The Home Study Visit

posted by cheri on Tue. Apr 4, 2006
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We've been busy! We had a bunch of stuff to do around the house before we could have our home visit this week. One of the things the social worker does during the home visit is confirm that the home is a "safe environment for a child." But due to our rather enthusiastic remodeling projects, we had several things to finish up first. For instance, when we moved into the house we didn't want to spend the time figuring out the security alarm system, so we disabled it. Then, as we painted throughout the house, we removed the covers and batteries of nearly every alarm unit. Several months later we realized that disabling the alarm system also disabled our smoke detectors. Yes, we went 9 months without working smoke detectors!  Since smoke detectors are on the checklist of "safe environment for a child" necessities, we had to spend a few hours getting all the batteries and covers back in/on all the units. Then we had to actually read the security system manual to figure out how to work the alarm. That, plus a gillion other things to get the house safe for the home visit. The funny thing is, the social worker didn't even check the smoke detectors! But at least we're no longer living on the edge of danger. haha.

Other than that, the home visit went pretty much as we expected. It lasted about 3 hours and was only mildly uncomfortable. While we understand and affirm that adoptive parents should be screened, it still felt rather invasive. There's nothing like a complete stranger asking you to describe, in detail, how you overcome conflict with your spouse. I kept thinking to myself, hey, sixteen year old high school dropouts can have a baby without asking anyone's permission... but we have to be be scrutinized under a microscope to adopt! What's up with that?! But, comparing our home visit with what others have posted on various list serves, I think we got off pretty easy.