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WWWP · 03-03-2020, 04:52 PM

I've been working on a case since January involving a child placed into foster care, and had everything I needed to approve services except for the child's birth certificate. Birth certificates and vaccination/medical records are notoriously difficult to get through CPS, so I asked all the leads and assistant managers if there was any way around it or what alternatives I could pursue in order to get this kid into care as soon as possible, and every person I asked gave me a different answer. None of which were helpful.

Like you know when someone thinks they know what you're asking and give you an answer to that imaginary question before you even finish asking your actual question? Or they just tune out your question and fixate on the one they *thought* you were asking? It was a bunch of bs like that. So I stay in contact with the foster parent letting them know my progress on everything, have them come in for an appointment to get every other piece squared away while we are both waiting to hear from CPS about getting this birth certificate.

So it's now been two months since the kid has gone into the system, and my agency has paid for none of the childcare, because "tHe StAtE sAyS we need the birth certificate." So I pull out my copy of Title 5 as a last resort and find that I could have accepted any number of documents as an alternative to the birth certificate. Just like I thought. Just like I kept asking about. So I went to the head boss and explained that this is what i found vs this is what people are telling me, and I requested to reimburse the two months of childcare this foster parent has been having to pay out of pocket. My manager said "not knowing all of the information available isn't an error on [our agency]'s part, but you could encourage the parent to try to get the money from CPS." And I said ok but what about all of your staff having bad information/giving me bad advice at the expense of the foster parent? She didn't have an answer.

So I went back to my desk and committed some light fraud in order to authorize the back-payment anyway and reimbursed the parent in full. It's already done, the action can't be reversed. So if I get found out I might get fired but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. My clients don't have the luxury of being incompetent.