[Justhavfaith]

Okay so I am not completely new to adoption. I adopted my son from Guatemala utilizing an agency here in the states but, in another state. I am now researching options to adopt from the state but, probably not the state that I live in. I know that there are options out there but, I am having trouble understanding how this should work. I beleive that I need to have a home study assessment done here in my state (licensed) and then contact the specific state that I want to adopt from. The problem is that I cannot find an agency/person to perform my home study. They all are associated with agencies who are wanting thousands of dollars to "place" a child with us. Is this the norm??? Is there not a way to get a home study without using a local agency for placement?

When we did our international adoption, the homestudy agency was different than our placing agency. Since then though, they have changed their policy and no longer do homestudies for clients who do not use their agency for placement.

We are in an area where there are few licensed homestudy agencies. North Mississippi.

Any direction or clarification would be welcome!!

[Lumpkin]

You might check with your local Department of Human Services (or whatever they call it in your state). Our DHS office refers people to a free program that promotes foster care, but also handles training for adoptions/etc. They send you through a set of classes, and part of that process includes a homestudy. The whole process takes a number of weeks to get into and through, but it's free

[marythemom]

Foster care adoption is free. We went through a local agency - planning to adopt TX kids. Once we got our license we realized that there were no TX kids we were interested in, and found a Nebraska sibling pair on adoptUSkids.org. Our agency submitted the homestudy and we were chosen for them. The Nebraska health and human services department contracted with our private agency to act as local caseworkers during the 6 month waiting period before we could finalize.

For many reasons we didn't end up finalizing until almost 1 1/2 years later. Nebraska has continued paying our private agency. We paid nothing. It is possible to pay for an individual caseworker to do a homestudy for you, but this way is free - and you get the free classes which didn't tell us everything, but was better than nothing.

Mary
mom to bio son T(9) and daughter K(almost 12)
Adoptive placement 11/06 of H (now 13) and her brother D(almost 15).
Finalized on H 3/08!
Hope to finalize on D this summer!

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']“And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” [/font]JK Rowlings

[Justhavfaith]

Thank you for the info. I must be missing a piece of the puzzle because the agencies are telling me that they don't work with the state. I will try checking with DCFS - - thank you.

[Justhavfaith]

Okay, so I found out how to get the information from our state and local DCFS agency.

I am guessing that we will not find our children in our home state so we may be looking into other states. It is good to hear that it isn't uncommon or overly complex.

[DianeS]

Originally Posted by Justhavfaith

... we may be looking into other states. It is good to hear that it isn't uncommon or overly complex.

Do be prepared to find out that it's time consuming, though. Many states try to match you with children in state before they are willing to allow you to use your homestudy out of state. Some put time restrictions on it, like having to look in state for 6 months first.

Not all states do that, I just wanted to throw the possibility out there in case you run into it, and so you'll know what questions you need to ask so you're not taken by surprise.

Good luck!

[Justhavfaith]

Thank you, I wasn't aware that there could be time restrictions. We will keep that in mind.

[Twistwood]

Teria, I am in Mississippi also. I went through an agency called World Child International. They did our home study and then I pretty much marketed us until we got a match. Our study was done on March 26, submitted to SC on April 25th and matched on June 30. We go to get our kids on Sept 4th. Let me know if I can help you further. I am in Philadelphia MS.