What happens if you fail homestudy??

SAK just wrote almost everything that I was thinking. It is so important to keep in mind that a homestudy (when done well) is a process and its goal is to prepare you for being an adoptive parent. That said, I don't give anyone I don't personally know false assurances not to worry about the homestudy process. A good homestudy process does deny (or at least delay) some people from adopting. Sometimes it's through the person realizing they aren't ready but sometimes it's the social worker determining that there are unresolved issues that must be resolved first. The agency that we worked with was very clear from the beginning that if they thought there were unresolved issues they would make recommendations to us on how we could resolve them, but that they would not write a final homestudy report that approved us for adoption if they did not think it was in a child's best interest to be adopted by us at that time. Personally, if I was looking into working with an agency or social worker that gave false assurances I would choose not to work with them. Mind you, our agency and social worker were very positive, upbeat, and great to work with. It's not like they were holding a threat over us or anything like that. They were simply honest in their priorities and their top priority was doing what is best for children -- it was clear that the children were at the heart of what they do, not us.