During the Homestudy/Family Profile, your agency worker meets with you in your home to talk about your personal history, family relationships, reasons for wanting to foster or adopt, and the supports you have available to you. They will determine whether your home is safe and has sufficient space for a foster or adopted child. The point of this step is to help you and the agency make the best possible decisions about whether placement of a child in your home will or will not work out and to determine the characteristics of the children whom you are most able to parent.
You are responsible to:
1. Get agreement among the members of their household to proceed with the process.
2. Cooperate with the homestudy and the home visits.
3. Ensure that all necessary information is supplied completely and accurately.
The Family Profile must be honest. Although you may be tempted to gloss over what might be considered “negative” about your family, this approach will help neither you nor the child you are hoping to adopt. Instead, caseworkers should address the problem area and -
with your family's input - include in the Family Profile how the your family has grown from these challenges. Your family should be told with whom the Family Profile will be shared and should receive a copy of the final Family Profile (without the letters of recommendation which must remain confidential). The Family Profile is about you and it contains both private information as well as your personal dreams. By reviewing your Profile, you can pinpoint any inaccuracies, which then can be corrected. After your family reviews the Family Profile, you should indicate agreement with the content by co-signing it along with the caseworker.
If you would like to be contacted by your state RRT, please go to this Request to be Contacted Link and complete the form. Thank you!
Monday, January 28, 2008
family profile/homestudy process
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9 comments:
Our Homestudy was done by our local Social services. The person who facilitated it was nice but not well educated in putting these things together. She is not a licensed Social worker but a fostercare service worker. Since then they have recently employed a licensed Social worker who will handle any ICPC proceedings that we may encounter.During our Homestudy process we provided our "life history" both verbally,written and with a typed "resume" version about 5 pages. Plus all the paperwork, classes (we are PRIDE certified)the reference checks, the background, home visits, phone conversations etc....We never saw the home study because we assumed that they "knew" what and how these thing were done. I was dissapointed to finally see our official home study a year later ( I never considered viewing a copy) So, I recieved a copy and was grossly dissapointed. It was three paragraphs of poorly written run on sentence's of how we we're remodeling our home, our income ( it was off, no biggie), religion, ages of children and then it reffered to our own self written bio to be "perfect" and suggests to (the reader)to read the attached info written by us! We have essentially written our homestudy! At first I was embarrassed, all the times she sent our homestudy without any "clinical" observations about how our family interacts, specific community involvement or our parenting needs/desires were simply non-exsisting, it was pretty generic - and we are far from generic!LOL! I suppose it could have been worse. I have never expressed my dissapointment simply because I know the staff is overworked and this was a new job for her when she wrote it...Chalk it up to the lack of experience for both of us. She is a good person. She does the best she can to help us with our journey into adoption. Our county has had very few adoptions ( 5 in the last 2 years, and no out of state) and those were because the foster parents decided to adopt after long drawn out situations. Reunification is #1! We do respite for families in need but, have decided not to foster. For our agency we are unique, sometimes being different is hard for everyone! We have been sending out homestudies for over a year and a half. It is hard.
I suggest for everyone to review the homestudy for errors... our home study does not include a lot of vital information and some is incorrect or has changed. Updates are essential and sometimes required yearly, although ours has not been redone. We are so optimistic about finding a match that we worry less about asking for a new one.Considering we are not viable "customers" of them it is a hard thing to request - meaning we do not foster for them. So I suppose this is as good as it's going to get. After we inquire about a child(ren)- I often send an email (once contact is made with a particular CW through an inquiry)with our preference and more additional updated information about our familiy (including an attachment of the Bio that is attached to our home study) along with a family portrait and picture's of our neighborhood and things we like to do with our kids. I also follow up with our Cw or Us (sometimes - some states will not accept it from us) faxing our official homestudy. I think this has helped us retain some spotlight in many caseworkers process. I can't say if it has been successful as of yet but I am hoping! By the way any interested caseworkers we are a current family listed in the database with "adoptuskids" website. We are the Gilmore Family in Virginia! We would prefer a semi-open adoption - a topic I would like to request to be started, Is that OK kate? : )
Thanks- I hope this helps other families!
Thanks for sharing your story with us. I suggest that you have your homestudy updated before sending it to any more caseworkers. Make sure the edits are to your satisfaction. The homestudy is the caseworker's first impression of your family and it needs to accurately represent you. Approach the caseworker/agency by asking that you make these homestudy changes together - so that the worker knows you are willing to share in the responsibility and effort involved. Whether you only foster, fost to adopt or only adopt, the homestudy needs to be the best description of your family that it can be! - Kate
I have asked our caseworker for a copy of or even to just read a copy of our homestudy numerous times, with varying responses between promised to mail a copy, fax a copy, and outright refusals based on fear that we will take it and go to another agency. I read an article posted by AdoptUSKids that says you have a right to your homestudy, and if they are worried about that they can stamp "for official use only" or something like that on it, but no luck. My fears were confirmed when a county social worker within my own state (CA) told me after receiving it that it was of such poor quality they could not make an evaluative decision about our family's match.
Hello,
I suggest that you meet with your agency - your caseworker, and perhaps their supervisor - and share your concerns about your homestudy with them.
Best,
Mark Kunkel
AdoptUSKids
California Recruitment Response Team
We have a current homestudy but it is for an international adoption. I assume I need to complete the foster/adoption classes in order to get it changed to adopt from the foster care system. Is this correct? Does it require a whole new homestudy or can we just update it? We are in AZ. Any information would be helpful. Thank you!
In the state of Georgia can a family look and go over our homestudy with the agency once it has been approved to see what has been written?
Our agency did not know.
When inquiring on children out of state, caseworkers want to view my homestudy. My homestudy was conducted by the CYFD in New Mexico. They (CYFD) will not release my homestudy to anyone out of state for one year... unless I pay for the homestudy. Is there any way to get additional information other than the short narratives that are posted?
In New Mexico, when CYFD completes or pays for completion of your study, the agreement is that it will be used toward the placement of a New Mexico child for one year. While understandable, I know it is frustrating for families and other states. In my experience, some workers/states are willing to provide additional information on children without reviewing a homestudy but that is pretty rare. If you are interested in looking at children out of state, your interests may be best served by purchasing your homestudy or completing a homestudy through a private entity.
Megan
New Mexico RRT
I would suggest you select an Agency that is contracted with the State of Arizona to do Foster Care because they would also be able to facilitate you adoption of a youth in care. There are two distinct processes 1. The licensure for Foster Care, issued by: DES Office of Licensing, Certification and Regulation. 2. Certification to Adopt processed by the Superior Court.
The Agency would be able to determine if the Home Study you have meets all the criteria. Even if a new on had to be done there would be no cost to you if you choose to Foster/Adopt.
Thanks
Douglas Reprogle
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