Step 1: Home Study

Step 1: Home Study

You know those crazy mud run obstacle courses that mildly crazed but impressive people do for fun? A home study feels like that. Between May and July if you asked us what we've been up to we probably told you it was our home study. A home study is a federally mandated, state regulated, deep dive into every aspect of an adoptive parents life. The hope is that the screening will mean children being adopted or fostered only ever get placed in safe, appropriate and loving homes. The process is a lot of jumping through obstacles but it feels like quite an accomplishment when you are on the other side.

One home tour

Two 90 minute interviews 

Three Doctor statement's of health (four if you count vet vaccine documents)

Four letters of recommendation

Five identity documents each (Drivers License, Passport, SSN, Birth Cert, Marriage license)

Six background checks

Seven asset related records asset/finance/tax/income records

Eight… no wait… Twenty pages of a single spaced answers to a questionnaire asking everything about our childhood, job history, marriage, religion, health, personality, hobbies, shortcomings, intentions for our future children, forms of discipline, and the list goes on. 

We passed our home study in August. Yay! We'll have to renew this yearly during our adoption process if we have not brought home a child yet.

Our social worker was laidback, warm and encouraging. We'll work with her again on the back end of adoption during the few months between terminating parental rights and finalizing adoption.