Home Study Visit

.....We had our home study visit yesterday. It went well and surprisingly fast. Our social worker came in, asked dozens of questions, toured the house, interrogated the kids, and left. Pretty cut and dry. After she was done, I got my chance at the interrogation. I grilled her on timeliness on turning around this home study to the agency. She told me that she is starting on it immediately and she will be done with it as fast as she can. I think the method these people are using with us by now is the "hurry up and get this family out of our hair!" It is effective because the more questions and the more pressure we put on both agencies, the faster they are working for us. I told the actual agency to please send us the dossier registration now and not wait. We can begin filling it out and getting the apostille completed (I hate that word...partially because I don't think I am saying it right!) So we are waiting on a few things at this point for the home study to be completed and officially sent off. First, the felony background check and then the child abuse check. The felon check is supposed to only take about 1 1/2 weeks. The child abuse check is quoted at up to 3 weeks. What most people (at least those that follow this blog) don't know is that I sit on the Virginia Governor's Council for Early Childhood Intervention. What does this mean? Well, it means that a state level council has all of the key stakeholders in the room. That also means the Department of Social Services. They are the holder of the child abuse check. So I will be making some phone calls to the people I serve with on that board and sweet talk the heck out of them. So my goal still stands that I will make every attempt to have this home study completed and sent to the agency by no later than 3 January.

Now, in the meantime, we are also working on getting (2) key pieces to the dossier completed now. First is the Psych evaluation. It sure does sound simple. Nope, that would be too easy. Who could imagine that a simple test and summary would require several referrals from Tricare and many phone calls to find a psychologist that can see us within the next 6 weeks. Still searching and will not give up. I did, however, talk to a lady at one family counseling center who was adopted and whose family was in the military. So as you can imagine, I began to work my charm and by the end of the conversation, she said she was going to get the Head Department Director (or whatever her title was....it sounded high up) to call me and get me in as soon as possible. Making connections!!!! It pays to have the ability to never shut my mouth (no comment Melissa). The other key piece is multiple copies of our marriage license. Again, sounds simple enough! Nope, we decided to be special and get married in St. Lucia....yeap, a tropical paradise where we had the absolute time of our lives. In fact, there isn't a single day that goes by without talking about it. Now we have to contact them and try and get a few more certified copies of it. I was kind of hoping they were going to say, yes; however you must come back and stay for at least 4 days. I think we deserve it.

Anyway, it is after midnight yet again. I need to hit the rack. Oh, one other funny thing that happened. I was asking our Agency about the required training needed and some specific details. She replied back with something along the lines "another thing to do is sign up for groups or clubs of parents raising children with Down syndrome...so you know what to expect." I looked at Melissa and asked her, "did we forget to tell her that we already have a child with Down syndrome."

Signing off for now......Charlie