The Washington Adoption Home Study
A home study for adoption in Washington is essentially an assessment of your family’s suitability to adopt a child. It can be stressful, and that makes sense; it’s a very important step on your journey towards adoption. If you do not pass your home study for adoption, you will not be approved to adopt in Washington. However, as difficult as it may be to believe, your Washington adoption home study is really nothing to stress out about. By preparing in advance and choosing the right adoption home study professional, we promise the process will be as painless as possible.
With that in mind, then, we’ve compiled a guide to the adoption home study in Washington. You can also get more free information now by filling out our online contact form. Each home study for adoption in Washington has three phases: the documentation phase, the home inspection, and interviews with each member of your family.
The Washington Adoption Home Study Checklist
1. The Documentation Phase
The documentation stage of the Washington adoption home study will be the most time-consuming. When you work with American Adoptions, your adoption specialist will have you begin gathering the necessary paperwork to get a head start on this phase. You may want to prepare:
-
Physical health records for everyone in the household
-
Mental health records for everyone in the household
-
Any marriage licenses
-
Educational records for everyone in the household
-
Employment records for everyone living in the household
-
Proof of income for both potential adoptive parents, which may come in the form of tax documents or paystubs
-
Background checks for everyone living in the household
Finding all of these documents and completing tasks like background checks may seem overwhelming, but don’t worry! This is the most involved part of the adoption home study in Washington, and it’s a small price to pay when you think about the moment you’ll bring your child home!
2. Interviews with Each Member of the Immediate Family
Once your home study professional has everything they need to complete the documentation phase of your Washington adoption home study, it will be time to move to the next step. Your home study provider will come to your home to complete both the home inspection and interviews with each family member. You should expect to answer questions about your daily routine, your feelings about the newest family member, your path to adoption and more. Depending on how large your family is, the interview process should take somewhere between two and four hours. Again, there’s no reason to feel intimidated by your adoption home study provider! He or she is simply there to help you on your journey to growing your family.
3. The Home Inspection
After your Washington adoption home study provider has interviewed each member of your family, it’ll be time for the home inspection. This might sound a little scary, but you should consider this simply an extra step in baby proofing your house. Your home study worker will look for things like fences around pools, covered outlets, etc.
Once your home study provider has completed all of the above steps, he or she will write a report stating how the process went and send it to you for verification. Once you have read it over and made sure all information is correct (or pointed out any necessary changes), you will send it back to be finalized.
When you are ready to begin your Washington adoption home study, American Adoptions will connect you with a trusted home study provider. In Washington, that may be:
For more information about the Washington adoption home study process, please visit 1-800-homestudy.com or request free information here.
Disclaimer
Information available through these links is the sole property of the companies and organizations listed therein. American Adoptions provides this information as a courtesy and is in no way responsible for its content or accuracy.