Are You Ready for Your Adoption Home Study?

Families grow in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it’s a happy accident, and some take a lot of planning and proactive effort. The fact is that when you want your family to grow by adding children, it can be a difficult dream to fulfill for some ready-made parents.

For years, only certain types of couples were viewed as “suitable” adoptive parents. Luckily, that attitude is changing, and more families in North Carolina are seeing their dreams comes true. No matter what led you to adoption, there is one thing all potential parents must do: go through a home study.

Home studies are a preliminary but very important step in the adoption process. Failing it can block your chance of adopting a child, and depending upon the circumstances, you may be limited to working with fewer agencies automatically decreasing your chances of becoming a parent.

Passing a home study requires the following steps:

Gather documentation. The agency’s social worker will need to review the following, including:

• Birth certificate for each family member
• Marriage certificate
• Divorce decrees
• Death certificate (spouse or child)
• Adoption decrees
• Copy of passports for each family member
• Driver ‘s license
• Medical report for each family member
• Proof of eligibility for health insurance for the prospective adoptive child
• Proof of income
• Child abuse clearances
• State and FBI criminal history clearance
• Proof of adoptive parent education as required by the agency
• Agreement to comply with post placement/adoption supervisory visits and reports

Ready your home. Take a commonsense approach to getting your home in shape for a child. Install age-appropriate safety precautions such as cabinet locks and cordless mini blinds for young children. If bedrooms cannot all be located on one level, locate children’s bedrooms upstairs rather than downstairs without a parent. Ensure that all window and door locks work properly. Install and/or test smoke detectors. Clean up and organize any clutter to make everything look presentable for guests. You may even want to create safety plans for a fire or other emergency.

Practice your interview. Social workers ask questions. That’s their job. They need to assess whether you are not only will provide a safe place for a child, but that you are ready to be a parent. In addition to asking you to tell the social worker about yourself, questions you are likely to be asked will include:

• What you do for a living, whether you enjoy your line of work, and if you have job security
• What hobbies you enjoy
• What your personality is like
• About your marriage, or about any future relationship plans if you are single
• About your childhood, relationship with your parents and their parenting style
• How your upbringing shaped you
• What your typical day is like

What can cause you to fail a home study?

Working with an adoption specialist who thoroughly understands all of the ins and outs of the adoption process can give you an edge in passing a home study and making it through the remaining hurdles. A specialist can spot problem areas in your life that may need work before even beginning the adoption process. Without this advantage, you may risk losing your chance of approval.

Some of the reasons your adoption application may be declined are:

• Unauthorized adults are found living in the home with you during the adoption process. Anyone living in the home where the adoptive child will live must undergo a background check.
• Prior convictions weren’t all disclosed. Certain convictions may bar adoption but that does not mean all convictions lead to a dead end. Honestly explaining the circumstances of your crime and how your life is now different may be enough to overcome your criminal history.
• You weren’t upfront about medical histories. Medical history omissions, particularly of a mental health condition, can cost you the adoption. A social worker needs to be sure that you can psychologically handle caring for a child.
• There are dangerous living conditions. Structural damage to your home or exposed electrical wiring that has never been repaired throughout multiple social worker visits can be a sign that you aren’t attentive to risks or cannot financially provide a safe environment for a child.
• Your home’s layout is unsafe or unacceptable. Each state has rules about how the home should be laid out, but most of the requirements are simple: make sure the child will have a bedroom, that the bedroom can access the hall and main rooms, and that everyone can get out of the house in terms of an emergency. Things like padlocks on the outside of the doors, broken fire escapes, or other unsafe layout features can cause you to fail the home study.
• You didn’t tell the whole truth, warts and all. When you want to adopt, the urge to make sure everything is perfect — even when it’s not — can be overwhelming. Being dishonest during any step of the home study is very likely to cause your failure. Whether it’s about the condition of your home or anyone living in your home, a social worker is trained to spot discrepancies between answers and his or her observations.

If you are looking at adoption as a way to expand your family, a home study is your first true test. Let our caring Charlotte adoption attorneys at Epperson Law Group, PLLC help guide you through the process to give you the best chance possible of succeeding in adopting a child. Schedule your confidential consultation with one of our experienced attorneys today in our Charlotte, Boone or Weddington office by calling 704-321-0031, or by reaching out to us through our contact page.