Beginning Home Study soon...any advice?

Hi! I'm sure every agency does things a little differently, but in our case, my husband and I first had an interview with the SW together at her office, and later on we each had seperate interviews. She came to our house once and we answered a few more questions, and she basically just took a tour of the house and made sure there were no major safety hazards and that we knew about baby-proofing the home. We each had to write a few pages about our growing up years, schooling, how we met, professions, ect... Also had to disclose financials and medicals. For the psych eval, we met with the psychologist once together and once separately, and then had to take a written exam. It all sounded scary and intimidating when we first started out, but it really wasn't that bad. They really just want to know what your motivation to adopt is, that you are stable individuals and a stable couple, and have the financial resources to care for a child. Good luck!!!

I think that Ruth Ann covered it pretty well. It was the same procedure for us. Don't stress about the "home" part of the home study. As long as your home is safe and sanitary (clean - not spotless), and a loving environment it will be fine. They are not going to do a white glove test. I know that I stressed out over it the first time. We happened to have a social worker that we really love and we used our home study times to ask any questions that we had and to learn from our social worker's expertise. So, after the social worker finishes asking you her questions, feel free to ask her a few of your own. Afterall, you are paying for her service, so you might as well learn all you can from her while you have her time. I really appreciate our social worker's opennes to our questions. Even when she doesn't know the answers she is willing to track them down for us. Those were the only bits of advice I could think of...congratulations on starting your homestudy. Adoption can be a long process...celebrate every step! It will be worth it in the end!!! Megan

We are also starting our home study this week and are a bit nervous. Due to travel difficulties (we live two hours away), we are both doing our individual interviews this Saturday and will have the home visit done the week after. Thanks for the advice. Are there a lot of questions about your childhood and background? Thanks,

I don't remember there being a lot of questions specifically about your childhood and background, but rather general questions about how you were raised and how that may have impacted how you plan to raise your children. For our first adoption I remember lots of questions regarding how we would deal with acceptance of our extended family and community, racism, general parenting questions and adoptive parenting questions (bonding, attachment, etc.). For our second and now third adoption there were more questions about how we would make the transition smooth for our current children and our new children. Congratulations on starting the process...very exciting! Blessings!

As I remember, I was way more nervous than I needed to be. I was dusting every corner, scrubbing every surface thinking "Will dirty windows make me look like an unfit mom?" Our social worker was so nice and gave a very general look around our house. It was much more low key than I expected. Take a deep breath and relax. You are on your way!