From How to Prepare for a Home Study:

6. Line up your references.

Before your home study can be completed, you must ask several people to provide references stating their confidence in your ability to parent. When we went through the home study process, my husband and I were required to supply the following references:

• 3 personal references (at least one friend for each of us)


• 2 family references (one from each side of the family)


• 2 work references (one for each)


• 1 pastor reference (we adopted through a Christian agency that required church membership)

The number of references that is required varies from state to state, and even agency to agency, so your requirements might be different. However, it is my understanding that all adoptions require at least one reference.

Give some serious thought to who you should ask to provide a reference. Make sure that each person you ask does not have some sort of bias against adoption. While each person is entitled to his own opinion about adoption, a reference is supposed to be an evaluation of a hopeful adoptive parent’s ability to parent, not a forum for expressing views on whether or not adoption is a “good” or “bad” thing.

Be sure to choose someone who is responsible and reliable. Some people are procrastinators by nature. Their procrastination can delay the completion of your home study. It can be very awkward to have to call your references to prompt them to fill out the form you have given them, especially since they are doing you a favor.

Consider what is going on in these people’s lives. One of my references was delayed because my friend’s mother was dying of cancer. I really wanted this friend to write the reference (since she had known me for over a decade), and she really wanted to do it: I just had to respect that I had to wait for her to have the time to do it in light of the other things going on in her life at the time.

Most of my friends felt honored to be asked to write a reference, and they seemed to enjoy the process of answering the questions submitted by the agency. However, putting together a good reference takes some time and thought. If you can give your references a “heads up” now, they can start thinking about the things they want to share to support your adoption journey.

Related Topics:

• Homestudy Paperwork: References and Fingerprints



• Homestudy Paperwork: Medical, Financial, Biographical, and more