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You Won't Pass the Home Study

Once you've gotten past any initial agency or state requirements, you may experience concern about the home study and its outcome. An in-depth study of your home and family is generally required in all adoption circumstances, and can provoke a great deal of anxiety.

Knowing what is covered may help you deal with the fear of not being accepted:

• You will meet with a social worker several times over a period of a few months. Adults living in the home will be interviewed together and individually. Children are generally included in the minimum one visit in the home itself.

• Personal and family background-including upbringing, siblings, key events and what was learned from them
• Significant people in the lives of the applicants
• Marriage and family relationships
• Motivation to adopt
• Expectations for the child
• Feelings about infertility (if this is an issue)
• Parenting and integration of the child into the family
• Family environment
• Physical and health history of the applicants
• Education, employment and finances-including insurance coverage and child care plans if needed
• References and criminal background clearances
• Summary and social worker's recommendation
  
  {From NAIC's The Adoption Home Study Process}

In addition to the basic homestudy, your social worker should be able to provide you with counseling or appropriate resources to address all of your fears or concerns. It may help to remember that, while the social worker is charged to above all act in the best interest of the child, he/she is also interested in seeing a stable family be built for all involved.

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