child's social worker?
I remember two of mine very clearly:
1. Lizzy's 2010 Christmas visit with her bios. Her lawyer called me right after court and told me that he had approved a visit on Christmas as long as she did not spend the night with them, and if I could not transport she was not going.
Well, Lizzy's nasty social worker called me up and told me that she was going to have a 3 hour visit with her bios on Christmas that I had to transport for.
I said "No." I think she was pretty surprised. I told her I was not ruining my family's Christmas by having the whole day revolve around a visit in the middle of the day. I told her she could either go there first thing in the morning and stay all day or she wasn't going.
You should have heard her try to bully me. I got to the point where I just repeated the same thing: "It is our Christmas too."
Eventually she gave in and agree to doing it exactly the way I wanted.
Ha ha, I had finally won one.
2. I can't remember if this was before or after the 2010 Christmas, but I took Lizzy to a visit with her legal dad. When it was time for her to go in with him she started screaming because she was scared and her face was literally turning blue from crying so hard. I got so mad I finally said very loudly "THIS IS NOT RIGHT!"
They did still drag her into the visit, BUT that incident led to this issue being brought before the judge and "ha ha" I won again. It was court ordered that the workers could not make Lizzy go in there kicking and screaming. If she wanted me to go into the visit with her I was allowed to go in with her. If she was just fine and wanted to go in then she went in by herself.
It wasn't extremely simple though, before this was in front of the judge, the day I through a fit the social worker tattled on me to the people above her. They called me in the office and tried to tell me that this was what they had to do. I explained the situation further PLUS told them about all the inappropriate things this social worker had been doing and by the end of it they told me to "please don't feel like you are in trouble because you are not at all and we will be talking with the social worker about these issues."
Once we had the court hearing I was probably very smug because I had gotten what I wanted ...I hated that social worker. She literally almost ruined Lizzy's life.
About a year ago she left the agency (BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN) and suddenly everyone is very open to talking about what a horrible social worker she was, the other workers and foster parents alike. They should have fired her.
So, what FINALLY had to happen for you to freak out and say "No, that is NOT going to happen!" ????