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09-22-2007, 11:12 PM
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#1 (permalink)
| | Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 69
Points: 9,759.89 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 9,759.89 |  What all is involved in a home study?
And how long does this process generally take? | 
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09-22-2007, 11:27 PM
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#2 (permalink)
| | Member since Aug. 2003
Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Southern IN
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The homestudy is not all that bad. You do a lot of paper work which I think is the worst part. They ask all kinds of questions about how your were raised and your family. About how you will raise your children and about you and your husband.
You will need a physical (we had to have a skin TB test and a Chest Xray for tb also.)
You'll need fingerprints done and all kinds of background checks. And my recommendation is to find out if there is any place in your area that does a live scan for finger prints...comes back much faster.
You'll have meetings with the social worker, both you and your Dh together and both of you alone. Most likely one or more of them will be in your home. Ours had to visit our home at least two times.
During the home visit somethings that she looked for were that your home was child safe. Chemicals our of reach and locked if under the sink. If you have a fireplace that it is safe. Fire alarms and extinguishers. Plug in covers. Gates in front of open stairs. Outdoors also need to be safe, pools, garages (chemicals in garages). Guns need to have gun locks.
You will need references. Ours wanted 3 friends that knew the both of us. She also either talked in person or on the phone with them. She also wanted to meet with our parents.
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09-23-2007, 01:24 AM
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#3 (permalink)
| | Vince's Wife, Yuna's Mama
Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Kansas
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Amy's pretty well got it covered. The social worker that did ours didn't look at our house a lot. She didn't look in cupboards, closets, and said we did NOT have to have babyproofed already, just that we were committed to doing it when the time came. We also did not have to have the baby's room set up... it was still being used for storage then.
Ours took a bit more than three months... we had a few delays. I've heard some people getting done in more like 2 months, if they don't have many problems.
Good luck! It's very exciting to adopt. It's hard, but a great thing.
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Kati (29)
DH Vince (27)
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Still hoping and praying to adopt #2 someday...
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09-23-2007, 01:56 AM
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#4 (permalink)
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Thanks! This is very informative. | |
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09-23-2007, 11:45 AM
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#5 (permalink)
| | Blessed mama!
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We also had to have HIV testing with our physicals both times. Our social worker the first time around checked to see that our water temperature was safe, the second time they never checked that.. I think the first worker was just being picky, we had a lot of problems with her. Neither of our workers ever asked to speak face to face with any extended family or friends. Our references were sent letters with specific guidelines as to what needed to be in their reference letter and they just mailed or faxed the reference into the social worker.
Our first HS, because we did have a lot of problems with the worker, took about 5 months! Our second one was done in under a month when the worker found out we were adopting an already identified waiting child.
__________________ Brandy(32) DH Dan(32) DS Samuel Sebastian(5) - Adopted from Colombia DD Isabelle Caiyi(4) - Adopted from China
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09-24-2007, 01:59 AM
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#6 (permalink)
| | Living Strong
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It all really depends on who is doing your homestudy and where you plan on adopting from. Some countries want to have very specific details about the house, others just want to know that the baby will be safe. We were not required to have the house baby proofed for our HS and there was no inspection of the garage. The garage isn't for kids, so this seems like overkill to me. You will need to have references that aren't related to you. I've never had anyone ask to speak with my family, just wanted mailing addresses for our references (last time we have 3, this time it is 4).
Some agencies can do your HS in a hurry (like 2 weeks) for a fee, others usually will quote 2-3 months for completion.
Good luck!
Cynthia
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09-24-2007, 09:45 AM
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#7 (permalink)
| | Vince's Wife, Yuna's Mama
Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Kansas
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mommavia  Some agencies can do your HS in a hurry (like 2 weeks) for a fee, others usually will quote 2-3 months for completion.
| Yes! I had forgotten this... for an extra $150 or something our agency would have "expedited" our homestudy... they didn't guarantee how fast, I don't think, but I think they estimated it would take less than two weeks once you got all your stuff in to them.
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DH Vince (27)
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Never TTC -- Straight to Adoption
DD Yuna
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Still hoping and praying to adopt #2 someday...
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09-24-2007, 11:43 AM
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#8 (permalink)
| | proud army wifey!!
Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Missouri
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Like everyone so far has said it depends, in our process we had to find our own licensed person to do our hs. The agency we went through was out of texas, we are in missouri. The home study cost us 250.00 for their time and travel. they came 2 times and checked for safety issues. After that was all said and done we were back into the process. Unfortunatly we were not able to proceed, as they raised our price of the adoption. Good luck!!!! Hope all goes well for you!!!!!!!! Keep us informed!!!
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Heather (camogurl)
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09-24-2007, 11:53 AM
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#9 (permalink)
| | Member since Aug. 2003
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CAMOGURL Like everyone so far has said it depends, in our process we had to find our own licensed person to do our hs. The agency we went through was out of texas, we are in missouri. The home study cost us 250.00 for their time and travel. they came 2 times and checked for safety issues. After that was all said and done we were back into the process. Unfortunatly we were not able to proceed, as they raised our price of the adoption. Good luck!!!! Hope all goes well for you!!!!!!!! Keep us informed!!! |
$250 that is really cheap!!! We paid almost 3 times that much for our homestudy to be done.
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09-24-2007, 12:14 PM
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#10 (permalink)
| | proud army wifey!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss-Meme $250 that is really cheap!!! We paid almost 3 times that much for our homestudy to be done. |
I know i couldnt believe it, i guess it did help to know the lady a lil bit. Not to mention the fact that she just lived down the road from us, and knew the family.
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Heather (camogurl)
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Me 23 DH 28
Married: 06/22/02
TTC:2005
DX hypoglacemia:2005
DX hypothyroidism: 2006
DXpcos & endometriosis: 2007
current meds: levo., multi vit, met.
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09-24-2007, 01:32 PM
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#11 (permalink)
| | Member since Aug. 2003
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CAMOGURL I know i couldnt believe it, i guess it did help to know the lady a lil bit. Not to mention the fact that she just lived down the road from us, and knew the family. |
So you think she gave you a cheaper rate?
Our case worker would not even take the money until after the study was done so in no way would it look like she was favoring us. No money up front so it would not look like she just 'passed' us because of money or other reason.
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09-28-2007, 04:47 AM
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#12 (permalink)
| | Registered User
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We didn't pay any money up front for our home study but we just happened upon her. She was 350.00 and that is CHEAP for this area. Some of the places I'd called were 2000 + and charged for EVERYTHING.
But she was very nice, I knew she was just being the "eyes" for the courts and I looked at it that way. Isn't as bad as it sounds at all.
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