The Benin Home study process

The home study for Benin was a joke! I don't even remember how we got the social worker's name or how to contact him. We lived not far from the middle of Bembereke town so it wasn't too hard to find him. We arranged to pick him up for the home interview. We had to provide proof of our monthly salary, and proof of employment, and he had to interview us in our home. We picked him up and took him to our house. We had our interview, he inspected our house, and he wrote up his report. He then said he would have to type it up and it could take awhile to do that. I told him that I was a social worker and if he liked I could type up his report for him and would print it out and bring it to him the next day. I believe that we also had to get it approved by the community representative (we don't have an equivalent in English. Milton and I had to hunt him down but we finally found him and got what we needed from him. Our social worker also said he would need to make home visits for the next several months. In the end I would see him every week at the market and we would visit. His family had a house in Djougou near where the mission was so we always talked about visiting Djougou. He never did make another visit to our house but we figured that seeing him in the market was sufficient.

The next day I took the home study to the social worker and that was the last formal visit with him. He signed the document and off we went again to Parakou to meet with our pastor and lawyer who was getting close to filing the petition. All we needed was the signed and notarized release papers from the birth father.