If you are not yet familiar with the lingo related to adoption, a home study is “an assessment of prospective adoptive parents to see if they are suitable for adopting a child.”

Right now, I am wishing I would have looked up this definition before our actual meeting with the social worker, because I did not have the right understanding and therefore feel like I prepared for the wrong aspects of the process. So, here is what I learned about how not to prepare for your home study.

I heard the term “home study” and I assumed a social worker wanted to evaluate the safety and status of our home. Now, the process for fostering children, from my understanding, is much different than the process for domestic adoption. But during our meeting, an inspection of the physical home took up the shortest amount of time. I believe we sat down with the social worker for almost two and a half hours, and the walk through of the house took between 15 and 20 minutes.

Now, don’t brush this off completely during your journey to domestic adoption, because safety and appearance of the home is obviously a factor. Mostly they will look for smoke detectors on each level near bedroom doors, and ensure general safety and cleanliness. The biggest issue for us was showing the firearms to be securely locked as well as stored separately from the ammunition. So, learn from me and don’t look at this as someone coming into your home and judging you and giving it the “white glove inspection.” Keep the home the normal level of clean, but do not spend two full days scrubbing random cabinet corners and fretting about knick-knack placement!

Instead, focus on preparing yourself for some hard hitting questions. Now, when people say that a home study will push into the “deepest, darkest corners of your life,” I am not sure I would agree with that. But the conversation did bring up a certain level of discomfort and anxiety for me. I did not prepare myself well for how I would respond to certain questions, and because of this I became frazzled and tended to ramble and overshare.

Remember that your social worker is going to take note of and summarize every detail that you choose to share. If you say it, it gets written down. I am not saying this so that you’ll lie or not disclose certain things. I am saying this because if you’re anything like me, when you’re nervous (and you will be), you’ll just fire off ideas before thinking them through and then choose words that don’t relay what you are actually trying to communicate.

Here is what I wish I would have done: gotten my hands on some “sample interview topics” and journaled about or practiced how I was going to respond. When our social worker looked at me and said “describe your childhood, starting from your earliest memories all the way to the time you met Jason,” I drew a complete blank and probably looked like an airhead! These are some topics that our home study covered:

• Each person’s childhood: how they were in school, what challenges they faced, involvement in extra curricular activities, what type of typical behavior you had, any moves you made, favorite pastimes, if you were introverted or outgoing, how you made friends, medical or physical struggles, etc.
• Heavy focus on employment history: what age you started working, how many jobs you’ve held, what your duties were at each one, on what terms you left the job, if you were expected to work as an adolescent and why, etc.
• Dating history before meeting your spouse: you don’t have to go into heavy detail, but it is a topic. They may ask how many serious relationships you’ve had, how long previous relationships lasted, if there were previous marriages, living with significant others, engagements, children, etc.
• Relationship with your spouse: how you two met, what your early dating life was life, when you started living together, early challenges you faced, what your strengths and weaknesses are as a couple, what your marriage has been like, what you fight about, what attracted you to the other person, when you first fell in love, what your communication style is like, etc.
• How your parents disciplined: a large topic of discussion was how you were disciplined as a child and if you agree or disagree with the approach, what you think your parents did well while raising you and also what you wish would have been done differently, what disciplinary techniques were utilized and if you feel they were effective with you, how often you were disciplined as a child/adolescent and why, etc.
• If you already have children, how you raise and discipline: you will discuss how you feel about being a parent, the things you love versus the challenges, what your child excels in and what he/she struggles with, how often and how the child responds, how you interact and play with your child, how often you take family trips or outings, how your child is socially, etc.
• Financial status: not only do you have to provide a sample monthly budget and proof of all assets and debts, you will discuss your financial security, your approach to different financial strategies, how you teach your children about money, etc. This is not a huge part of the discussion, but will come up and I know not everyone is comfortable discussing financial information.
• Your comfort level with adopting a child with disabilities: you need to know ahead of time what situations you are comfortable with when it comes to possible fetal alcohol exposure, drug and cigarette exposure, as well as known physical and mental disabilities. This was difficult for me to voice out loud without feeling like a heartless jerk (to be frank), but it is important in order for the social worker and agency to make a successful match with you. Take some time to discuss as a couple ahead of time which situations you think you can handle and which will be too much of a challenge.

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