Kidsave has been awful to us and has been a complete nightmare. Since my husband made the decision…read moreto leave the program in June and left a negative review retelling our terrible experience, Kidsave has not stopped harassing us.
The director of Kidsave, Lauren Reicher-Gordon, posed as a county social worker to us on multiple occasions and was constantly rude to us. Every time we talked to her, she would talk over us or put us down and we put up with it because we thought that she was a county worker and that we'd be in trouble with the county if we stood up for ourselves.
While misrepresenting herself as a county worker, Lauren gave us wrong information, threatened us with 'severe consequences' if we attended county Resource Family (foster/adopt) training and told my husband and I that we were "stealing someone else's spot" in training, as if we didn't have a right to be there.
As she was telling us all this, I put the phone on speaker and allowed multiple witnesses (clients of ours) to overhear the entire conversation, so she couldn't deny it later.
She then passively tried to extort money from us by claiming that we purchased $500 gala tickets (and I kept the emails 'thanking' us for our 'purchase', in case proof is needed).
My husband (who is African American) and I attended two events with Kidsave, after which Lauren Reicher-Gordon made a note to rudely and repeatedly put down my husband's appearance (he was wearing gray jeans, casual button down blue shirt and a casual sport coat), telling him that he should wear a t-shirt and jeans instead. It was so disrespectful that we were floored. Funny how I (Caucasian) was dressed nicely, but she had nothing to say about MY clothing. My husband looked great and we can wear whatever the hell we want, thank you very much.
Since my husband left his review, they've repeatedly harassed us via email until we blocked their email domain. Then they sent physical letters to our home threatening us and even had their lawyers threaten us with a lawsuit if he didn't take his review down.
Since that time, they've had their own employees leave Kidsave fake positive reviews for months and repeatedly attack my husband's character in these reviews. At the same time, our business began receiving fake negative reviews, all from the same person, over that same span of time.
My husband is one of the hardest working people I've ever known. When he's not working, all he does is help people. He coaches people with anxiety and depression online, he volunteers to mentor and teach kids and he's always there when people need him. He's never asked for praise or even thanks (in contrast to the weird praise that they give Lauren in the fake Kidsave reviews - jeez, narcissist much?) and he would be an amazing father.
Things were quiet for a while until my husband and I put through an inquiry to adopt two children. Suddenly, one of Kidsave's volunteer employees, Christopher Means, leaves a fake positive review for Kidsave and starts badmouthing my husband in the first sentence. In fact, he put down my husband's clothes again! Why is Kidsave obsessed with my husband's clothes? Should I be jealous? Contain yourselves, people....Another volunteer named Destiny also left a review that was nearly identical to Christopher's, but without badmouthing my husband.
At the same time, an employee of DCFS who works in the adoptions division then left Kidsave a five-star review at the same time. Completely unethical and a conflict of interest, but we are genuinely concerned that they may be attempting to disrupt placement of any kids in our home out of vengeance towards us.
If the director decides that she likes you, you may have a great experience with Kidsave. Heck, don't take our word for it, read one of the glowing fake reviews written by their own employees.
But ask yourself what kind of human being pretends to be a county social worker in order to feel important, blatantly condescends and discriminates against one of the nicest people on Earth and then spends months harassing that person to remove their review? Oh yeah, it's called a 'narcissist'.
If you love Kidsave, great. If you want to worship the director and feed her narcissism, WE DON'T CARE. LEAVE OUR NAMES OUT OF YOUR CORNY SOUNDING REVIEWS and let us get on with our lives, you obsessive weirdos.