Potential Problems With Our Home Study

We have encountered some potential problems with our home study. As part of our dossier we have to enclose our social worker's license and home study agency license. The first problem is that the certificate that we were given was a copy. It's okay that the certificate is a copy, but the notary was also a copy and was notarized in September of 2007. That's not a big deal. Our social worker is sending us a new copy with a fresh, original notary.

The issue that we are really concerned about is her home study agency license. It was a business certificate from WV State Tax Department. What we are required to have is an official license stating that our social worker is certified by the state of WV to conduct home studies. In addition to that the business certificate expires on June 30, 2008. The SDA wants all of your documents enclosed with the dossier to be at least 6 months away from expiration. Well, it's already February and we are at least a month away from being able to submit our dossier to our facilitator. That doesn't include the time involved for sending ALL of our dossier documents out to the state of origination for apostilles. It also doesn't include the time involved for translation and submission to the SDA.

So basically as it stands right now, we do not have a valid license for our home study agency and the business certificate that we do have is going to expire too soon. I spent most of my day yesterday trying to get some answers about the home study agency license. What I was able to find out is that the state of WV does not even issue a license for home study agencies to operate. The SDA is wanting something from us that doesn't even exist in our state! I was told by the executive director of the WV Board of Social Worker Examiners that the state has a "no scope of practice" law and that our social worker IS operating as required by WV law. I looked up our social worker's license and found that she is in good standing with the state and has had no complaints and has the level of license that she needs to conduct home studies. I wasn't really worried about that, I was just looking for some proof that she is legitimate for the officials at the SDA.

The Exec. Director that I spoke to is supposed to write a letter on their letterhead stating that our social worker is authorized to conduct independent home studies in the state of WV and that there is a "no scope of practice" law that allows her to be able to do this. She said she would have a copy of the law attached to the letter. However, she was not happy about having to get her letter notarized and was clear that it was an inconvenience for her and that she would do it when she had time. Her words were, "I will have to walk all the way down the hall, get on the elevator, walk all the way down to the State dept. and then I'll have to find a notary in there, just so they can watch me sign the letter. She also let me know that this isn't her level of work, that she is over the board of directors, and doesn't deal with adoption of any kind. Her job is to oversee the board and to investigate complaints on social workers. But she couldn't direct me to anyone or another department that could help me, so I felt like she was the one. She said she has had to fulfill the same request for other adoptive parents numerous times in the past. So that tells me that maybe the state of WV needs to get their act together!! They need to either appoint an official to handle these issues or else they need to integrate it into an existing department. I will be writing our congressman! I was less than thrilled with her level of enthusiasm to help me, but what can you do? So I am just praying that she will follow through and do this for us soon. Please pray for us!

Then we don't know that the SDA is going to accept this in lieu of an agency license. Our facilitator seems to think they will and it will be fine. But then we still have the issue that Brenda's business certificate is going to expire.

Needless to say, I have thrown my "mental" time line (of when we should have things done) out the window. I've surrendered it to God and whatever happens is because it is His will. That's a lesson Chloe taught me.

Please keep us in your prayers, that this will be resolved and that the SDA in the girls country will accept this in lieu of the agency license.

Thanks!!

Kristy