What steps should be taken to prepare for and smoothly complete the home study process of adoptions?

Question

As a part of becoming adoptive parents, a home study needs to be done for the family.

What can be done to prepare all parties involved in the family (parents, siblings, etc) to smoothly get through the study?

Answer 1

The home study is the part that sounds the scariest, but it's really the most insignificant part of the process. They give you a checklist, just follow it. What we found was that it was a convenient excuse for making sure we were mentally prepared for fostering and adoption. The first time we looked into adoption we realized we weren't ready by the fact that we kept subconsciously putting the home study stuff off.

Several years later we looked into it again, and when we finally got around to doing all the paperwork, installing all the childproofing stuff, and making the stupid emergency evacuation poster required in our state, it was like a milestone that we knew we were finally ready and had resolved our doubts.