I'm newly licensed, so maybe I just have a faulty expectation of how this should work. But every time I've called or emailed my licensing consultant with a question, I've never heard back from her. When she was here for my licensing inspection, I asked what forms of communication she preferred, and she told me phone and email, so that's what I've been using. But she's never answered me. She only keeps office hours one day a week (I guess she's out visiting licensed homes and centers the other days), so I've tried specifically targeting that day for emails or phone calls, and I never hear back from her.

My first kids start next week, so it's never been anything urgent, but I did have some questions I needed to ask her for clarification. At this point, I'm just documenting that I asked and never received an answer in case I ever need to prove that I tried to consult with her over xyz issue.

Am I being unreasonable to expect her to return my phone calls and emails? Or do they really only get involved in cases of accidents or allegations?

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My case-worker does respond fairly quickly but if she is out of the office doing inspections, etc she does not respond. At the most, I would say 24 hours. Depending on the issue, too, someone else in the office can usually help.
Sorry, that can be VERY frustrating because usually if I am needing to speak with her it is a semi-emergent situation.

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I would just call the main office with questions.

I only had to call mine once because a child tripped and hit his head at my house and had to go to the hospital to get stitches in his forehead and we are supposed to call and report an accident. She never called me back!

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Mine is pretty quick... but she has particular days she's out checking homes, so I will get a return call back later in the day or the next day when that happens.

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I called mine once. She was supposed to inspect my backyard pool area after I made improvements. She was supposed to ok it before I was allowed to use it again. She never called back. Never came back to inspect either until my surprise inspection almost 3 years later. By that time we didn't even have the pool anymore!
I used my backyard without her ok for those 3 years.

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Yeah, I've been calling her cell phone because that's the one she asked me to use, but I have a state office number on her business card, so I guess I should try that.

So far my questions have been follow-ups on my initial licensing, so without a child bleeding, I guess it isn't urgent. For example, we discussed cleaning with bleach vs. cleaning with non-bleach EPA approved products (my dd has asthma, and bleach is discouraged). She wouldn't give me an answer on it at my licensing appointment, asked me to email her information and documentation, which I did, and I never heard back from. Followed up and still no feedback. Same with a couple of other questions/issues. None of them major, but I don't want to be at fault for something that I've tried to seek clarification on and can't get it.

Maybe I should just look at the positive side...the state isn't overly concerned with being involved in how I run my fcch.

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Sounds like this is the direction I'm heading in.

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Mine calls back within minutes, BUT she makes it crystal clear that she will only answer questions not already available on the website.

On the occasion she does not know the answer (every time I have had a question ) she researches it and emails me the links/email chain to read for myself.

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Yeah, I think with this economy, money is tight and they don't have the manpower to inspect or follow up with people. But you would think that they could take a few minutes on the phone, heck even text if they absolutely had to!
If it were me, I would do what I thought was right and if they say anything, show them your documentation that you did call. Especially about the bleach and it being an allergy!
It sounds like at this point, if we did wait for call backs we wouldn't be in business...lol

Maybe if you put your state and/or area on here and ask your questions, someone would have an answer.?

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I can understand that they would not be happy about wasting their time answering questions that can be handled via the website. But that's not been the case in my situations. Honestly, I think I corrected her on some fine points of the regulations when she was here. There was a situation of her saying, "Well, we don't allow that" and I said, "Well, the state handbook says right here it is allowed," and she followed up with her supervisor and had to allow it. Maybe she's irritated with me. But I knew that handbook forward and back. She may have just been mistaken, or they may try to pass off information as rules when it's really not the rules, just their preferences.

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I'm in NC.

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I'm in Illinois and I never get a reply back from my state rep. whether i have emailed or called it makes no difference. If i call the central office, I'm told to call my rep only!

If I'm lucky enough to get her to answer the phone she also gives conflicting answers and refuses to follow anything up in writing, which can be worrisome.

I have started to write down details of calls, messages etc so that I have a record of our transactions. Just in case!

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This too! She often tells me things that are contradictory to state regulations and says they are 'unwritten rules ' I have to follow. If they're unwritten, how do I know about them?

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I've suspected this would be the case for me as well, based on previous calls to the state office, so I've stuck with her cell phone. Wouldn't hurt my documentation, though, to show that I tried every possible option.

Frustrating, huh?

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It has always depended with me... We have a super high turnover this newest guy has NEVER returned a call- I've called maybe three times and nothing-

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Mine normally will respond to messages or e-mails within the day. They Har just given all our monitors laptops/tablets/portable printers so that they have all their things with them on the go.

She does have a "desk day", when she is in office all day. But regardless she sis pretty easy to get a hold of.

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If I were told that I had to contact my "rep only", and my rep didn't respond to my calls within a reasonable time frame, I would speak to her supervisor, and if that didn't work, I would speak to her supervisor's supervisor. It is unacceptable to ignore calls from the people she is there to help. Her job is about more than home visits, she is supposed to be a resource for you.

That said, I usually hear back from mine the same day, even if it is just an e-mail acknowledging my contact, and telling me she is busy and will call me the next day.

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Ugh... I hate the unwritten rules! They need to have a licensing book that states EVERYTHING! There are a few things that you have to do, but unless they give you a separate handout, you have no clue!

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We have one here. It's 537 pages long. Apparently, there's still room for unwritten rules.

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Wow, 537 pages!? Well we do have a licensing book and there is a technical assistance manual online as well as checklists that we can get online, but you would think it would just be altogether! But then again, with this economy they probably don't have the money to print all that stuff (here anyways)

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Ours is all on line, you have to print it yourself. Most of it is the regulations, but each chapter has extra resource/reference pages. All total it's 537 pages!

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Wow, I already loved my licensing rep. and after reading all these replies, I love her even more. She ALWAYS answers her phone or gets back to me within 24 hours (usually quicker). I can ask her anything and if she doesn't know
(rare but occasional), she asks her supervisor and gets back to me quickly. She is VERY by-the-book and matter of fact yet she is still understanding. I don't know what I would do if I had someone who ignored my questions !

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From my experience with state workers (not just DCFS, but nearly every state worker I've had contact with) that would do nothing except honk a lot of people off . Illinois has an extremely difficult bureaucracy to deal with.

Back to the original question - I don't have a direct line, a cell phone number or an e-mail address for my licensing rep. Most of the time I'm not even sure who he or she is as they change quite often. The few times I've had to contact them over 20 years I've played telephone tag in an endless loop for several days before I could actually reach anyone at all. The last time I contacted the office I got hung up on because I had the nerve to be peeved that my rep no show-no called me for my renewal visit. I was actually quite polite about it, too. She just snorted and hung up when I suggested that perhaps a phone call would have been nice .

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Mine is very hard to get ahold of. I do not like calling her, because she is very mumbly and hard to understand on the phone, she always sounds like I am being extremely annoying (or she just woke up from a nap or something) ... I have only called her twice - once to return her call to set up a visit, and another time to ask her if she received the fax that she asked me to send. The 2 e-mails I have sent her have taken up to 2 weeks to receive a response from her.

She also seemed only concerned with my dog while she was here during her visit (she doesn't like animals) and didn't even report the wetlands area in our yard (saying on the report that there is no water hazard, even though I had been asking her about why type of fence would be allowed and such).

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