[court5505]

We're having our homestudy soon. I know this has been asked before, but I can't remember the answer. Should I offer her food, and if I do, what should I offer her? Do you think she will accept it? Of course I'll offer her a drink, but I'm not sure what to do about the food thing.

[terry2ferg]

When we had our homestudy we did offer our sw both food and drinks. We had a morning homevisit, so I had bagels sitting out. To my surprise she actually did eat one!

From what I've heard, most sw do not eat food you put out, but will take a drink.

Its up to you. I am the type of person that has to have something to offer guests in my house. But I don't think a sw is going to look negatively on you if you don't offer her food.

[joskimo]

Our homestudy SW had to travel to our town and was attending meetings early in the day so we were having an evening visit, so I offered her dinner with us, to which she accepted. We had a nice no frills dinner - chicken, salad, rice. My oldest didn't eat dinner that night, which was mortifying, but after dinner I brought a big bowl of grapes to the table and he ate those while we talked. I felt I showed our roll with the punches approach to parenting.

[tomandcate]

The advice we got was not to offer food, so we didn't.

We had coffee, water, coke, sprite and diet coke ready to offer her.

We had two in-home visits...the first, she did not want anything.

The second visit (both of these were early afternoon) she had a glass of water.

So my advice is this: if it makes you feel good, comfortable, to have a snack ready, then go for it! S/he will not think ill of you for having something...maybe you just offer as opposed to having food sitting out.

If you think it will feel "forced" to have food, or will stress you out wondering what to have, then don't worry about it!

I think the social workers are there for business - they are your employee for all intents and purposes, so do what feels right for you and don't worry about making the wrong impression. Just go with the flow, whatever feels right for your situation (meeting time, etc.)

Good luck, you'll do fine!

Cate

[Maria K]

I think it depends on how long she will be there. My homestudy is scheduled on the 26th (very nervous!) and she'll be here from 9:30-3 so I'm going to have sandwich fixing ready for lunch.

[roxanna425]

as a social worker on a home visit you can accept something to drink but you are not supposed to accept food. of course if you are there the whole day you might make an exception.

[chaplainswife]

We just had our hs yesterday and it lasted an hour and 30 minutes. We offered her a variety or beverages and she chose a diet pepsi. That was it. We sisn't offer any food, but then I don't think she was here long enough to warant us pulling out food and stuff. Oh and I think it went very well.
Monique

[rosemary_g]

For our first homestudy visit which was in the morning we offered little muffins, coffee, tea and water, which we all shared since dh and I hadn't eaten yet since we were too busy straighting up until the last minute. We also had a couple of evening visits and I brought out some chocolate biscottis, a small tray of cookies and coffee since I knew she drank that coffee rather than tea. If you don't have anything at all that should be fine too, just offer something to drink.
It was funny because our agency starts out with a weekend adoption retreat before the homestudy visits to go over adoption training and during our last day the trainer mention that none of the sw would be put out if we offered them some cookies but it wasn't required. So we kind of knew ahead of time that it was okay and it did make it easier.

[MrsSmith]

For our HS, the SW that we used had done the HS for some friends of ours who were about a year ahead in the adoption process, so I checked with them. They had done a whole spread of ordered platters of veggies and dip and whatnot, which seemed a bit elaborate to me. Following a tip from another adoptive couple, I baked cookies to make the house smell good and be a casual thing to offer. (There also was the "look at what a good baker I am .... that means I'd be a great mommy too!" angle.... ) Our first HS visit lasted over 4 hours and was after dinner. It was a late night! So, I had homemade chocolate chip cookies on a plate, and she did eat one, and we also offered her a drink. I don't recall that she drank anything other than water on any of her visits, and on subsequent visits I didn't offer anything other than cookies either, which seemed to be fine.

Good luck to everyone who is still facing their HS visit! I remember being greatly relieved once ours was over!

Cheers!
Heather