Sunday, April 5, 2009

Illinois Confidential Intermediaries: Good or Bad?

I pay attention to what goes on in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio because Indiana is sandwiched in the middle of all of it. Someone told me recently that the country does follow what Illinois does.. So I watch even further now as a result.

I posted some interesting information on Midwest Adoption Center. It is an organization that does confidential intermediary work for the state of Illinois. You know how adoptees can not be trusted with their personal information! It irritated me because it affected adoptees. If it affects adoptees, I pay attention. I mentioned that Nancy Golden is one of those that runs that organization. She according to Guidestar.org is paid a $100,000 a year. I do not even think Katrina Carlisle earns that much through her confidential intermediary work with St. Elizabeth Coleman.

I found a case that Nancy Golden was reprimanded on. That number is social worker license #150001566 on November 30, 1991 (date of expiriation). I find interesting when I used a certain deep web search tool that she has an older license where she was reprimanded on. She was allowed to let that license expire. She was allowed to get a new one (social worker clinicial license #149003006) where there is no reprimand listed on it. She violated client confidentiality on it. A foster care parent lost his job over this issue. He and his family filed a lawsuit and won. Now she is working with adoptees. I wonder if their confidentiality has been violated as well. No one noticed this first article.

Everyone knows that I personally do not like confidential intermediaries. This part of the searching process irritates because it continues to treat adoptees and their families as incapable of handling their own affairs. I believe that this woman is the key in the situation in Illinois. Illinois has a bill that allows the confidential intermediaries’ previous contacts to stand instead of the mothers writing into the state of Illinois to file a contact refusal.

You see with confidential intermediaries, you have to rely on them to do proper due diligence. You have no guarantee of it. They have their own set of rules that you are not allowed to know. Their standard operating procedures are anyone’s guess. When they get completed with your case, it is anyone’s guess if they did your case right. We are not talking about children making contact. We are talking adults here. These people affect your reunion. These people affect if you have a reunion. When you spending a thousand dollars to get this done, you want some kind of guarantee. If you are adopted, forget it. Its an oh well it sucks to me commentary. We have no way of fighting back against the system.

If you have someone like Nancy Golden as your confidential intermediary, you have no idea how much she will reveal about you to someone else. This is just another example of why it is time to end the discrimination that adoptees and their families face every day. It is the adoption industry that is keeping the shame, ignorance, and deception going.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good. CI program is good. I used their service from 2008-2011 and was very, very satisfied. I did not have Ms. Golden as a case worker. It only cost $295 due to grant money that the CI program was given, not $1000 as you stated. It was well worth the money as my only other option was a private investigator who would have cost much more. The CI program found my son, by the way. All was successful.

Coleman Moms and Babes said...

I know that this post is an older one. I don't have good feelings toward CI programs. I am glad that it worked out for you but why should you have to jump through all those hoops? You are an adult and your son is an adult. Why do you need an in between person? Incompetent by reason of adoption perhaps? It is sad when I know that you both are capable of handling your private affairs privately