[melissa77]

My husband and I just had our first home visit to become lic. foster parents and hopefully it will lead to adoption. The whole encounter was very akward. She introduced her self, asked for any paperwork that was completed, took a tour and asked if we had any questions. That was it! I spent three days preparing the house and she wasn't even here 20 minutes. She did not ask us any questions. Not one! Nothing about what we do for a living, background, experiences, history, family, etc.... She had difficulty maintaining eye contact as she spoke with us and at times mumbled and became very difficult to understand. Is this normal for a first time visit to the home? I'm now concerned about having my home study written by her.

[Happy123]

I wonder if she is new and nervous, maybe you were her first solo HS. I would call her and ask what the next step is. Maybe she just collects paperwork. My home study was more detailed. I also cleaned (down on my hands and knees) and they barely looked. I wanted to say can you come look at my grout in the kitchen..it never has been cleaner. Lol.
Happy123

[EandDmom]

Ours didn't take much longer than that either. They did a tour looked at every room and looked in the fridge. She did take a few notes but nothing major.
The big one was the homestudy. That's where they asked alot of questions and delved more into it our pasts and personal things.

[suzyq18]

We had a SW come to our home, she was nice and spoke with us for about a half hour...but asked us NOTHING about foster parenting. Just had some "chit chat" conversations. We had filled out paperwork with our whole "life story" she said she knew all about us already, so she didn't need to ask us anything.
Afterwords, the director of our FC agency called us and said she had to come out. She was the one who did the tour of our home and asked us questions, etc.
She was mighty mad at the first SW for not doing her job.
It delayed us about a month. No big deal in the end.
Call your agency and ask what's the next step.
Suzy

[CaddoRose]

Our first visit was pretty short. They need to see the house, but not do an inspection. You'd be surprised how many people think they can foster in a house that isn't up to code or has 3 rooms for 11 people. You should have several visits before you get the license and they should let you know which one is to do an actual inspection, i.e., looking for smoke alarms, locks on cabinets, no trash, unblocked exits, clean, etc. Her mannerism could just be the way she is.

[deadcalm]

My homestudy worker asked for a whole bunch of paperwork that I had already submitted to the agency. I live in an apartment. He only wanted to see the room the child would be sleeping and make sure there were gates at all the windows. He also check to see if I had a fire extinguisher, smoke detector and carbon monoxide alarm. He did not seem concerned about the room being empty. Actually, I did not buy furniture or paint until after the my FD arrived.

[melissa77]

We asked her if there was a list of items or things that we needed to do to the house like carbon monoxide dectors, baby gate on stairs, etc... She said, "No. I checked for fire alarms in each room and a fire extinguisher. You have both". We also asked what to expect during the next visit. She said that she would go over our homework from the foster parenting class and answer any questions we had and that would be it.

Thank you for your comments. It made me feel somewhat better. I'll just have to wait and see what happens at the next one.

[Mystik]

I wish ours was so easy!! They literally went through every drawer in our kitchen & bathrooms, our fridge our cupboards, and strolled through every room. It took over an hour, but she couldn't of cared less about whether I vacuumed or scrubbed down the entire house for days prior to her arrival, lol. I even washed windows I was so worried!!!