I hate dealing with DoCS!!!!!!!

[lil miss]

I ****ing HATE dealing with DoCS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its sil's birthday next thursday, and all she wanted was to go see her brother and sister for the day. So Michael and I organised it with their carer- all good, we will spend this Saturday up there with them. Then Michael let DoCS know, and the stupid ***** (DoCS worker) turned around and made it next weekend- AFTER we had explained that it cant be next wekeend because sil has a cadet thing on!!!!!!! This woman did nothing but cause issues for us last time as well and she wasnt even our case worker. Besides, we were told that as soon as we were approved carers (which we are) then sil's file would be transferred to mackay to make it easier for visits and interviews and monitoring etc... this STUPID woman has now refused to do that and... is keeping the file up in Bowen- which makes life so bloody hard for us. I cant even make a complaint against her because she is now the team leader up there- the person i would have to go to to make a complaint!!! Grrrrrrrrr. And our previous case worker- dont even know what happened, one day she was ours the next this other stupid woman was and we havent been told anything!!! She had spoken to us and sil about what sil wanted to do once the court order ran out. Sil said she wants to stay with us, which is fine we are happy to have her as long as she wants to stay it just means we dont recieve any financial assistance from welfare nor do we have to deal with welfare anymore (yay!)- its all done between mil and us. Now this stupid woman has completely ignored sil's wishes and said regardless she will going back to mil once the court order finishes in August- half way through the school year even though sil doesnt want to- she wants to stay here and finish school because she knows she wont be able to in the environment up there. FFS!!!!!!!!! I told Michael Im ready to tell this woman to shove it up her ***, and go for guardianship of sil (we have spoken to mil about it before she is happy for us to do it) so we dont have to deal with the morons.

[gizmoduckus]

There must be someone higher up than her that you could talk to, wouldn't there?

[delirium]

A Guardianship Order will make the Dept the guardians, you would need a Permanent Care Order which is effectively adoption. It sounds like your SIL is a teen? my experience is that DoCS won't usually do PC Orders this close to the 18 cut off.

It's a shame she is making it so hard on you. There is a severe shortage of placements for teens and she is in a loving environment which her mother approves of.

You could request a Supervision Order which is basically the lowest Order where Case managers ring and visit less frequently, especially if she is nearly adulthood. How old is she?

[lil miss]

She is 14, 15 next week. Dont even know what order we have, only that we are Approved Kinship carers. we havent been told anything this time. It was our choice to have her here- we didnt like where she was place prior to this. I didnt even want to go through DoCS. We are looking at telling DoCS to shove it up their *** and going for guardianship of her (her mum is perfectly happy with this and so is she). Its a long story, we have had the kids (this sil, plus another sil and bil) before so know how it works.

I will be getting in touch with FAST about this woman.

[notthatgirl]

Grr - how annoying and frustrating for everyone involved...

I've worked with that Dept for a long time (in a consultant type thing, not as an actual social worker) and just wanted to pass on the following. Sorry if you've done this already, but hopefully something is helpful?

*If she is the Team Leader and causing issues, then there is the Manager or the Regional Director to go above her head.(Mackay is Central Region - numbers for the offices are all on the website I think)

*If you think she is being unethical in her decisions, you should also contact the Child Safety Complaints and Review office in Brisbane and they will conduct a review of the decision making in the case.

*Are you Kinship carers through the Dept or an Agency? If you're with an agency, they might be able to help too?

*You could try for a Long Term Guardianship order until she is 18 yrs. I would have thought at almost 15 they would be starting a transition from care plan with her as well? Also, if the Child Protection Order she is under expires and they don't seek another (and if she is not under an IPA) - then essentially she can live where she wants and the Dept can't do anything. If you are not sure of the order, your MIL should have a copy of it.

HTH. Good luck.

[lil miss]

Grr - how annoying and frustrating for everyone involved...

I've worked with that Dept for a long time (in a consultant type thing, not as an actual social worker) and just wanted to pass on the following. Sorry if you've done this already, but hopefully something is helpful?

*If she is the Team Leader and causing issues, then there is the Manager or the Regional Director to go above her head.(Mackay is Central Region - numbers for the offices are all on the website I think)

*If you think she is being unethical in her decisions, you should also contact the Child Safety Complaints and Review office in Brisbane and they will conduct a review of the decision making in the case.

*Are you Kinship carers through the Dept or an Agency? If you're with an agency, they might be able to help too?

*You could try for a Long Term Guardianship order until she is 18 yrs. I would have thought at almost 15 they would be starting a transition from care plan with her as well? Also, if the Child Protection Order she is under expires and they don't seek another (and if she is not under an IPA) - then essentially she can live where she wants and the Dept can't do anything. If you are not sure of the order, your MIL should have a copy of it.

HTH. Good luck.


Thanks. We are kinship carers though the department. Before it went to court in feb, our old caseworker (not the silly woman we have now) asked sil what she wanted to do if it turned out kids could go back to mil- sil said she wants to stay with us. We are happy with that, case worker was happy and just let us know that they wouldnt be able to provide any assistance as it was no longer their issue (obviously worded it differently lol). Honestly, we have not been told anything. She has been with us since the start of december last year and its only been in the last week they have even told us what contact we are allowed to have with mil- which as we were told last time is ultimately up to us as they cannot prevent us from seeing mil as DH is her son and our children are her grandchildren. Its just this woman who insists on making things difficult. I will be putting in a complaint about her as i do believe she has a personal issue with mil and always has- she has caused nothing but issues for mil from day 1 and nothing but headaches for us now. She doesnt want whats in the best interest for sil, and when we try to explain why we think something is in sil's best interest, she ignores us and does what she wants anyway. Its like she gets off on asserting her power.