[spunky46]

My husband and I are trying to adopt "special needs" children in the state of PA. We are using a local agency and already have a social worker who is helping with the pre adoption paperwork, homestudy. We were told we had to take classes to be qualified to adopt through PA, so we did. We finished with the classes in March and have been trying to get the homestudy completed since that time. What is the normal time frame this process should take? We are extremely frustrated as we can't even get the homestudy completed let alone be looking at children. I don't know what to do. We adopted a 9 year old through Ukraine 2 years ago and are anxious to add to our family before our daughter gradutates from high school. Am I being unreasonable or overly anxious? Help! If I had the money I would go back to Ukraine, but that isn't an option at this time.

[akcskye]

It just varies from state to state. Have you recently moved or anything that could be slowing up their search?
In my state, they say application to the finishing of the homestudy should not take more than 3 months, as my husband and I both have fingerprints on file and have lived in the same location for over 5 years.
They say from the start to getting a child in the home is about 6 months for most families in my state.
I wish I could help more, but I really don't know without knowing your state's rules or your personal circumstances.

[spunky46]

Thanks for the reply. We haven't moved or done anything like that recently. I think our SW is "just slow". She told us she is really going "to try" and get our homestudy completed. I even gave her a copy of our old one from 2 years ago to help. We don't have to get fingerprinted; just state and child abuse clearances. We are already into 5 months, we started the classes in February. Hopefully, things will get quicker.

[8isenough]

My husband and I adopted sibling group of 4 four years ago. Children are AA and considered "special needs" simply because of their race. That's just the way they get classified. The process for us went really fast. We went to the information meeting in January, had our homestudy done by June and had children in our home by September 1st! The adoption was finalized 10 months later. We are a caucasion couple but this caused no delays whatsoever. I personally, am very proactive so I kept our social worker moving. When looking for a match I also checked the internet "PA Adoption Site" and would contact children's SW that we were interested in. I didn't wait for my SW to contact me with available children. Keep making phone calls or emailing your SW and make sure the Homestudy gets done. They get really busy with all their cases but it's true when they say "The squeaky wheel gets oiled first"!

Diana

Mom of Jermaine, Jhalonda, Jazzmine & Tahira