Final Home Study Visit

Our licensing worker came by yesterday to pick up some papers and we got our last visit set up for April 13th. Apparently there are new requirements for home studies. Questions they may have to ask or other information they may need that they didn't used to need. She just made it sound like they were more stricter on certain things than they used to be. Its crazy how much they scrutinize adoptive families and how everything in the house has to be perfect and child-proof. We know they do it for a reason and they have to protect the children and the agency (since they are the ones handing out the license). However, Aaron and I feel that since they scrutinize adoptive/foster families so much anybody and everybody needs to have a thorough home study done before they are allowed to get pregnant.

She was going to go over our home study from our other agency this week and see what things she needs to add since we are switching from adoption to foster care. We also got signed up for our CPR class at the end of the month. It will be good to have that done.

There were a few questions I asked her while she was here. Ones that Aaron and I kept forgetting to ask the other 2x we met with her.

1.) When you call with a possible placement and I get the information from you and then say let me talk with Aaron and I'll call you back, do you immediately move on to another family?

• No, we do give you guys time to talk about it and call us back. Before we call on a placement we usually have a few families in mind already. That way if you were to say no we know who we will move onto next.

2.) How many families do you have waiting right now for a placement?

• Our worker currently has 3 (including us) waiting for a placement. She did say that they have never had a foster family wait for a year or more to get a placement. She did say though that they have had some families wait 6 or 7 months. *thinking to myself* (bummer-hopefully we don't have to wait that long)

3.) I was confused about the on-call situation you had mentioned last time. Did you say that there is one person on call for the whole Peoria area? So, maybe one week it is someone from DCFS and the next week Family Core and so on..?

• No, there is always someone from Family Core on call. Us 3 licensing workers rotate. If it is not our worker that is on call that doesn't mean we won't get called. She said they all 3 try to keep up to date on the families when the need for a placement arises.

I think that was about it. We're still waiting on our "official" license to come in the mail, so maybe one day this week it will!