The following may be rated for more mature audiences. Especially audiences who know how to do their jobs, follow through with commitments, and be caring, honest people.

I hate people. OK, I guess I don't really hate ALL people, just all the ones around me at this point and time whom I work with, deal with in my foster care agency, and have to share siblings with through my daughter. Can you say, "I need to vent!?"

Saturday we were supposed to have a visit with Olivia's brother in Schaumburg. We haven't seen him since mid Oct - not our choice. Anyway, they cancelled at 8:30am. Foster mom's mom had cancer surgery the day before and they were there with her. Hello! Yes, I'd expect you'd want to be there, but how long have you known about this surgery??? You were the ones who choose the date when I was open to a few. I usually don't tell Olivia when visits are, partly because of this exact thing happening. I told her this time. Two weeks she had been waiting for this visit. Unbelievable. Have they asked about rescheduling - of course not. When will we hear from them again??????? Heaven knows.

With all the things going on with caseworkers and all at the agency, I have been extremely frustrated with them lately as well. I've shared some of the issues in previous blogs. Today I met with the supervisor. He's been trying to be more involved and help those who are frustrated with everything that's happened the last month or so be "heard." So we met. Quite a few things irritated me about our visit. The worst was discussing the special service fees I have been supposed to be getting since we began doing visits with Olivia's brother. He lives 3 hours away and I asked since day one about some help with gas and tolls. The way to do this was through a special service fee. DCFS reimburses foster parents helping with transportation and supervision of sibling visits through set fees. You are able to claim a per mile fee up to a certain amount of miles per month for transporting, as well as a per hour supervision fee up to a certain amount. My caseworker at the time filled out the forms she was told in order to get this fee. I didn't receive anything. Then our last cw took over and she told me she filled out the forms as well. (The first cw I believe, but am not sure about the second.) Anyway, last month I typed out each visit I have done and what DCFS states I should receive. Since we began visits in Aug of 2005, I should have received a total of over $700. Today I again brought this up to the supervisor. He said that he can see what he can do, but that he can only go back to this past July as that is when the fiscal year began. We have only had maybe two visits since July, so basically he's telling me I'm out over $600 of what I should have received, merely because I put my faith in people telling my cw what forms to fill out, and nothing was done. Are you kidding??? He gave me a special service fee form for myself and told me to fill it out after each visit. Would have liked to have known about that 1 1/2 years ago. I am most likely calling the DCFS advocacy office on this one, see if they can do anything. Unreal!!!

And work, well I am just sick and tired of my building. Tired of middle school adolescent attitudes which I never wanted to teach. Tired of myself and one coworker in our Spec. Ed Dept who actually do our jobs, are on time for our weekly meetings, etc. Hard to explain in a few sentences, but I'm so frustrated!!!! (If you couldn't tell.)

Just one of those periods in life where everything seems to be going against what good you are trying to do in this world.
People! Ahhhh!!!