Working With Your Adoption Agency
Continued from previous post

Once we selected the agency we wanted to work with, we began filling our paperwork, otherwise known as the adoption home study. We filled out an initial application and paid an application fee. Once our initial application was approved, we completed an in depth application.

Questions, questions
We had several interviews with our caseworker, both individually and as a couple. At the time, it seemed as if we answered, in detail, just about every question anyone could ever think of to ask about our personal lives, upbringing, relationship, faith, projected parenting style, etc.

We also had to be fingerprinted, have criminal background checks, turn in letters of reference from friends, co-workers and extended family, and turn in medical evaluation forms from our doctor. Am I forgetting anything? Probably.

We learned a few things during the process and I continue to learn from friends who are currently undergoing the home study:

If you aren’t comfortable with the caseworker assigned to you, you can request to work with someone else. Adoption agencies frown on this and will try to talk you out of changing, but hey, who’s paying the bills here?

Your caseworker is your advocate. She or he is the person working on your behalf to bring a child into your family. If you think she’s doing a sloppy job or you have communication problems or personality conflicts, then by all means, request to work with a different person. Your caseworker needs to be someone you feel comfortable working with over the long haul (and sometimes, it is a very long haul).

If things really go downhill, you can switch agencies. I’d do that as a last resort, because not only will you essentially have to “start over,” you may lose a significant amount of money, as well. But if the situation is unbearable, cut your losses and move on.

It ain’t as bad as you assume it will be. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked with who are absolutely freaked out about what the homestudy might entail.

Last week, I talked with a couple who had just been interviewed and had their first home visit. And they had big smiles on their faces! They said that it was actually “fun,” and very low stress. Remember, your caseworker is a person, too (and often an adoptive parent, as well). She really, really wants to help you find a child, and she’s looking for ways to say “yes,” not “no.”

When all’s said and done, the adoption home study will be a small, fuzzy blip on the screen of your life.

In the next post…The waiting phase