Some Arizona Homestudy Info for All

Phew! I wonder if it's this much work to track down homestudy info in all states.... Anyway, so this is what I have found out about homestudies in AZ as of today. I started out by talking to a foster care and adoption licensing specialist who works for a great orginization called Arizona's Childrens Association at [url]http://www.arizonaschildren.org/.[/url] She was extremely helpful and told me that the homestudy is $800 and can take anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 months. She said they only did 4 international hs last year, but the ACA has been around in some capcacity or other since 1912 and it is licensed by several Arizona Depts. as well as accredited by several organizations so I trust that they know what they are doing - lack of international hs notwithstanding. One website I was on said that if a place has done less than 12 international hs in a year to move on...so in the interest of shopping around, I found some more agencies to talk to.... WELL... the info I got from them was a LOT different. I was told by a couple of agencies (no I didn't keep the names, I am sorry :( ) that Arizona law requires precertification and that this precertification is a seperate fee from the international paperwork processing fee. One place told me the certification/homestudy process fee would be $950 and then the international paperwork fee would be $500. The second place I talked to also said that Arizona law requires pre-adoption state certification. There fee was $800 plus $150 for *international paperwork*. She also told me that Arizona law requires couples to be married 1 year before their paperwork can even be submitted! Well, of course I was floored by all this (How logical is it that singles can adopt but a married couple has to be married a certain length of time before they can adopt? I mean, I can understand the need to demonstrate the stability of a marriage or persons through marriage/divorce history, but length of marriage is NO indication of its potential longevity!!! arghh!). So anyway, this info was SO different that I called back the first woman I had talked to at ACA and told her what I was being told by other agencies and I asked if I had got the info right from her. She said yes, I was right and she had never heard of being REQUIRED to have certification by Arizona law. Nor had she ever heard of a couple having to be married a year BEFORE their paperwork was even submitted. Just to make sure this wasn't a fluke, I found another agency (Hand in Hand International @ [url]http://www.hihiadopt.org[/url]) here that does adoptions (including homestudies- although you have to adopt through them for them to do the homestudy, it can't be contracted seperately). The lady there I talked to also said that she had never heard of Arizona requring certification or the 1 year marriage thing either. We agreed that it sounded like these other two places are trying to scam Arizona families for more money... So, Arizona parents beware!!! Okay, so I hope this helps Arizona Parents... AZ parents-to-be if you want to network or talk, give me a holler :) Regards, SC :p