What is a North Dakota adoption home study?

Essentially, a home study for adoption in North Dakota is an assessment of a family’s readiness to adopt. Many hopeful adoptive parents feel anxiety at the idea of starting their adoption home study process, but we promise it’s nothing to stress over. The social worker that performs your North Dakota adoption home study is really only there to help you grow your family, after all!

He or she will walk you through the details of your home study for adoption before the process begins, but it can be helpful to have a general idea of what to expect ahead of time. To this end, we’ve compiled an outline of the North Dakota adoption home study, which includes three different phases: the documentation stage, a home inspection, and interviews with each of the family members that live in your home.

How does the North Dakota adoption home study work?

A North Dakota adoption home study is actually comprised of just a few simple steps:

• Step One: Choose a home study provider near you. For North Dakota families, this will most likely be the Catholic Charities of ND.
• Step Two: Get criminal records from all applicable law enforcement agencies, which will involve submitting fingerprints. This is for your background check, which will be part of the necessary documentation to begin the North Dakota adoption home study. 
• Step Three: Meet with your ND adoption home study professional to make sure you have all of your other materials ready for the process.
• Step Four: Prepare everything you’ll need to provide to your social worker. (Read below for our North Dakota adoption home study checklist.)
• Step Five: Invite your home study provider into your home for both home inspection and interviews with your family members.
• Step Six: Once you have received your adoption home study document in the mail, you’ll need to go through to ensure that all of the information is accurate and up to date. If there are any changes or mistakes, notify your home study provider immediately. Otherwise, your home study process is finished! Don’t forget, though, that if you encounter any significant life changes such as moving or a career change, you will need to update your North Dakota adoption home study.

North Dakota Adoption Home Study Checklist

Because the documentation phase of the ND adoption home study can be the most overwhelming part, we like to advise our hopeful adoptive families to get as much of a head start as possible. Even before beginning the home study process, you can start locating the following items to have at the ready:

• Marriage license
• Birth certificates
• Green cards, if applicable
• Passports, if applicable
• Driver’s licenses
• Proof of insurance
• Physical health statements as well as mental health statements, if this is something you have struggled with
• Background checks and clearances from all relevant law enforcement agencies
• Financial documents to indicate your fiscal stability, such as pay stubs, tax returns or income statements
• Contact information from three to five people who would act as references
• Autobiographical statements from each parent to give information about your lives and why you have chosen to pursue adoption

For the home inspection, make sure your home has all of the following in working order:

• Smoke detectors
• Carbon monoxide detectors
• Locks and screens on all doors and windows
• Covered outlets
• Fire extinguishers
• Covered trash cans
• A first-aid kit
• Fences around pools, hot tubs or other bodies of water

To learn more about the North Dakota adoption process with our agency, please contact American Adoptions at 1-800-ADOPTION.

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