More Homestudy News

When I started making entries about our homestudy, I did not expect to be posting the blog you are about to read, but now here it is nonetheless.

Shortly after Christmas, we received a letter from our homestudy agency informing us that they would be closing in January 2010. Our social worker is going to work for another agency, opening a regional office here in Southwest Ohio for them. We were invited to transfer with her and, initially, we did want to follow her to her new agency. Therefore, we asked her to send us any paperwork associated with the switch along with a schedule of fees for a homestudy update, six post-placement visits, etc.

While we were waiting for this information, I called two other local agencies just to get a cost comparison. Then I sent a message to the Bulgaria Adopt Forum and was given two recommendations for a third local agency that I also contacted. I felt a connection with this agency’s director right away and also found their prices to be extremely reasonable and very much in line with what we had expected to pay to our original homestudy agency as well as with what the other two agencies had quoted.

Then, a few days ago, I received the paperwork packet from our social worker’s new agency and about fell out of my chair when I saw the three printed pages of fees that would be associated with a transfer. On top of the high homestudy update and post-placement report/visit fees, there were also a hefty transfer fee, a post-placement administration fee, and an annual program fee. The latter is $500, so considering that we need a homestudy update this year and three years of post-placement reports when our kids come home, that alone is $2000.

I sat down at the computer to make a side-by side spreadsheet to compare and add up all the costs between our social worker’s new agency and the other agency that I really liked. The final tally came to over $5500 for the first and just over $2200 for the second, all services rendered being equal. That’s a cost difference of well over $3000 and I knew there was simply no way my husband and I could justify paying that much extra money to remain with a social worker we like.

So, as disappointing as it was, yesterday I requested to have our homestudy case file transferred to a different agency. We won’t need any services from them until later this year, so they will simply hold our file for a while. We are sad to lose our first social worker, but I am sure we will get along just fine with whoever takes her place.

As you may have noticed, I did not mention any specific names in this blog as I am not trying to help or hinder either agency in their pursuit to create forever families. I just recommend that anyone beginning the adoption process carefully research all of the options. Yes, it is important to have a good rapport with your agency/agencies, but international adoption is an expensive adventure, so sometimes numbers do, by necessity, speak louder than words.