When going through an adoption, there is a period after placement and before finalization when an adoption agency will provide post placement supervision.  During that time the adoption agency will schedule supervisory visits with you that will occur either in your home or at the office.  The purpose of the visits is not to check up on you as parents but to be able to show the court that the child is doing well in their home with their new family.

The number of visits that will happen during that time period varies from state to state and agency to agency.  For instance one state might have an adoption law that says that their needs to be quarterly supervisory visits until the adoption is finalized while another might require just one visit.  Even though your state requires a certain number of visits, an adoption agency is permitted to require more visits such as once per month.  It also varies from agency to agency as to who has to be present during the visit.  Obviously your child has to be present, but sometimes only one parent needs to be with the child.

What can you expect from a supervisory visit?  There are a variety of things that will be discussed during a visit.  I have broken them into six main categories for the purpose of this article.  Please know that these are general guidelines and you might be asked more questions or discuss other things in addition to the following information.

Your child’s health, physical description, and social and physical development will all be addressed during the adoption supervisory visit.  Health includes any medications that are being taken, any health problems and trips to the doctor.  If your child has special medical needs you will also discuss what is being done medically for your child.  Physical description needs to be included so that the court knows the adoption agency actually met with the family and saw the child instead of just talking to them on the phone.  I always say that the physical and social development is the part of the supervisory visit when parents get to brag about their children.  What new, exciting and fun things are they doing?  How are they growing?  Are they on target physically and socially for their age?

You will also talk about the daily schedule your child keeps including eating, sleeping and playing.  You will talk about how much your child eats, what they eat and how often they eat and the napping/sleeping/playing routine of your child.  There are, of course, no right or wrong answers to these questions.  After all, each child is different and therefore has a different routine.

Parental work schedule and child care arrangements are discussed as well.  Is one of you a stay-at-home parent?  If not, what are your work schedules and who takes care of your child while you work?

How has the family adjusted to the adoption including parents, siblings, extended family and the child?  Obviously, if the baby is a newborn there has been little to no adjustment problems as you are the only family they have ever known.  However, in older child adoptions there is often a big adjustment period for all parties involved.

You will more than likely discuss the relationship you are having with the Birthfamily.  Are you having an open adoption?  Are you sending pictures and letters?  What kind of continued contact are you going to have, if any at all?

The last part of the supervisory visit is to just discuss general information and the legal status of the adoption.  For instance, have both Birthparents signed a consent to the adoption?  Have you hired a lawyer to finalize the adoption?  Where do you plan on finalizing the adoption?  And any other information that is important pertaining to the adoption that is important for the courts to know.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions about adoption supervisory visits.  When you have your supervisory visits you will more than likely discuss all of these things and might have to provide additional information such as medical records or photos to the agency for their files.  Once the adoption is finalized, the supervisory visits are over as well, but you might choose to maintain contact with the agency in case you need them in the future.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 18th, 2006 at 3:17 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.