What's going on in the adoption world????

What a great question! What is going on in the adoption world? Things are really, really changing. Today there was a conference call with the USCIS Stakeholders. This was a call to update people about the current changing situation with Ethiopian adoptions. I have copied the update we received from our agency highlighting the points from the call.  Bottom line, the Ethiopian program is a good program, but there are problems, problems they want to fix. There WILL be a huge slow down in the process. :( However, they are working hard to make things better. Better for the kids and better for the whole situation. The reason behind all of this is to make sure that things are done as ethically as possible. Who can argue with that? In the long run, I feel this will make the Ethiopian program as good as it can be. We know our wait will be longer, but hopefully once we get a referral all of the bugs are worked out and that things will go quickly. Hopefully it won't take too super long to get things figured out, but that is a long shot. I'm sure the next few weeks/months are going to be a huge test as we see how things play out. I ask for your continued prayers. Even though this is all for the best, it still is hard to wait patienty when you want something so bad.

Debriefing the US CIS Stakeholder Call

Hello Families,

Thanks so much to the many of you who joined us on the US CIS stakeholder call today . We know some of you are already sharing some great notes on the listserv, but of course, we wanted to take a moment to debrief with you all directly.

Overall, we were impressed by the positive feedback from all involved. The main purpose of this call was to brief the adoption community on the site vist to Ethiopia conducted by US CIS, the Department of State (DOS), and representatives from other government affairs offices. Here are some of the key points discussed.

• The purpose of this visit in January of 2011 was to help assess the current adoption practices in Ethiopia due to the growing number of adoptions happening and concerns raised by the international community.
• This assessment of adoption practices was largely done by examining data gathered on each individual adoption case processed by the US Embassy over the past 21 months.
• Overall, the conclusion of this analysis is that a majority of all adoptions happening in Ethiopia are being completed ethically. An overwhelming majoirty of the children being approved for adoption to the US have true legal orphan status.
• UC CIS and the DOS utilized data gathered based on 4,000 cases processed by the US Embassy over the last 21 months.
• Information on the above cases was used to create a baseline for adoption practices in Ethiopia. Using this baseline information, they believe they were able to identify what appear to be abnormal trends that require further scrutiny or concern. At the very least, they believe these anomalies warrant asking some questions. We agree!
• Of the small number of cases where legitimate concerns were noted, the following issues were identified.
  • Unusual age distribution (number of older vs. younger children adopted or vice versa)
  • Large number of abandoned children
  • Large number of relinquishments by other individuals besides the adoptive parents.
  • One-to-one relationships between adoption service providers and specific orphanages.
• The goal of gathering the data and identifying abnormal patterns is to help to better target a review of individual practices and individuals who may be harming the integrity of the Ethiopia adoption process and more importantly, children and families.

Where does AGCI stand on this?

• We are glad to see the data collected on current adoptions in Ethiopia and are thrilled to hear that 90% of adoptions in the country are being conducted by Hague Accredited agencies and more importantly, being done ethically.
• We welcome the feedback from the US Embassy and US CIS on ways to improve the overall adoption process. We, along with other agencies, are ready to partner with them in reviewing the serious concerns that certain abnormal patterns may pose and to address why these may be happening.
• We look forward to compiling and sharing information with our AGCI families on our own patterns for Ethiopia adoption cases. We hope this will help you to understand how we as an agency align with the information addressed by the study done by US CIS and the DOS.
• We want to be up front in stating that AGCI is working with multiple orphanges at this time.
• We look forward to partnering with the US government in anyway possible to continue shouldering responsibility in the adoption process and ensuring cases are being completed ethically and honestly.

Where do we go from here?

During the call today, US CIS and the DOS again and again expressed their desire to supoprt the endeavors of the government of Ethiopia to improve their adoption procedures and overall child welfare systems. They want to continue inter-country adoptions and we want to be a part of this! Here is the action plan:

• US CIS and the DOS have indicated they wish to provide technical assistance, training and resources to the government of Ethiopia to improve their capacity to more deliberately review each adoption case.
• US CIS and the DOS hope this assistance can in some way help MOWCYA to be able to process more than the 5 cases a day as initially proposed by their office on March 8th while also helping to ensure cases are being processed carefully and deliberately.
• US CIS and the DOS wish to implement a "pre-approval" process which in essence would allow the US Embassy to review the information for a family and child after they are matched, but prior to the case being submitted to the Ethiopian Courts and MOWCYA.
• The pre-approval would allow the US government to ensure that, by their standards, the child was legally available for adoption before the adoption is finalized by the Ethiopian government. This could also potentially assist the government of Ethiopia by eliminating unethical cases before they reach the official court proceedings.
• The hope is the pre-approval would also eliminate the extended review of the case, as it is now, at the very end of the adoption process by the US Embassy.
• US CIS and the DOS hope to implement this process for new cases soon, pending feedback from the government of Ethiopia and their response to this proposition.
• At this time, there is no way to know who this pre-approval process will impact, when it will go into effect, if it will go into effect, and/or how this may impact any specific adoption timeline. We will definitley let you know these details as soon as they are made available.

What does this mean for me?

We know you all are asking this question and of course with good reason. Thank you for your continued grace and patience as we try to communicate with so many of you! We are all in this together!

Families Referred:

• For those of you who have received a court date, we anticipate this should mean that your case was one of those submitted to the Federal Courts prior to March 8th. We hope and expect this will mean it will be one of the cases to be expedited under the general review process by MOWCYA. We will be calling you all within the next few days and into next week as we prepare you for travel and your court experience. In the meantime, we ask you to continue getting ready for that court date!
• For those of you who have not yet received a court date, we of course will be contacting you to debrief this call individually and as always, to connect with you about how, if, and when any of this call information may impact your adoption specifically.

Waitlist Families:

• Hang in there! We know it is always challenging to wait, especially in these times of transition and when there is a lot of unknown information. We know you have invested many months in this process and we want to honor that. Please note if there is concrete information that surfaces on any official change, we will be sure to notify you as soon as possible. Otherwise, we ask that you wait with us as we watch to see how things progress even in the next few weeks. During the call today even the US government representatives indicated they are waiting to hear back from Amabassadors in Ethiopia about the specifics of an action plan. Until we have this information there is no tangible way to explain how, if and when these discussions will impact your adoption.

Paperwork Families.

• Toni will be continuing to call you all as normal for your regularly scheduled paperwork calls. We know you are jumping into your adoption and are also wondering what these discussions mean for your family. We also ask that you wait with us to learn more about the actual information that surfaces in the coming days to weeks about changes we can expect from the Ethiopia adoption program in the future. However, if you are curious in this early stage of your process to learn more about other country programs, please connect with Toni on this during your regularly scheduled paperwork call.

Of course, at this time there are still many details about how adoptions will be processed in Ethiopia for us to uncover in the days, weeks, and months ahead. In closing though, we were encouraged to be a part of a unique call today that continued to echo this spirit of collaboration. Truly, to hear the US government in support of adoptions and to see their desire for action is great! Our prayer today is that these things will be well received by the government of Ethiopia and that we can work together to see changes implemented that better the adoption process and allow children the chance to be united with their forever families.

Pleaes join us in making this your prayer today as well and we look forward to keeping in touch!

~ Kiersten, Brandi & Toni