Caring for the children is the easiest part of the job....

Okay, I'm not USUALLY one to complain but I feel I'm at an impass right now and a little complaining might just save me from burning a bridge that I'm trying HARD not to burn.

Rex* is going home tomorrow - home to his dad for good and needless to say, I don't think he should be, at least not yet. Of course, I'm not allowed to express my displeasure at this lovely course of action and frankly, I don't even want to talk about it. I've known this child for ALMOST a year now (he's been placed with us twice now) and I just don't feel like he's going to live the life he DESERVES to live BUT I know that God has His hands on it so I'm trying hard to just pray and hope that things work out exactly the way they are supposed to.....

We told our agency that we would like an infant to replace Rex* - we let them know this more than 2 weeks ago now. Yesterday, I emailed to see if there were any potential placements and she emails me back and says because of the budget, they are not letting them replace any placements in regular foster care. I am annoyed because 1.) We have a CONTRACT with the state and 2.) Why didn't my agency TELL me...were they going to just WAIT until I brought it up?

I have been trying to get the girls into some therapy/counseling for the TWO months that we've had them and I can't get anyone to call us back or take me seriously. Yesterday, in the email to our agency, I mentioned that our five year old foster daughter was exhibiting some concerning behavior - including tying strings and other items around herself to the point of cutting off some circulation.

Our agency makes it sound like an emergency is taking place and calls DHS who almost sent someone out to our home to put this child in a treatment facility....and I HAVE an angry DHS worker on my case who was irritated that I didn't call HER in the emergency (because there WAS NO emgerency).

We would like to leave our agency (since they can't make any placements due to budget cutbacks) but in order to do that we have to empty our home (you can't have children in your home while you switch from private to county foster care) which means we will have to have the girls leave even though I don't feel like I've gotten them established with therapy or anything....

I'm so frustrated with the WHOLE situation - my agency has been out to our home ONCE this year (compared to the 2 times a month that took place when we had a different case manager there), and she's obviously not getting the children in my care the services they're needing....BUT once we finally ARE able to adopt, we'd like to go back and do Emergency Foster Care for the agency again (assuming they've worked out the issue with this case manager) so I don't want to burn any bridges.

Okay, I feel a LITTLE better getting all that out......

Literally, taking care of the children is the EASIEST part of the job