Blog One: Homestudy Questionare - A Time to Reflect

From my experience, personal reflection is one of the most difficult and time consuming tasks to complete. However, without reflection, one cannot thoughtfully explain their reasoning on how they make decisions. Taking time to consider what major life events have shaped preferences, personality, and conflict management is important for individual growth. 

That being said, I believe it would be beneficial for every person to take the time to evaluate their relationship both with their significant other and immediate family members. This is especially true for current relationship status with parents. It seems like many problems that arise within the family have to potential to transfer to many other relationships in life. From the Children’s Home Society and Family Services Homestudy questionnaire, questions presented included “describe your childhood” and “what were your parents like”. Being able to thoroughly answer these questions allows the applicant to identify certain traits that are similar to their parents, both good and bad. It also allows the applicant to think what they liked and disliked about their childhood, and why that may be. Therefore, it would be to the advantage of the individual to reflect on their past experiences and how they have affected their personal development.

I think the answers given will give an agency a good picture if the prospective parents will be successful adoptive parents. Completing the entire list of questions takes a lot of self assessment and evaluation of past and current relationships. Certain questions from the Homestudy questionnaire that would take an extended period to contemplate include “how were the transitions in your life” and “how do you plan to nurture”. These answers demonstrate the capabilities of the applicant as a potential parent and how they have taken the time to understand their personal parenting style. The answers would also highlight any warning signs or potential downfalls of the prospective parent. But how would one determine what is considered to be a “warning sign”? Does the quality of the applicant depend on the perception of the person evaluating the answers? Some face-to-face human interaction through interviewing would be beneficial in order to acquire a better sense if the parent has adequate communicating and social skills. It would also helpful to present a “what if” case and then have them answer accordingly. Overall, the answers require thoughtful reflection and present the opportunity for the potential parents to become more knowledgeable of who they are and how that will translate into their parenting style.