KidSave International

An amazing program marred by a lack of checks and balances

My review of Kidsave leaves me feeling immensely conflicted. The purpose and mission statement of Kidsave is one that I not only believe in, but one that I feel passionate about. The vast majority of the staff at Kidsave, from the wonderful volunteers to the CEO are good, caring and wonderful people. My wife and I have enjoyed the events, the children are all great and the concept of building a relationship with children before adopting them is absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately though, it's a system that is flawed, with far too few checks and balances. Because of this lack of oversight, the intentions of one Kidsave employee named Lauren Reicher-Gordon was so shocking and overwhelmingly negative that we very nearly gave up on the road to adoption. I would like this review to serve as a stark warning for those considering Kidsave. I feel that as long as my review stays online, that what happened to us will likely (hopefully) never happen to another family. I'm entirely unsure if the reasoning is that we are a biracial couple (I am half African American and my wife is Caucasian) or because Lauren Reicher-Gordon decided for some reason that we were not 'good enough' for Kidsave, we were strongly discouraged from being a part of Kidsave. Not only were we discouraged, but Lauren Reicher-Gordon presented herself to us multiple times as a county worker (after reporting her behavior to DCFS, we later found out that she lied), gave us incorrect information and spoke to us like we were garbage. My wife and I are an upper middle class, happily married couple who are unable to bear biological children. We had first reached out to Kidsave in late March or the first week of April to schedule ourselves for April's orientation and training, but were met with a resounding nothing, We'd emailed several times, we'd called and were absolutely astounded that our communications had been completely ignored. Since that time, we were repeatedly harassed by Lauren Reicher-Gordon and dissuaded from being a part of the Kidsave program, as well as becoming a resource family. We were criticized (she even went so far as to criticize my 'business casual' attire and tell me that I *should* wear a t-shirt and jeans) and intentionally given incorrect information multiple times. This culminated in a phone call in early June where we were threatened by Lauren Reicher-Gordon with unnamed 'consequences' if we attended resource family training. She then lied and said that we'd signed up for a $500 per ticket gala event that same day. Lauren Reicher-Gordon's behavior was so outrageous and inappropriate that we reported her to DCFS and found out that she was lying about being a county worker. The actual county workers were as shocked by Kidsave as we were. Ultimately, Kidsave's mission goal is amazing, but it is dangerous to have your experience be guided by the actions, intentions and personal prejudice of just one person.

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