Byline Foster Application Made Easy

Signed foster application

so I'm super excited today I want to talk to you about the home study the home study is required for both foster care and adoption our experience has only been in the state of Missouri and I'm pretty sure that your state would be similar to what our experiences were but you can always go to your state's Department of Social Services website and look it up I want to talk to you about the home study because I have noticed that it is one of the most intimidating parts of the process to become licensed to adopt or foster so I'm super excited to show you today that it's really not all that scary so there's three parts to the home study there's paperwork there is in-person interviews and there's a home walk through the paperwork is pretty extensive you have to fill out an application you will also be required to provide documents like your marriage license in your birth certificate you will have to provide documentation that your cars are insured and your pets are vaccinated you have to do a background check where you get fingerprinted and you have to provide documentation from your doctor that you're medically fit to take care of children so I want you to be aware that they will ask you a lot of questions that you may be uncomfortable answering they'll ask you questions like do you have a family member or do you have a past of alcohol abuse or mental disorder or even medical issues like heart disease and cancer they just want to know for the safety of the child they will also ask you questions about your relationship with your siblings and your parents and each other and they're just kind of trying to delve in and get to know you a little bit more don't be afraid be honest they want you to succeed so they're not going to rule you out because your brother or a family member has a problem with drugs or alcohol they won't rule you out because of that don't be afraid don't be afraid they'll also ask you to provide a financial statement they'll want a list of your expenses including like house payment and a car payment and that sort of thing and they'll also ask you about your income and they just want to make sure that you are able to provide for whatever children they place in your home so the second part is the in-person interview and you might be super nervous but it's actually really fun the case manager or the home study worker that is coming to your house they usually do it at your house super-nice usually they really want you to succeed so there's nothing to be afraid of they are going to look you in the eye and ask you a lot of the questions that were on your application about your family past and your relationship with family members they want to know how your family feels about you taking in a foster child or adopting a child they want to know about your job they want to know about if you have child care or if you need child care even things that you might think are still you like how our decisions made in the house how our financial decisions made in the house what do you do for fun what kind of books do you like to read what kind of movies do you like to read they just want to get to know you they will ask you serious questions they want to know your views on discipline they want to know how you will handle a child that might be having problems either behaviorally or developmentally and what resources that you have to help a child in those circumstances personally we really enjoyed the in-person interviews really enjoyed getting to meet the caseworkers we were able to ask them questions they really were trying to help us it did feel like an interrogation at times but they wanted us to succeed because we worked with the state foster system and worked with a private adoption agency we had several home studies done by the end of it we were pretty much pros at this one of our last home studies we were on our third visit the lady showed up on the wrong day and all of a sudden her doorbell rings and she's standing there and we were so nervous because we had not cleaned the house but we let her and she was super embarrassed and really nice about it she was so appreciative that we let her go ahead and finish what she needed to do and we passed with flying colors if you come to the home study with a positive attitude and a little bit of excitement and honesty like just saying I'm super nervous about this they will be super understanding you will be fine so the last part of the home study and for some probably the scariest is the home walkthrough do not worry they don't care if your home does not look like a Joanna Gaines home we had nothing on the walls basically and we had already lived here for several years so they don't care about your decorating skills they want to make sure that you have smoke detectors carbon monoxide if you have gas in your home they also want to make sure that you have a fire extinguisher we did not have the right fire singer first yeah we had a three-pound fire extinguisher and they wanted to see a fine town fire extinguisher so we had to go buy a new fire extinguisher but and it had to be within days oh yes can't be expired that's true guns and ammunition need to be locked up separately your cabinets have to be locked so knives have to be locked up which was sometimes hard but we put child safety locks on on all their cabinets that we kept anything that we didn't want the kids getting into medications have to be locked up what else cleaning supplies than anything that might be dangerous to children needs to be up high or locked up okay so we found a super cool magnetic cabinet locks on Amazon we'll put the link in the description below but they were a lot easier to open and close for us like if I was cooking and needed to get a knife out of the cabinet it wasn't quite as cumbersome and as some of those old-fashioned childproof locks all of your exposed outlets have to have those little outlet covers and we were required to in our state this is all the state of Missouri we had to have those little door handle things childproof door handle things to be honest even I mean these kids knew how to open those up and we had caseworkers show up a couple of times when they weren't on the doors so it wasn't quite as big a deal as we were afraid of but we did have to have those and we kept them on as much as because just just going to the outside doors yes the outside doors no mystery so just keep in mind if you have hazards in your backyard like a trampoline or a pool that does not disqualify you you just have to show them that it is safe so you might must have like a cover on your pool or maybe a fence around it our tip line has a net around it and then the little pad guards over the springs and they're fine so if you have questions about things like that you can contact your state and find out or probably just google it so that's pretty much it it sounds really scary and it can be stressful but it also can be really fun we want you to feel like you can reach out to us with any questions that you have about home studies foster care and adoption so feel free to do that we'll put a link in our description below of how you can get ahold of us and also go back and check out our previous videos we talked a lot about foster care and you can see our family and what it's like thanks so much for watching we love you guys so much and we can't wait to see you again next week [Music] [Music]