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Adoption
Home Study Experience?
Anyone care to share with me a little about their homestudy? I know things vary, but I don't have much knowledge about it.
How long did your study take to complete? How many meetings? Were all the meetings with you and your spouse/partner or were some separate? We started the homestudy process with the state before we decided it wasn't for us, and their process seems quite different from the agency.
Sort of related...when did you begin to build a room or nursery? Once you were picked? Once you came home with your child/baby?
How long did your study take to complete? How many meetings? Were all the meetings with you and your spouse/partner or were some separate? We started the homestudy process with the state before we decided it wasn't for us, and their process seems quite different from the agency.
Sort of related...when did you begin to build a room or nursery? Once you were picked? Once you came home with your child/baby?
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Re: Home Study Experience?
Our homestudy itself was simple. Because we live some distance from the social worker, she came out once and basically spend 7 hours with us. She interviewed us individually (but we were in the same room) and then she interviewed us as a couple. She looked around our home checking for safety features: fire extinguisher, fire exit, smoke detector.... So once her visit was over she told us it would take about a month to write up and send to the agency. It took 13 weeks. We have no idea if that was her fault or the agency's. In any case, we finally got it, edited it, and signed it and returned it. It was painless except for the ridiculous lateness of it.
We started working on our nursery once we were officially matched. We know it might be a bad idea if placement didn't occur, but I couldn't fathom coming home with a baby and having NOTHING in the house. So, we've bought a few outfits, and tucked them away, a crib (which hasn't arrived), a glider chair, and painted and picked a theme. That's it.
You're right, it will vary. Here's how it went for us
We had a pre-home study meeting to get to know each other a bit, 3 meetings at the agency, and a final one at our home. We were together for all of them.
HS from start to finish took 4 months. It took DH 6 weeks to do his autobiography, the state lost one of our clearances for 9 weeks, and our SW took a month to write her report.
As for the nursery, everyone does it differently based on comfort level. People on this board who had quick matches encouraged prepping sooner rather than later so we weren't caught flat-footed. But DD still didn't have a crib mattress the night she came home, LOL
Thanks everyone! I'm on the mobile site, so I cant see your siggy, but I'll check it out!
We were sent our "homework" prior to her coming over. It was biographies, paperwork, questiairres, etc.
She did one visit that lasted about 23 hours. That included joint interviews/conversations, individual conversations, dinner, going over paperwork, and home inspection which she almost forgot to do, lol.
About a week later we and our agency were sent the rough draft and the final copy was ready, notarized and all that jazz less than a week after that.
Ours went incredibly fast and we're definitely the exception more than the rule.
With our particular agency, we started our home study August 24th and finished November 30th. In that time we had 6 different interview sessions with our SW lasting about 90 minutes to 2 hours each time. I had to go alone once and my husband did as well. Only the last visit was at our home.
We had 2 different books on adoption to read and write up chapter summaries on. 16 hours of online classes to take and submit forms on. Background checks, fingerprinting, we had to attend a seminar on open adoption at our agency, our profile book needed to be completed with specific requirements that were agency-specific. We had to watch a 2-hour documentary on transracial adoption (only because we were open to being matched for one). It was a pretty intense home study process compared to some that you'll probably read about on here that take like 1 day it seems.
We used a private Christian agency that only has about 15-18 families in the waiting pool at one time. The average wait time was 20-22 months. Thankfully we were matched and brought our son home 2.5 months following home study approval.
We started getting things together for a nursery after home study approval. Unfortunately we weren't ready at all with our nursery when our son came home and literally we just got it completed about a month ago when he was 3 months. Everything happened way faster than we anticipated.
:::Our Adoption Journey:::
Evan James was born 1/24/13 and matched with us 2/20/13. The LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!
I think ours was over the span of 2 (or 3) visits. Our sw emailed the questionnaire packet to us prior, so we had most of it filled out, we just reviewed it. We were interviewed individually, but we were in the same room, then interviewed together, then a home tour.
It took about a month for her to write up and finalize.
ETA: we started the nursery when we went active, adding things here and there, but having the main items already there. Once we were matched, we speedily finished it and bought gender specific clothes.
Homestudy process was pretty straightforward.
We met with our SW within a week of being assigned to her. Then we filled out the questionnaire (all 119 questions) which took about a month because we kept stopping and starting, then we each had separate interviews with SW. End of April we had the home inspection with lasted all of 20 minutes (good thing I didn't go crazy cleaning), and now we are just waiting to be approved. The managing SW has been on vacation for two weeks so the report is sitting on her desk waiting to be read and approved. This is somewhat okay since I have ordered the profile book and it is on it's way. I think we started in mid January so if that helps any.
We really haven't started the nursery yet. One of the requirements for getting into the waiting pool is to have a car seat, that is the only baby related thing we have. I want to get the nursery started but feel it is not appropriate yet. We have painted it and there is a dresser but that is it. I don't want to get a whole bunch of stuff right away because I don't want it sitting there while we wait. Maybe once we are matched we will start to get some stuff purchased but we are not in a rush.
For us the home study consisted of 2 visits one week apart in our home. One visit was 3 hours and the second was 4 or 5, I think.
Our social worker e-mailed us a 6 page questionnaire prior to our first visit. The questionnaire took me three solid nights (after work) to complete and it was 17 pages once I had answered all of the questions.
At our first visit we basically went over the answers to our questionnaires and went more in detail when needed. She did interview us individually, but did not make one of us leave the room or anything like that. We never left the living room during that interview.
At our second visit we finished going over our questionnaires, discussed our child "preferences," and did our home inspection.
The inspection was super simple - she made sure all of our cleaning chemicals were either locked or put up where a child couldn't get to them, and basically just walked around each room in our home. She asked us a few questions about our home like "do you have regular trash pickup," and "is there indoor plumbing."
One thing we did have to do was make an emergency contacts list which included the name, address and phone number of our agency as well as a emergency exit plan. We posted both of these on our fridge.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, it seems so long ago. I have a timeline on our blog which includes information on documentation we completed for our home study - https://weareuntilforever.blogspot.com
I was very stressed before our home study, but now realize there was nothing to worry about.
Good luck!
we are until forever...
check out our blog