[GAMOM75]

We were just approved by our agency (private approved by the state) my only issue is I have sent our caseworker over 5 children/sibling group all out of state that we are interested in. One case is kind of urgent as they are only taking Home Studies for a couple of days and we still have heard nothing. I have sent several emails and have left a few voicemails and no reply.

Are agencies required to give you a copy of the Homestudy? I asked this question a few times to them and never seem to get an answer. I am trying to be polite about it since I don't want to upset them, but it is getting frustrating. They don't even want me to make the first contact on photolisting sites, but since they are not following up I am wondering what to do. Has anyone been through this?

[Withay]

As a general rule, agencies who do homestudies prefer that you only look at children within your state for a specific amount of time (usually 6 months or 1 year). After that time, then they don't mind looking out of state as much. This could be what is going on.

[GAMOM75]

hmm. That can explain the staling tactic. But what I don't understand is when they sent us the approval letter, they told us that we can start looking on adoptuskids.com for children that match our interest. I am wondering if they said this thinking that it would take us longer to find a match then we did.

Are they required to give us a copy of our homestudy? The case worker of the kids we are interested in have told us we can fax or email the homestudy ourselves.

[akcskye]

The best course of action would be to contact the SW for the kids you're looking at, and ask them to contact your SW because you are not getting a response.

It is the summer...a time when most CW's are having vacations and the like.

We DID get a copy of our homestudy, and we also were told we could look on adoptuskids.com

However, we were told in advance that looking before the 1 year waiting mark for out of state children was generally frowned upon by their supervisors.

We could look, but generally, they discouraged it before the 1 year mark.

[hkolln]

We called our agency and asked for a copy of our home study and they made us a copy. Have you asked specifically for a copy of the home study so you can have it for your records?

[GAMOM75]

Yes, I specifically called and asked for a copy, however, no one confirms I will get one. I always get an answer something like "let me check on that for you" . Before I really started to push on it, I wanted to see how common it was a to get a copy.

I have had a caseworker who has a child we are interested in also call and she is getting the run arounds a little so I am sure what is going on but it is very frustrating.

I will call tomorrow and get a little more demanding.

[jbee]

i could've sworn they showed us a copy at some point to check for errors...
i don't know if i have a copy of ours or not. we got one because our fs got tpr'd and we needed it then to adopt him, not because we were looking for kids to adopt, so i wasn't really concerned with it.
i thought someone (maybe 'buttascotch baby') was fighting her agency to get a copy, you might want to pm her and ask what she thinks. i thought she said you had a right to it?

[Mkuhlmann06]

We weren't provided a copy at first, but our matching worker included/copied me on an email where she was emailing it out to other worker for a potential match. Ive used that to do as many initial contacts as possible. (Im in PA).

[sheababy]

We are in Colorado and by law we can't see our homestudy (although our social worker gave us a copy to review for accuracy).

Maybe you can have the other agency contact your social worker to get your homestudy? Sometimes they move faster that way.

[MPJJJ]

Here in Michigan, I got our homestudy when it was mailed to the state for approval. I think it is law that we have to get copies of our homestudies, because we recieved a copy of our homestudy for our niece (thats how I knew how inaccurate it was, and was able to act on setting the record straight!)