Whether you are planning a domestic or international adoption, you must have a home study completed. A home study must be done by an agency or a social worker licensed in your state; and will provide the country you are hoping to adopt from with information about your lifestyle and your limitations.

You will be in charge of finding a social worker or agency to complete your home study. Make sure you call the Secretary of you State to see if you are required to use an agency social worker, even when completing an independent adoption. Once you know the requirements for your state, get your local phone book and begin pricing agencies/social workers. The information is normally found in the Yellow Pages under Adoption Services. Oftentimes, a homestudy will cost $700 to $1,500 depending on your state and social workers.

Once you locate a social worker to complete your home study, she will schedule an appointment to meet with you. She will give you a list of required documents for you to gather for the home study. Sometimes she will request these documents BEFORE the first home study visit, and other times the social worker will wait until she meets with you before letting you know what to gather.

Either way, you will need to gather your birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce decrees, and at least three reference letters, in addition to any other documents she requests. Your references are typically required to be from non-family members that have known you for at least three years.

The social worker will most likely meet with you 2-5 times before completing her report. At least one meeting will be in her office. The meetings that take place in your home will focus on checking your house out to make sure you have enough room for another child and to verify that you have no major safety hazards.

She will also want to meet individually with you and any other family members that live in your household, including other children. In these meetings, she will generally ask questions regarding, "how you were raised," "your views on raising children," "what led you to adopt," "what do you think about sharing mom and dad with a baby brother or sister", etc.

The entire home study could take as little as one month to as many as six, depending on the number of other homestudies the social worker is working on.

Once your home study is completed, your social worker will forward a copy on to the INS office in your state for review. The homestudy is required before INS will approve you for an international adoption. You will also receive two notarized copies of this report for your dossier and for your own records.