Homestudy Tips

In an effort to help my fellow paperwork friends, and yet not get myself into trouble by accidentally giving out wrong information, I've decided to only share my tips in speeding up the process once you're in the middle of it.  We did our full homestudy back in August and I'm really not sure what the requirements are for the mini-homestudy.  Contact McKay (or whomever your social worker is) for specific questions.

Our full homestudy consisted of a checklist of 15 things.  Some of them required gathering/making copies of things and weren't really time consuming.  Others were.  I would suggest getting your reference letters out to your 5 people (3 non-related and then 1 each from the husband's side and the wife's side) ASAP.  People tend to take awhile to get those back to her and you want to give them time before you start hounding them because that's all she's waiting on.

Next, get your fingerprinting done for the background checks.  You have to have both a criminal background check as well as a child abuse check and I honestly don't remember which is which.  Get both of them done and on their way though.

Don't panic if you can't get into your doctor for a physical right away.  We couldn't get an appointment for weeks and since we were in a hurry we went to a First Med and just paid to get them done there.  We were in and out in around an hour and had the paper in hand.  Just know that you will need another physical for your dossier paperwork that will include some blood work.  If you get the paperwork from Elliana (or the adoption agency you're working with) I would think you could just kill two birds with one stone and get them done at the same time, but check with her to be sure.  Chances are that she won't want to give you the dossier paperwork until you're further along than the homestudy.  If that's the case, take whatever appointment you can get from your dr. and cancel it if you end up going someplace else.

While you're running around everywhere, be looking over the questions in the 11 page questionnaire you'll have to answer.  Also be thinking about how you're going to do your autobiography.  We actually did both the questionnaire and our autobiographies before our running around since we were in Florida at the time.  We did the running around when we were back home for a week.

I printed off the questionnaire and took it with us everywhere we went.  Since we lived an hour and a half from anything in Florida we spent quite a bit of time in the car together.  When we'd go someplace I'd sit with the papers and a pencil and ask my husband questions.  He'd answer, and I'd write down what he said.  The questions about both of us we would discuss and come up with an answer.  Once we were done I typed everything up and we both read over it before I emailed it off to McKay.

The autobiographies were a little different, in that I couldn't write that for my husband. :^)  I got mine done during the day (it took me about 3 days to finish it) and he would write his after work.  At first I was worried about not having enough information to fill 5-10 pages, but we both ended up with 9 pages and could have done more.  While I hate writing as a general rule, it ended up being really neat to talk about different experiences I'd had as well as to read my husband's take on his childhood and our life together.

The quicker you can get those hurdles passed the better because then you can schedule your home visits.  McKay will need to visit you in your home twice.  For us she came on a Friday afternoon/evening and then again Saturday morning.  She wanted a tour of our home, all our papers we'd collected and then to just visit.  She asked us more specific questions about things we'd talked about in our questionnaire and our autobiographies and also just chatted with us about the whole process of adoption.  Specifically with going through the Save a Child program.  It was very helpful for us to get some idea of what we were getting ourselves into, both the good and the bad.


Here is most of the checklist I got from McKay.  I took out some of the info on the background checks and such, but you can at least get a head start.  Get the whole list from her (or your social worker of choice) since this is just a basic idea.  You will also need the forms she mentions so be sure to have her email you everything.

• A picture of the adoptive family
• A picture of your home
• Financial statements to include
  • Tax returns from previous two years
  • A notarized letter from your bank describing your account(s)

• Notarized letter(s) from your employer(s) confirming position, salary and length of employment.
• Certified birth certificates (copy is fine, but show the original)
• Marriage certificate/divorce certificates (as with above, you can make copies)
• Current resume including a history of employment and education.
• If you have children, please have them write a statement or draw a picture about their thoughts and feelings regarding adoption.
• A criminal background check for each person over 18 in the home.
• Office of Licensing background screen form completed for each person 18 & over.
• Proof of current health insurance and coverage for adopted children.
• Adoption home study assessment questionnaire.
• Autobiography for each adoptive parent (detailed historical information). This should cover each applicant’s life history to date (typically 5 to 10 pages) and is in addition to the questionnaire.
• Please provide me with a list of five people (names, addresses, and phone numbers) who you think would be willing to be referents for you. Three of the referents should be people who know you well, but who are not related. The other referents should be family members, one from each side of the family if you are a married couple. After providing me with the referent names, please e-mail them a copy of the attached reference letter. They can either e-mail or mail it back to me.
• Medical Clearance.