Last year I shared about our pregnancy loss and I have since shared my fertility testing results. Although we had hoped to conceive a child naturally we have known even before we got married that if that didn’t work out that we would pursue adoption. As we have talked about our adoption journey we have learned that many people don’t know much about the adoption process and we have been happy to share our experience. We are thrilled to announce that we are now home study approved!
The home study is a crucial part of the adoption and must be completed prior to seeking any adoption opportunity. Although required for both foster care and private adoption there are different requirements for each. Also, requirements do vary by state and the approval is done through the individual / couple’s home state. We are seeking private infant adoption and live in Mississippi so if you are seeking adoption in other state your home study may look a little different.
When most people hear the phrase “home study” they imagine a social worker visiting the home and then the individual / couple is approved to adopt. While the home inspection is part of the process it is just one aspect of the home study, which examines the prospective parents background, financial, physical and mental health as well as their home and community. Overall, we dedicated about 120 hours to our home study.
Profile – 30 hours
For our home study agency this was 14 pages of demographic, home, family, education, and financial information that we complied and sent in as part of our application. Some pages took longer than others – for example, all of our financial information was on one page but included calculating our net worth and our monthly household budget.
Vital Documents
These are the documents we were required to send in copies of along with our profile.
birth certificates
social security cards
drivers licenses
health insurance cards
tax return
paystubs
passports
marriage license
employer letters
pet vaccinations
well water test
home photos
Medical Evaluation – 5 hours
Part of the process is to ensure that the hopeful parents are physically able to care for a child. Our evaluation included a physical, summary of our medical history and included a TB Test, HIV test and Drug Screen. The TB test required a return visit so our time includes both trips. We both had to include a list of medications we take and Shaun had to have a letter from our doctor stating that he was mentally fit to parent as he takes a mild anti anxiety medication.
Child Safety Agreements – .5 hour
There were several forms we signed certifying that our home is a safe environment.
firearm – this requires all guns and ammunition in the home to be kept in a locked safe
swimming pool – we do not have a pool but homes that do are required to have a secure gate around the pool
environmental inspection – this was part of the home inspection. Smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and fire extinguishers are required in the home
Autobiography – 10 hours
Our bios took a significant part of time and we were each required to complete one. I worked on mine a few questions at a time and would say on average spent 15 minutes per question. Our bios were 38 open end questions dealing with personality upbringing / family history, marriage / family, parenting style, adoption motivation, employment, health, home and community, lifestyle, and racial attitudes
Background Checks – 6 hours
Another crucial element of the home study is clearing the hopeful parent’s backgrounds. We had to go to a local fingerprinting office for our FBI checks and several states required that our authorization to release our information be notarized so we had to visit our bank before sending those forms off.
criminal history
Child Abuse Clearance from each state you have lived in since 18
sex offender registry check
FBI Fingerprint and Background Check
Domestic Adoption Training – 25 hours
The home study process also includes training for the hopeful parents. We read the book The Connected Child and then had to answer together 21 open ended questions on topics covered in the book. We had three additional articles on adoption to read and took nine online training courses:
Introduction to Prenatal Exposure for those considering adoption
Introduction to Domestic Infant Adoption
Should You Accept this Adoption Match – Evaluating Risk Factors
Transitioning Home as a Newly Adoptive Family
Talking with Young Children about adoption and birth parents
What you need to know about open adoption when you’re thinking about adopting
Adult Transracial Adoptees Teach Us about adoption
How Do Transracial Adoptees Develop a Racial Identity
Should you consider adopting a child of a different race or ethnicity
We found these trainings to be very helpful and it gave us a lot of things to think about as we willed out our Adoptive Parent Questionnaire with our agency – this process is what determines what situations we are willing to be matched with such as pre-natal substance use, first family medical history, and race.
Social Worker Interviews – 12 hours
We met with our case worker three times. If your social worker is based close to your home this will not take as long but our social worker’s office is a little less than two hours away from our home so this includes our travel times, two visits were at her office and one was in our home after the inspection.
Home Inspection – 40 hours preparing
This area will vary by family and we really over pre-paired for our visit. The home is required to have a room for the child, be in good, clean condition with working utilities and have reasonable safety measures in place. All guns and ammunition, medication and chemicals must be locked away and the home must have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as well as a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. We had been using the spare room for storage so the majority of our pre time was dedicated to cleaning it out. Most families indicate they simply cleaned their home as if company was coming over.
References
We were required to provide one family member, one employer and four personal references. Each reference was sent three page document with open ended questions regarding their observations on our fitness to be parents.
Most families take three to six months to finish their home study. Keep in mind that all of this work needs to be done while keeping the rest of your life going. Because we both work from home we were able to take mid day breaks to get a lot of our things outside the home done and then worked on our bios and preparing for the home inspection after hours. I did need to take off two days total from work for our social worker interviews and completing other parts of the process that could not be done on weekends.
I hope this post has helped you understand the home study process a little better and we wish you the best on your journey!
