On Friday morning I called Lutheran Social Services (LSS). The social worker whose name we were given was not in the office that day, but they asked if there was anything they could help with. I decided to just share the reason I was calling and was transferred to Brandi – the recruiter for LSS. I told Brandi our situation and frustration and asked if there was anything we could do. She did tell me how we could have everything transferred from CPS over to them and that we would have a few minor additional requirements to do with LSS, but that they would make sure we were taken care of. All of this sounded SO good and encouraging, but feeling burned by CPS, I was not getting my hopes up. She told me that she would send over the first set of paperwork, including the transfer form to me right away so that we could get started. I asked her more questions, and then hung up the phone after she said, “email me if you have any other questions and I will get these forms to you very soon.” I wondered as I hung up the phone how long it would take her to actually email me the files… a week, a few days, one day MAYBE? Again, I was not getting my hopes up. To my pleasant shock and surprise – 5 MINUTES later I had the files in my inbox. I was so excited. I sent Christi a text message saying: “last night I was frustrated and ready to give up, today I am excited and have a renewed passion.” It finally felt like something might happen.
Over the next few days Brandi emailed me multiple times regarding our case and requirements. She also mailed us the additional paperwork that Christi and I had to complete and the schedule for some of the required training sessions that we had to attend. Christi and I decided to get right on the paperwork and try and get it done. Also, one of the trainings we had to do was a week later and we scheduled and went to that training. I continued to be in contact with Brandi about the transfer of all of our other paperwork and files from CPS. She was continuing to be on top of that and informed me that she was having problems tracking our file down and that no one was getting back to her. I was afraid we were going to be facing the same problems as before with CPS – but Brandi assured me that she had some good connections in different offices in CPS and would make sure that this happened. When Christi and I were down in the LSS offices for our “Restraint Training,” I asked Brandi more about the file transfer. She told me she still had no information but had another call into an additional person and was hoping to hear something before we left her office that same day. I happened to remember during our nightmarish-homestudy, that the home study worker said that our last name on our file was misspelled. I asked if that was going to cause a problem and she said “no”. But, when I remembered this, I thought this might be the cause of the problem. Fortunately I had written down at home the way it was misspelled, so I told Brandi when I got home I would send her the information to help her track things down. When I got home, I sent this information to her. A couple days later she informed me that she had tracked down our entire file. Not only was our name misspelled, but our file was located in an office completely different than where it was supposed to be. Fortunately, it was tracked down and everything was being transferred to LSS for us!!!
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