[mallory4]

Our homestudy was done by an agency the state contracts with for (PA) foster/adopt. They also do homestudies for international adoption. Once all our classes were complete (which could have been done in one month, but we took longer), we had to fill out the police clearances and write up autobiographies (short, they provided guidelines/questions to answer) and answers to about three other questions.

Then the adoption worker came to our house and met with me. She said it would be 2 months before the homestudy was complete. If we were having a homestudy done for international, that would have been the endpoint, so the total would have been about 4 months.

Because we are doing foster/adopt, once the 2 months was up, and the homestudy and application to adopt was complete, a foster care worker came out to do the safety inspection on the house, and we got our foster care license as of that date.

It was another three months before we got placement of our then 14 month old f/a son, because our age range was limited to under 5.

We found that the agency's estimate of how long it would take was totally accurate---so once you are looking at agencies, ask them, and then check on these boards to see if others' experiences with that agency seem in line with what the agency is saying--it might help you decide who to use.

Good luck!