DOMESTIC ADOPTION NEXT WEEK
After careful consideration, you've decided to adopt. The next decisions are crucial to your process. Are you adopting domestically or internationally? How does the age, race, current health, prenatal exposures or early life experience of a child enter into your thinking process? How much background information on a child's medical and familial history must you have to feel comfortable moving forward? Who can I trust to give me the information I need and guide me through the entire process?
After careful consideration, you've decided to adopt. The next decisions are crucial to your process. Are you adopting domestically or internationally? How does the age, race, current health, prenatal exposures or early life experience of a child enter into your thinking process? How much background information on a child's medical and familial history must you have to feel comfortable moving forward? Who can I trust to give me the information I need and guide me through the entire process?
You will need to work with a licensed adoption
agency or attorney for specific steps of the process. You will work with a
social worker for your homestudy and post placement visits. You may enlarge
your team to include a medical doctor, outreach consultant and other professionals,
as well as join an adoptive parent support group. How to decide who you will
need?
For INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS, the steps
must be completed in a very specific order. You start by identifying a Hague
accredited agency (Adoption Service Provider = ASP) with a program in the
country from which you want to adopt. You will then complete your homestudy and
start the dossier to go overseas. During the homestudy, you will develop a
relationship with your social worker. They should be available to you
throughout the process for emotional support and possible referral to local
services and resources. The ASP will lead you through all the steps of the
dossier, including what papers to collect, how to process them and ultimately
submitting it oversees.
You should add a medical doctor to your team,
who is knowledgeable in international adoption, to review any medical
information you are provided on a child. The ASP is the conduit to
the adoption entity overseas who will identify a child for you, help arrange
your travel itinerary and link you to in country services and appointments,
including court and embassy appointments to obtain your child's visa to come
home. Once back home you will meet with your social worker to complete post
placement/post adoption visits which report back to the country how your child
and you are adjusting. If you did not finalize overseas, the reports will
also be used to recommend to your local court the finalization of the adoption.
The relationships you developed with a local support group will continue to
provide support and information. If you have not yet joined a group, this is a
time to connect and create relationships, providing your child with a peer
group of families like yours.
You need to confirm with the ASP – How long
have they worked in a particular country? How many children come home in a year?
How many children have come home recently? How many children were the type you
were looking for? How long is the typical wait for a referral? Until you travel
to meet your child? Until you can bring them back to the Untied States? Until the
adoption is finalized and where will it finalize? If the country program closes,
do they have other options and what is the process to switch countries?
SUMMARY
Deciding who you will work with is a critical step in your adoption procecss. You must have trust in their abilities, understanding of your wishes and advocating for you when necessary. Research your options, select carefully and may you have a smooth adoption process.
Deciding who you will work with is a critical step in your adoption procecss. You must have trust in their abilities, understanding of your wishes and advocating for you when necessary. Research your options, select carefully and may you have a smooth adoption process.
DOMESTIC ADOPTION NEXT WEEK
