What is a Home Study?
Many families find themselves really confused about what a home study is, who completes the home study, and what to expect. It is our hope that you’ll read through this and find a wealth of information to ease your mind about the home study process. We believe a home study is the most important part of the adoption process. A home study serves three major purposes: to assess and approve a family to adopt, to educate a family about all aspects of the adoption process, and to tell their story.
First you will determine what agency is going to complete your home study for you. If you are working with an adoption agency in your home state, they usually will act as your home study agency as well. For those families adopting through Transitions Adoption Agency, we will also complete your home study for you.
It is a common occurrence for a family to select an adoption agency located in another state. In this case, you’ll use another agency who is licensed to complete home studies in your home state to complete your home study for you. Transitions Adoption Agency has experience completing home studies for many families who have used out of state agencies. We can provide you with a home study that will approve you to adopt in any state that allows adoptions. Transitions will work closely with the staff of your placing agency to make sure we follow any guidelines that agency may have.
Transitions Adoption Agency case workers pride themselves on writing thorough home study reports. When looking for a home study agency, you’ll want to compare more than the cost of the home study. There are some agencies that have a lower price which may sound good at first. However, this often means they pay their social workers a lower fee, and in turn produce a less in-depth home study. The last thing you want an agency to do is to rush through the approval process of your family and miss something, or write a report that won’t meet the requirements in all states. Something else to keep in mind if working with an out of state placing agency, is that the home study helps the staff of your agency get to know you better. At Transitions, we believe you’ll be very pleased with the quality of report we produce and the care we take in telling your story.
If you wish to receive our home study information and agreement send an email to emily@transitionsadoption.com requesting the home study information. Once you receive this, you’ll want to review it. To initiate the home study, you’ll return the home study agreement along with the home study fee. A staff at Transitions will in turn send you the list of documents you will need to compile to meet the PA state regulations for a home study.
The Assessment
The first purpose of a home study is to assess your eligibility in your home state to adopt. You will be asked to collect and compile many documents that you’ll send to Transitions for review. These include items like vital records, financial statements, state police, FBI and child abuse clearances, and reference letters. You will be given detailed instructions and forms on how to complete these items. When all your documents have been collected, a social worker will contact you to schedule the home visit/s. The number of visits can vary based on agency requirements and other aspects of your family. The documents will show that you meet the criteria required to adopt in PA, such as stable employment and the ability to provide for a child.
Home visits are another portion of the assessment process. The social worker assigned to your family will come to your home and conduct a home visit. Part of the home visit will include individual and joint interviews with all members of the household. The other piece of the home visit is to check the safety of your home. In PA, that will include making sure you have working smoke alarms, and that you don’t have any obvious safety hazards in or around the home. If there is something that makes the home unsafe you will have a chance to fix that so that you can be approved. Many families worry that a social worker will be conducting a white glove test of your home. We promise we don’t wear gloves, and we don’t care about a little dust here or there. What is more important than making sure you don’t have a dusty mantel is making sure that you check the health of the relationships within your home. That is to say, we are more concerned that you have a healthy, happy environment even if you may have a little dust in the corner. Families also wonder if they will need to have a nursery set up for their child or if their home should be home baby-proofed. That is not necessary, you’ll only need to show that you do in fact have room for a child within the home. The supplies can come after you have a match with a birth mother.
During the interviews you will be asked to be open and honest about your life. You’ll be asked about your childhood, the discipline methods used in your home of origin, and all about your home and family. We are not looking for a perfect family, and in fact if you presented as one, we might question whether or not you were trying to be someone you aren’t. We will just want to know that whatever obstacles you’ve faced in life, that you have learned healthy coping skills. If you are a couple, you’ll be asked for example, how you solve conflict with each other, and how divide household tasks. If you have any concerns about something in your past, chances are it won’t exclude you from adopting. The best thing to do is to talk with Transitions staff prior to initiating the home study to ask about your situation and to put your mind at ease.
Education
We don’t expect you to start the adoption process already knowing everything there is to know about adoption. As part of the home study process, you’ll be asked to complete online training that will help you prepare for all the aspects of a healthy adoption. This will help you understand the risks involved in adoption, be prepared for caring for your child, and give you the tools to help you be as flexible as possible. In addition to completing the online training, you’ll be given resources from your social worker on assorted topics to help you prepare for adoption. You’ll have the opportunity to ask any questions of your social worker. The goal is to have you complete the home study being confident that you are ready to move forward with adoption, and that you have the tools necessary to continue to learn.
Telling your story
One of our social workers shared that she loves writing home studies because she loves telling a family’s story. Think of your home study report as a way that we can paint a masterpiece about your family. Our goal is paint your story in the best light possible. For this reason, we use social workers who don’t just have good assessment skills, but who are excellent writers. We want the home study report to be interesting for the judge to read. In case you’re wondering who will read your report, typically a home study is read by your placing agency staff, and the judge who will finalize your adoption. If you adopt a child outside of your home state, the interstate compact staff of both the state of the child’s birth as well as PA interstate will also read your home study.
A home study in PA is good for 3 years provided that you update your home study each year if you haven’t already received a placement of a child. Once you receive a placement of a child, you will not need to keep your home study valid. You will still be required to make sure that all of your clearances are valid until your adoption is finalized.
The timing of a home study is largely based on the amount of time it takes you to compile the supporting documents. Once you have submitted all of the documents to Transitions, we consider ourselves to have a relatively quick turn around time. Most of our home study reports are submitted to the placing agency, if different than Transitions, a few weeks from the last time your social worker visits your family. If you have not submitted a necessary document that can hold up the process. Keep in mind it sometimes takes several weeks once it is submitted for the home study to be finalized. Because we are small agency, this generally means a faster turn around time for home studies. We are exclusively a domestic adoption agency. We do not complete home studies for international adoptions. Feel free to contact our director, Emily Bell, with any questions you may have at 610-642-4155 or emily@transitionsadoption.com.