Services

A home study is a very thorough assessment of your home and family that includes the history of all members of the household, fingerprinting and background checks, a financial history for your family, mental health and physical health history and an assessment of the family’s readiness for adoption. The adoption home study process generally takes two to three months to complete.

Post Placement Assessments are done once a child is placed in your home. It consists of home visits from an agency staff member one month, three months and five months after a placement. The report will cover how the baby and the family is adjusting and any concerns that have come up along the way. These reports are then provided to the court when it is time to finalize the adoption.

When adopting through a different agency or adopting privately, we offer case management services to help local families work through various aspects of their adoption. Some of these services include: mediation between adoptive and birth families; counseling and support for local birth families and adoptive families; regular telephonic and/or email updates regarding the adoption; matching through discussion of suitability of placement of particular child(ren) in and out-of-state with families; faxing, scanning, and/or emailing portfolios and home studies in response to inquiries made by families; liaison work with agencies; work with team members during inquiry process; facilitation of, and/or participation in, full disclosure meetings; facilitation of, and/or participation in, transition planning meetings; and Interstate Compact paperwork submission for approval of interstate placements.

Alaska Adoption Services works with families who are looking to adopt children in foster care through the adoption exchanges. Our agency acts as the family’s liaison and support while inquiring on children who are listed on the exchanges and looking for a forever family. Many states and agencies require perspective adoptive families to have an adoption worker to coordinate with instead of the family communicating with the state/agency directly. We provide case management and adoption coordination through this process.