Thursday, April 10, 2008

adoption meeting

I posted a few weeks ago about a meeting with our adoption worker that we were not really happy with. Well we made an appointment to talk to the supervisor (who cancelled one meeting, and rescheduled for today) and we went this morning to another town to talk to her.
Well, this meeting was as frustrating as the first one. We knew before we went in that the supervisor was likely to defend her employee - as a supervisor that's what I would have done - but we certainly didn't expect what we got.
I think, in their defense, that social workers tend to be listeners. It takes a certain kind of person to be a social worker. I am not criticizing people who listen, however when I want solutions and answers, talking to a listener is not likely to produce the kind of results I am looking for.
One of the first things she said to us was "I haven't looked at your file." I wish I would have clued in at that minute and said, "Ok, CAN you look at our file please?" It doesn't make any sense to me that when a family calls to say they have a problem that you wouldn't pull the file and look at it.
The meeting did not unfold as we expected. The supervisor DID defend the new worker and say she was overworked and had too many files and that some things were being done to eliminate the burden she is under. She didn't do anything or offer any suggestion as to why the worker didn't ask us for the paperwork that was missing (that we found out from a foster worker). She didn't offer us any idea on when things would be moving forward on our file.
She listened.
I've been to training sessions over my years in youth work and in the position I hold currently that teach the importance of listening. I think it is a valuable skill. I didn't want to be "listened to" today. I wanted some solutions, some information, some idea of what was happening to move our file forwad. We got nothing.
This process is HUGELY frustrating.

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