Host: How long does the home study process take?

Eliza Niemann: It's going to vary, depending on a couple of factors. One is how fast the family is with their part of the paperwork. The forms they need to fill out and getting it back to the agency. The other piece of that, no one has control over, because once criminal clearances, for example, go out to the police and FBI or some other entity like that. Even though we might have an average time frame, it might take a couple of weeks, it might take a month; those are things that we don t have complete control over. However, on average I would say that gathering the paperwork can be done as quickly as eight weeks, maybe even 12 weeks and the interview process often with the social worker will take somewhere between three to six weeks. Again that sort of an average depending on what a family s needs are if the social worker and the family have scheduling conflicts that might spread out the timeframe or if they need to do it a little bit faster, that s possible; but, the important thing to remember is that the home study is really a wonderful tool for the family and you don t want to rush it so quickly with the social worker that indicates the value of those meetings.