How Easy Is It To Reach Your Licensing Consultant?

[blandino]

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.

[Leigh]

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!

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.

[melilley]

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? :confused:

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!

[AcornMama]

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!

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

[melilley]

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

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)

[AcornMama]

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)

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!

[Leanna]

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 !

[MyAngels]

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.

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 ::.

[MsLaura529]

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).