A social worker is who completes the homestudy step of the adoption process. In some cases your adoption agency will provide one for you. If you have a choice though, do not be afraid to use a reputable social worker if you can get an appointment sooner or if it might save you some money.
For our homestudies we used Dru Groves from A Center for Adoption Services. She was an incredible social worker. She not only competed our homestudies in a timely manner she was always there if we had a question or concern.
We we were very nervous before Dru arrived in our home the first time. We cleaned corners of our house that we never think of. I even got out the paint and touched up nicks in the wall! Since I knew that Dru would be between three homes that night I invited her to eat dinner with us. When we sat down our youngest son (at the time) grabbed Dru's plate and dished her up some food. It was so cute how intent he was to be helpful. She said, "wow, that was SO nice, your family just passed the homestudy!" He got a BIG smile, we all laughed and the nervousness just went out the window.
Your homestudy is just a reflection of you. It is the story of facts about your present, information about your past and dreams of your future. Dru did look through our home, but not to give us a white glove test. She made comments in our homestudy about where our future child's room was in accordance to the bathroom. It cracked me up! Nothing about the fresh paint on the walls or how immaculate the top back corner of the kitchen cabinet was! I suppose since she never pulled out a step ladder to climb up there that she did not known.
For China we were required to meet with our social worker a minimum of four separate times. We were able to bunch two times together so it really only took two weekends. Both my husband and myself had to write a biography. That was the weirdest thing for me to think about doing. Once I got started though it came pretty easy. It is a simple story of your life.
Communicating with our agencies was harder for me than with our social worker. I wanted to keep a nice balance of calling when I needed to but not overwhelming them. With a lawyer just the cost of communication would help balance this. I learned very quickly that I should probably take a few minutes to read the information that they had just sent me and not just glance over it before calling. Almost ALL my questions could be answered in their paperwork. Some times it was not though and you should call them! Don't sit around worrying about a question. Your agency is there to help you and they cannot fix things that they do not know about. Just remember that you are on the same team. It can be very easy to try and find someone to blame when things are not going smoothly. Just continue to trust in God's timing and perfect plan for building your family. He is the one ultimately in control.
Our social worker did a background check on us and our older sons in our home. I do not know what the age cut off was but they were both over the age of 14 when we had them done. It was a simple form that we filled out and mailed to her with permission to look for information on us. There was another process in the China and Vietnam adoption paperwork that called for a letter of a clear record. I had to go to the local police station to get this. It cost us $25 each and was a simple statement. It is not the same as a background check that your social worker does but is an adoption step of some adoption processes.
Our fingerprinting was done in Yakima for our first adoption. It was the easiest part of our entire adoption! They were very efficient and polite. For our second adoption we had to go to Seattle with appointments. It took forever (did I say forever? I meant to say for stinking ever!) I would MUCH rather spend the day riding in car than sitting in a loud building with more people than should be allowed in such a small space. We made out Yakima trip a date time and enjoyed dream building our family along the way.
That is a few of the common steps of the process in a large nutshell. You will hear words like dossier and many acronyms thrown around. Don't stress out too much about them. We will try to explain them along the way but if we don't please don't hesitate to contact us and ask! In my next process post I will explain a bit about notaries, apostles and certifications.
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