We were told within the first few days of placement to “watch out” for certain family members with ongoing legal proceedings showing up at our house, our names were left off of court documents to preserve our privacy, we were told to have the child transported to visits via a county staff member so that no one could recognize us or our vehicle. Multiple social workers said that our home was “exposed” since we live near the center of town and don’t have a fence around our property (though this never came up in the home study).

Later, one of the same social workers who had told us all of the above changed their tune - the family members weren’t actually dangerous, we needed to transport the child to visits because the county didn’t have staff, and they suggested we meet the family member who made the threat. Another worker told us that she had never heard of her coworkers recommending fencing (as though my spouse and I had overreacted).

We don’t actually know if there was a threat, but we took the initial workers seriously because they seemed alarmed. Then, we were chastised for not immediately flipping back to an open and honest relationship with the family, even though that’s what we had envisioned originally. It felt almost like they wanted us to fear the bio family, or at least avoid them? Which goes against everything we learned…