China Adoption Newsletter

November 15th, 2010

Ni Hao (Hello) Alliance for Children Families!

Dear China Families,

It has been some time since we have sent out an update. Although the China adoption program still moves along, it is as slow as a snail’s pace. And with such slow progress, we don’t often have much news to share. But we continue to think of you and always welcome your phone calls and emails.

Here is the current situation for the China adoption program: CCAA has finished their review of dossiers with log in dates before November 30, 2009; they have finished matching referrals for families with log in dates before May 23, 2006.

Alliance families have received referrals three times this year: the first set of referrals were in the spring, and then in the early fall we received referrals from Hunan province for two families with a log in date of May 16, 2006, and finally our families with a log in date of May 23, 2006 received referrals in early November. The two little girls of the families with a log in date of May 16, 2006 are 9 and 16 months old. We congratulate and celebrate with all these families, and at the same time, deeply wish that more parents and children together could find their way into one another’s hearts.

Our next log in date is June 16, 2006. The current wait is about 50 months. We expect the wait time will keep increasing.

In the last few months, CCAA has made some policy changes regarding Immigration status and the placement of waiting children. Over the past 1-2 years, CCAA has run into many problems with families who received referrals but the wait had been so long that their Immigration Approval had expired. Therefore, they have directed all agencies to review Immigration Approval dates for all families whose log in dates are within one month from the last set of referrals. If their Immigration Approval has expired, the agencies must file a suspension application until the Immigration Approval has been renewed. Once the Approval has been renewed, the agency can apply to restart the suspended case. At that point the file will be processed with the original log in date.

This means that all Alliance families with a log in date in June of 2006 must send us a current Immigration Approval NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 1, 2010, or we will apply for a suspension of their adoption file. We will only remove the suspension after we have received a new, current Immigration Approval.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL EXPIRED IMMIGRATION APPROVALS WILL REQUIRE A HOME STUDY UPDATE THAT IS HAGUE-COMPLIANT. THE IMMIGRATION PROCESS IS THE NEWER I-800 INSTEAD OF THE OLD I-600A.

In addition, CCAA has developed some new polices about the waiting child program. In an effort to find families for more waiting children, they have made the process easier. They have added a new category of waiting children, called “Special Focus” children, which will include all children who participated in a Journey of Hope Camp, as well as children who have been on the shared list for more than two months. They have streamlined the matching process and lengthened the time they will allow a family to submit a dossier.

From September 1, 2010, the new policies regarding placement of waiting children will also allow families to adopt two children within a 12 month period—either by adopting both children simultaneously or by adopting one child and then another in quick succession. This new policy applies to one healthy (non-special needs) child and one special focus child, one special needs child and one special focus child, or two special focus children.

If you are interested in adopting a waiting child, through a Journey of Hope, special needs, or special focus program, please let us know and we can give you more details.

You can expect to receive a hard copy of this letter in the mail sometime soon. We want to make sure that everyone receives this information, and don’t want to risk email problems, spam filters or computer viruses. Between now and the receipt of the hard copy, we suggest that you decide either to recommit to the China adoption process or to move on.

No one could have imagined how much Chinese adoptions would have changed, and in the months and years that you have been involved in this program. We are aware that these changes mean different things to different families. Some will want to stay the course and adopt a child from China, even if it takes much longer than anticipated, while others will not. Both positions are valid and reasonable and we respect each family’s right to proceed in whatever way the wish, but we do need to know. We cannot meet our responsibilities to children or parents without it.

We ask you to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. For those who decide to continue on, we will support you to the best of our ability, and will look forward to the day that you receive the “stork” phone call. For those who decide to move on, we wish you all the best that life has to offer.

Thank you so much for your attention and wish you all the best,

Lin Jing and all the others at Alliance

781-444-7148

Journey of Hope Program in China a Success!
We traveled to Shanghai, China in the summer of 2009 and spent two days meeting 28 *wonderful* special needs orphans there, ages 3-13. We are very pleased to report that through the hard efforts of our staff and many helpful Alliance families, we have finally been able to match ALL 28 of these amazing children with forever families! Thank you to everyone who helped us with this worthy effort. We are so happy for the children and their new families! Please visit our Journey of Hope blog at http://allforchildren.ning.com to read more about the Journey of Hope experience.

Orphanage Donation
The orphanage donation has been increased. We received a letter from CCAA stating that effective January 1st, 2009, the orphanage donation is raised to 35,000 Chinese yuan, which is about $5200 at the current exchange rates.

China Email List
Alliance families, if you'd like to be on our China email list, please let us know your most current email address, or if you are currently on our email list but don't want to receive correspondence via email, please let us know that as well. You can email Lin Jing at ljing@allforchildren.org to let us know. Thanks!

Please feel free to call or email any of us anytime with any questions or just to check in. We are always happy to hear from you.

The China Team
Alliance For Children