Home Visit and Joint Interview

Today, our social worker came to our house for a joint interview and inspection of our home.  This time, we weren't nearly as nervous as we were for the individual interviews.  And, it was a good excuse to thoroughly clean our house! :)

Questions we were asked during the joint interview:

• How are you similar to each other?
• How are you different from each other?
• What is working well in your marriage?
• What is challenging in your marriage?
• Describe your physical relationship.
• Is your physical relationship a source of conflict?
• What is your understanding of how abuse (physical, sexual, emotional) affect a child?
• How equipped are you to handle a child with special needs (physical or emotional)?
• What is your understanding of how separation and loss affect a child?
• What have your experiences with others who have adopted or been adopted been like?
• What are the values you want to instill in your child?
• What is the primary goal of discipline?
• How will you discipline your child?  Give at least one specific example.
• Describe your partnership.
• Who will be the primary caretaker of the child in day-to-day matters?
• What are your plans for childcare if you continue working?
• What do your day-to-day lives look like now (without children)?
• What do you expect your day-to-day lives to look like with children?
• What do you do together for fun?
• What type of support have you received during this process?
• What supports do you have in place for issues that may arise after adoption?
• What do you think will be most challenging about having children?
• What do you think will be most rewarding about having children?
• Have you views of adoption changed over the course of this process?
• What are you thought regarding nature vs. nurture?  Which is more important - genetics or environment?
• How do you handle privacy and nudity in the home?  What, if anything, will change in that regard once you have a child?

Things our social worker asked and inspected during the home inspection:

• Square footage of our home
• Age of our home
• Safety equipment (fire extinguisher, smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, child safety locks/supplies for medicine cabinets, washer, cleaning supplies, etc.)
• Neighborhood make-up (ages, races, children, etc.)
• Neighborhood amenities (pool, tennis courts, etc.)
• Describe the social aspect of our neighborhood 
• How close we are to schools
• How close we are to our church
• How close we are to parks and playgrounds 
• She looked in all the rooms and closets, especially noting the locations of medications, cleaning supplies, and tools
• She looked at Jason's firearms and checked the serial numbers against what was recorded on the form we submitted earlier
• She looked at the bag of child safety supplies we purchased

So, what's next?  We have just a few more pieces of paperwork to get in.  Our social worker is meeting one of our references this afternoon for a face-to-face meeting (required of at least one reference).  Then, she'll write up our home study.  Once it is written, it will either be approved or denied by the Executive Director of our agency.  In the meantime, we need to work on our profile book, which will be shown to birthparents.  Once our home study is approved, we enter the waiting phase, which we've been told can be anywhere from four months to five years...

Please pray specifically for:

1. Our dog license to arrive soon (this is one of the pieces of paperwork that is holding things up)
2. For us to have the stamina this weekend to finish all of our required readings and papers analyzing/responding to those readings
3. For our social worker as she begins the process of writing up our home study
4. For the Lord to continue to prepare the right child for us
5. For the Lord to continue to prepare us to be parents

Love,

Jason and Jeannine