[momsphotoop]

Thursday is our home study visit, we have a great home, very kid friendly. We are raising our five year old and never had a safety issue. But I find I am now stressing over baby proofing everything. What safety issues do I need to pay close attention to?? What do they look for? I am worried about the stairs to my sons room, this is an older house and the stairs are steep, does every cabinet have to be locked, I have a plant in my loving room, will they consider that a safety issue since a baby could pull it over. Aside from basic safety precautions I didn't go nuts when my son was a baby, I watched him like a hawk and taught him. I am really nervous and making myself nuts over all these safety issues.
Thanks
Heather

[potentialsinglemom]

Originally Posted by momsphotoop

Thursday is our home study visit, we have a great home, very kid friendly. We are raising our five year old and never had a safety issue. But I find I am now stressing over baby proofing everything. What safety issues do I need to pay close attention to?? What do they look for? I am worried about the stairs to my sons room, this is an older house and the stairs are steep, does every cabinet have to be locked, I have a plant in my loving room, will they consider that a safety issue since a baby could pull it over. Aside from basic safety precautions I didn't go nuts when my son was a baby, I watched him like a hawk and taught him. I am really nervous and making myself nuts over all these safety issues.
Thanks
Heather

I am too. Mine is Thurday as well. I went and purchased a lot of stuff that I will keep the receipt for. I pretty much went to Wal-Mart early this morning before going to work and purchased all this Safety 1st stuff that was in the baby section.

Good luck on your homestudy.

[melissa_bear003]

When we had a sw over for an informal meeting/walk through, some of the things she mentioned was blinds...we have cords on ours, so they'd need to be replaced...all chemicals, right down to shaving cream needed to be under lock and key, meds too...and the plastic outlet dummy plug thingies. Oh, and water heater temp. Had to be at 'medium'.

I know for my licenced daycare, the rules were the same, but I also had to have a lock on the laundry room, exit plans in case of fire posted, emergency numbers posted in a few places, smoke detectors on every level, a fire extinguisher on each level *trying to remember what else* Oh, I also ensured that no furniture was near any upstairs windows...little ppl like to climb

And we would be looking at a 3-5 yo, not a baby, lol!

[potentialsinglemom]

Thank you, that is good to know.

[melissa_bear003]

If you have a daycare licencing agency in your area, ask if you can get a copy of their checklist. Betting that its dang close to what would be needed for foster care, and you'd be able to go down the list and ensure that you had everything covered.

[momsphotoop]

we are going for age 0 - 5, We went through this one before for a China adoption but they were never that safety conscience. We moved into this house when my son was 3, so we never really had to baby proof too much. This is really nerve wracking

[melissa_bear003]

Originally Posted by momsphotoop

we are going for age 0 - 5, We went through this one before for a China adoption but they were never that safety conscience. We moved into this house when my son was 3, so we never really had to baby proof too much. This is really nerve wracking

My dh and I are still in the 'talking' stages of foster/adopt, so I don't know whats all involved...but wouldn't it make sense to someone that they give folks a check list to go through? I know they did for the daycare licencing. I was under the idea that they wanted folks to pass, and having to redo the home inspection for a missed step or 2 that could easily have been addressed with a simple check list would make tons of sense to me.

Oh! Any alcohol had to be locked up as well.

[momsphotoop]

they definitly do want most to pass, as foster parents are in high demand. But we get two visits, one is to go over what is already done and to ket us know what we need to have completed for the second one. I just want to have most done, I guess I just want to impress and seem like we are ahead of the game lol but a checklist would be really nice. Our house is also older so I am worried about the steep steps going upstairs and two rooms still have radiators, I am not sure if they will say something about either of them.

[Scrapsathome]

We didn't just get a check list. We got a two ton binder with every single possible topic or question you could imagine covered in it. It had details down to what size fire extinguisher we needed, and the required square footage of hallway space per child. A bit of overkill really. Make sure your cleaning chemicals and knives are way out of reach or locked up.

Jess

[momsphotoop]

Is it enough that the cabinet with the cleaning supplies is locked with those magnetic tot locks???

[melissa_bear003]

Ours had to be actual lock and key locks. Meds too. For the daycare, I bought a tool box and put them in that, and it had a spot to slide a padlock through.

[merdgrl]

You're so freaking out for nothing. I've been in houses where I thought the ceiling was going to fall in and the furnace might explode, but they get 90 days to fix it, and then everything is ok. My agency doesn't required real locks, the toddler stuff is okay, and even placing chemicals and meds in a high shelf, like above the fridge would be fine. Good luck.

[melissa_bear003]

Originally Posted by merdgrl

You're so freaking out for nothing. I've been in houses where I thought the ceiling was going to fall in and the furnace might explode, but they get 90 days to fix it, and then everything is ok. My agency doesn't required real locks, the toddler stuff is okay, and even placing chemicals and meds in a high shelf, like above the fridge would be fine. Good luck.

Obviously, it greatly depends on where you live. The SW that did the walkthrough in our informal mtg told me about the cords on the blinds, putting chemicals, including shaving cream under lock and key, locking up alcohol, meds, the temp of the water heater, the recent inspection of furnace being needed...theres a lot to it here.

[merdgrl]

you're right, I've heard in some states that they even require the fire inspector to come in. My point was to just calm down- you also have a grace period to fix anything that is a problem so no one buys anything that's not needed. Some of the posts make it seem like such a scary thing, I don't want people to be scared and too stressed to even go through the process.

[melissa_bear003]

My intention wasn't to scare anyone, lol! Just share what I had been told.