The “About yourself” portion of the home study is the
easiest part. The questions are pretty straightforward and basic, but they are
important to be asked of a prospective parent. This will give the adoption
agency a glimpse of the adoptive parent’s personality. The rest of the sections
are a bit more tricky. The “About your marriage relationship/support system”
section gets more personal, with questions regarding communication and decision
making in the marriage. It should be a simple question, but it’s hard to write
about how decisions are made between two people because it often differs from
time to time. The parenting philosophy section of the home study would probably
be the most difficult, especially if the adoptive parent has no parenting
experience. I think it’s unnecessary to ask about how the parent plans to
encourage, disciple and nurture. It’s one of those things that you do not know
until you are actually in the situation. Every adoptive parent is going to make
it sound like he/she is going to be the best parent and write that he/she has a
parenting philosophy. As an adoptive parent, I would feel that the questions in
the parenting philosophy section are not an accurate way to gauge whether or
not a person should qualify for being an adoptive parent. When I first glanced
at the ethical and religious values part of the home study, I felt that it was
prying too much into a person’s life about asking questions regarding their
religious belief system. However, once I thought about it in depth, I realized
that it is an important question to ask because religion can constitute a
person’s life. Therefore, it is important to know the beliefs that adoptive
parents hold. The health and financial questions are also necessary questions.
The home study should ask more questions as to why the person wants to be a
parent, what qualifies them to be a considered a “good” parent, what they have
to offer to a child, etc. This will better assess the intention and suitability
of the person as an adoptive parent. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services website provides a more detailed
description of the home study report. One of the questions that it lists on the
website is for the adoptive parents to describe his/her feelings about openness
with the birth family. This is a very necessary question to include in the
report , and it would require a lot of thought. It’s something that needs to be
completely considered before the adoption takes place. With the addition of the
above mentioned questions, I feel that the home study does a fair job in
assessing the suitability of the person to adopt.
-Jill Yanish
Jill--thanks for the link to more information about the homestudy process! Very useful! I'll post it on Moodle for students who are interested, now and in the future.
ReplyDeleteJean
Graded Reply 3 (HALL)
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post that the homestudy, for the most part, asks some important questions that give a good indication of the personality and lifestyle of the adoptive parent. I also was a bit surprised to see questions in their about religious values. When I first looked at it, I thought it was unnecessary because no religion is considered better than another, so the question is irrelevant. Then, I thought about it some more and realized that it is a very important question. Our religious beliefs tend to have an impact on everything we do on a day-to-day basis, from interactions with others to some of our habits. Being aware of this, helps the agency better understand the environment that the adoptive child would potentially be placed in.
I do have a different opinion on the parenting philosophy questions though. At first thought you would think that its not necessary because people may lie or try to add in "fluff" to make them seem more attractive as parents. I don't think they intend the question to be exact. In my opinion, every parent should have some idea of how they are going to impact their child's life (even if its as simple as having regular family dinners or maintaining an open relationship with your kids)and I think that's what the question was trying to get at. Additionally, I think those questions help the agency to match up adoptive parents according to some of the requirements or wishes of birth mothers.
Just a bit more to think about.