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Sunday, September 5, 2010

Lizzy's Court Date - Sept 3rd

Well, I don't know if I had mentioned it but I feel like Lizzy social worker is not going to be telling me any details about the case or hearing so I decided to go myself so that I would know what really happened.

They had a hearing 30 days ago at which none of the actual people that are in charge of the situation showed up. Lizzy's lawyer sent a sub, the social worker sent a sub, and the DHS worker had been switched 2 weeks prior so he had no idea what was going on either. So they set this date Sept 3rd as the next court date.

Here is what happened:

Everyone was there. I got to meet Lizzy's lawyer in person and the DHS worker in person. They were both really nice and paid a lot of attention to me. BUT I don't think I will ever get a call back from the DHS worker. He remembers me calling him and everything but was a little...flighty. Lizzy's lawyer is a nice guy and seems to be on top of most of the stuff.

Lizzy's bio dad was not physically present in the court room but they called him and put him on speaker phone. His lawyer had no idea what was going on and was very flustered.

Before the judge came out Lizzy's lawyer warned me that "The judge is going to be mad because she didn't get the court report until today and she is going to want to know why she was place out of this county, don't let it rattle you."

So, the judge comes in and she is mad. She never yells but she gives a lecture to Lizzy's social worker that I deal with about not having the report to her or anyone else at least 5 business day before court and basically threatened to hold her in contempt of court. After that she said "We are NOT having a hearing today unless all of you are ready to waive the fact that you did not receive the report until now". None of them did that.

She hashed through some more paper work problems, addressed bio dad's lawyer for not showing up at the last hearing and then said "I want to know why this child is not place in OUR county" - no one had the answer. She looked at me and said "This no way reflects on your care of the child but I do what to know why she is not placed in our county."

No one knew the answer to that either, Lizzy's lawyer asked me if I knew and I didn't. Now that I have had a whole day to think about it I think there were two reasons:

-They were looking for an adoptive placement, which I don't think the judge would want to hear

- They thought the Aunt Lizzy was living with before me lived in the same city as the agency so they thought "She is already here"

So, at the end of the hearing the judge turned to me and said "I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you, I am glad to see you here, you have every right to be here."

So, they set the next hearing for Sept. 17th.

I told Ben that they should have video taped this and show it at all training classes for foster parents, social workers, and anyone else associated with foster care to show the exactly why foster care is the way it is.

4 comments:

aka. Mimi said...

I am SO GLAD you went! I always try to go to every hearing that I'm made aware of. (There have been a few that no one bothered to tell me about) The hearings really have been the best source of information for me when it came to the kids, and for the most part, was the only time I was ever able to talk to anyone else involved in the legal part of their cases. Praying things progress well at the next one!

StarfishMom said...

So true!! No one has ANY idea what they are doing and it's the BABIES who suffer!!! I can't STAND it!!

Diane said...

Good job for going, especially as it was a drive for you. Your presence shows the judge how much you really care. The next hearing is way sooner than it would be here if the judge decided to continue the hearing. We usually wait at least a month. Hope you can make that hearing too!

Endless Foster Love said...

Glad that you went to the hearing. I have made all of the hearings except this last one and I had to miss due to work....I hated it but could not be helped.

Anyway, I have been in the courtroom multiple times when the judge DID yell and was uglier than I thought a judge could ever be. It was not pretty and was actually quite terrible.

So, I am glad at least that the judge did not go off completely!

Hang in there:)