An Overview of a Homestudy
Domestic, Feature — By Michelle on April 10, 2009 at 8:01 amAdoption is sometimes called a “paper pregnancy”, due to the lack of a visible baby bump on the mama-to-be, and due to the amount of forms required to proceed with an adoption. Procedures for each agency vary a bit, but every potential adoptive family in the US must go through a home study before being eligible to accept an adoptive placement.
In short, the home study is the written report of a social worker’s findings regarding a potential adoptive family’s readiness to adopt. Along with the social worker’s report, health forms, financial statements, autobiographies and reference letters (from employers as well as friends) may be included. It is important to note that the homestudy is not seen by potential birthparents, it is strictly a tool used by the adoption agency. The home study process further educates the adoptive family, and may alert the home study assessor to any issues which may need to be resolved before a family is ready for an adoptive placement.
A homestudy can take anywhere from 3-6 months to complete, depending on what is required. Fingerprints can take several week to process, references can take some time to respond and medical appointments can take time to schedule. If your agency doesn’t include one, be sure to make a checklist for your family, so that no part of what is required is overlooked. Most agenices won’t consider your profile “ready” (able to be presented to potiential birthparents) until every part of the homestudy is complete.
The Child Welfare Information Gateway has prepared a document that explains all of the homestudy basics, and more resources can be found at adoption.com.
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4 Comments
Two points!
1. I have heard of agencies that do offer the birth parents a chance to see the home study. I know of others who will show it upon request.
2. Both of our home studies were less than 2 months!
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Re: Marci’s comment–I would think that showing the home study to the prospective birth parents or ANYONE outside of the assessing agency would be a big breach of confidentiality. I’m all for transparency, but the home study, as we all know, covers some pretty personal areas. If you are a family signing on with an agency, I’d be darn sure to know ahead of time who would be privy to that information! Heck, our agency wouldn’t even show US our home study! (but that’s another story for another time…)
And as far as “Both of our home studies were less than 2 months!”… :)
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Mama2roo,
I totally agree with you. Some homestudies have some very personal information that I don’t even want people like my parent’s knowing. I thought that only the agency was getting that information, and in international cases, the international side/judge.
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I can’t imagine anyone else reading our homestudy–good to know that it’s a question to ask about!!
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