About The Home Study

A home study is a report prepared by a social worker, which is based on a series of meetings that take place between the social worker and the prospective adoptive parents. There will be approximately three meetings with the social worker, at least one of these will be in your home. It also includes a review of required documents, and interviews with all members of your household.

Before the State of North Carolina or USCIS can approve an adoption, they want assurances that the prospective adoptive couple will be good parents who will appropriately care for their child. The State of North Carolina licenses certain agencies, and authorizes their social workers to conduct investigations about the couple. The State then recognizes the report prepared by these agencies regarding the suitability of the prospective parents.

Most child-placing agencies will not work with you until you have an approved home study.

A home study enables the social worker to provide a description of you as potential parents. The home study process helps to prepare you for adoption and gives you an opportunity to raise any issues or questions you may have about adoption or parenting.

During the home study interviews, the social worker will gather information including:

• A general description of you and your family including names, dates of birth, occupations, as well as background information about you and your family.
• If you are married, a description of your marriage.
• You will also discuss your parenting philosophy, feelings about children and adoption, interests and activities, home and community, religious beliefs, plans for discipline, financial resources, medical history, criminal records, and the type and age of child you wish to adopt.
• The social worker will provide you with information and education on adoption topics such as openness in adoption, positive adoption language, etc.
• The social worker will also review and collect the documents you have gathered for the home study (see the following question for more information).

Yes. As part of the homestudy process, you will gather several documents such as birth certificates and medical and financial forms. These documents are gathered as part of the homestudy, so there is no need to worry about them until we have formally begun the homestudy process. Details about the documents to gather will be provided to you in the “Welcome Packet” you receive after we review and accept your application. Please hold off on asking specific questions about the documents until you receive your “Welcome Packet”.

Many prospective adoptive parents are concerned that the home study will be an intrusive and overly-critical assessment of their family. We at Nathanson Adoption Services utilize a strengths-based approach in evaluating prospective adoptive parents. Our families appreciate that their home studies reflect the positive qualities that they bring to their parenting plan.

We understand that everyone is different and many of us have experiences in our past that may be of concern. We urge you to contact us about these issues and simply ask whether any past or current situations might make you unapprovable for adoption

Our experience has been that, in most cases, we are able to assure clients that they can still be approved for adoption despite their past personal or family history. We want to be sure that you will be able to provide a stable, safe and loving home for a child. Prospective parents are evaluated on who they are today – not on past mistakes. Our agency has approved thousands of prospective adoptive parents for adoption, many of whom have less than perfect histories.

There are many myths about home visits. We do not “drop by unannounced” or look for dust in your closets. We do not question neighbors or expect the child’s room to be set up. In reality, it is a brief walk through your home to see where the child will live, look at your neighborhood and its facilities and conduct the interview. Clients’ typical reaction after the home visit is, “that’s all?” Homes do not have to be immaculate – just comfortable and appropriate for a child.

A home study is valid for 18 months in North Carolina.

In most cases you would simply require a home study update.  An update is a fraction of the cost of the original home study and typically requires just one meeting in the home with all family members.

Post placement supervision is a brief meeting with the parents and adopted child, in order to ascertain that the child is being well cared for, and the family is adjusting comfortably to the new addition. A separate report is written after each post placement visit.

Requirements for post-placement supervision vary by state and by country. Your placing agency will inform you of the number of post-placement visits necessary for your adoption. Based on our experience in the field of adoption, we can offer suggestions to help all members of the family. We may also make referrals to local resources for additional assistance if that is indicated.

Our social workers love post-placement visits- we are thrilled to finally meet your children!

You can download and print out our Application Packet or, simply contact us and we’ll send an Application Packet out to you in the mail.

During the course of completing your home study, we are happy to make recommendations of highly reputable child placing agencies.  Our knowledgeable staff will evaluate your adoption plans and provide you with suggestions of child-placing agencies based on your desires. 

It is important to our agency that our clients understand that we have no mutually exclusive agreements with any child-placing agency and that our extensive list of recommended child-placing agencies is solely based on feedback from our adoptive families.