IAAP Newsletter )
January 2007
in this issue
  • China Changes the Rules.... Again
  • Vietnam Update
  • Foster Care Centers in China!!
  • Post Placement Cover Page

    		•

    Happy New Year Everyone!!!

    This is our January newsletter. We have not sent one for a couple of months so you have not missed any issues. We will try to get them out on a more regular basis.


    Dick and Cheryl Graham

    		China Changes the Rules.... Again
    China flag

    As many of you know by now the CCAA has changed the rules for adoption once again. These reforms were announced at a December 8, 2006 meeting at the CCAA in Beijing. The CCAA stated that they are currently receiving about twice as many dossiers each month as they fill, so the back log is increasing which means the wait times are increasing from LID to referral. By creating new requirements they hope to be able to reduce the number of applicants.

    The new regulations are as follows:


    1. The adopters must be a male and female couple with a stable marriage. If this is the first marriage for the couple they must have been married two years before submitting a dossier. If the husband or wife has been divorced they must now have been married for at least 5 years. They can have no more than two divorces.

    2. Both Husband and wife must be at lease 30 years old and under the age of 50. For parents adopting special needs children they must both be at lease 30 years old and both must also be under 55.

    3. Both parents must be physically and mentally healthy and have none of the following conditions:

    A. AIDS
    B. Mental Handicap
    C. Infectious disease in the infectious stage
    D. Binocular blind or binocular parallax or monocular blind and with no ocular prosthesis
    E. Binaural hearing loss or language function loss (Adoption of special needs children who have identical conditions will be exempt from this limitation.)
    F. Dysfunction of limbs or trunk caused by impairment, incompleteness, numbness or deformation; severe facial deformity.
    G. Severe disease that will require long term treatment and which will affect life expectancy such as malignant tumor, lupus erythematosus, epilepsy, etc.
    H. Post surgery of major organ transplantation within the last 10 years.
    I. Schizophrenia
    J. Medication for severe mental disorders such as depression, mania, anxiety neurosis, etc., with in the last two years.
    K. BMI (Body mass index) greater than or equal to 40. (BMI Calculator can be found at http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ ).

    4. Either the husband or the wife must have a stable job. The family?s annual income must be at least $10,000 per family member including the prospective adoptee and they shall have a net worth of at least $80,000. The family annual income may not include welfare income, life relief fund, pension, unemployment insurance, or government subsidy, etc.

    5. Both husband and wife must have reached the education level of a senior in high school or vocational training of the same level.

    6. The number of children in the family under the age of 18 years shall be less than five and the youngest shall have reached the age of 1 year. Adoption of special needs will be exempt from the family size requirement.

    7. Husband and wife shall never have come under any criminal sanction. They shall have no history of domestic violence, sex abuse, and no abandonment or abuse of children. They shall have no history of taking illegal drugs. They shall have no history of taking medication for a mental illness. They shall have no history of alcohol abuse for the last ten years.

    Adoption applicants shall be judged on a case by case basis when either husband or wife has less than 3 criminal records of slight severity with no severe outcomes longer than 10 years ago, or has less than 5 records of traffic law violations with no severe outcomes.

    Special Needs Adoptions:

    The CCAA has not been clear on exactly how these new regulations will apply to special needs adoptions. We have been told unofficially that they will examine each special needs case on a case by case basis. If you do not exactly fit all the new regulations give us a call and we can discuss your particular case with you.

    Change in Special Needs Processing:

    Without warning to anyone the CCAA has added an extra step in the Special Needs paperwork. The CCAA had been issuing the TA about two to three months after your log in date (LID). However on January 10, we received what is called the "Letter of Seeking Confirmation From Adopter". This is the letter that is typically sent to families adopting non- special needs children along with the referral information. We have confirmed that the CCAA now wants all families adopting SN children to also sign this before receiving the travel approval (TA). After the CCAA receives the signed Confirmation Letter they will issue the TA. What this means for special needs families is a longer wait for their TA. It will probably take about 3 to 4 weeks between the Confirmation Letter and the TA.

    		Vietnam Update
    VN Flag

    We have had more families travel to Vietnam to bring home their children! So far we have had only a couple of glitches but nothing serious. As more U.S. families are traveling it has created a few delays at the Embassy scheduling visa interviews. The Embassy is aware this is a problem and have been working on increasing staff so this will not be a problem in the future.

    The process in Vietnam is constantly open to change so all parents must be flexible not only during the dossier process but also while in Vietnam. Recently the Application for Adoption and the Commitment form have changed. If you have not downloaded the dossier packet in the last week please do so since we posted new forms recently. The new Application and Commitment forms must be redone even is we have your dossier. The instructions for these forms are in the packet.

    Because everything is subject to change in Vietnam we want to make sure that your trip is as smooth as possible when you travel to adopt your child. For that reason we will not send a family to Vietnam until we have a date set for the Giving and Receiving Ceremony (G&R). Even with a date set for the G&R families must be prepared for delays that could add a few days to their trip.

    		Foster Care Centers in China!!
    Siping 3

    Our two foster care centers continue to grow in Changchun and Siping. Hannah has done a wonderful job of finding a great staff for each center and seeing that the children there are well cared for. We take in children that are in need of that extra attention because of medical issues or developmental delays. We have 10 children in Siping and 9 in Changchun with a minimum of three staff at each center with the children at all times. We have had children enter the center that are unable to walk and with in a few weeks the staff have them walking. It has been remarkable to see the improvement in all the children after they have been at our Centers for a few weeks.

    While I was there in December the Siping Orphanage sent a new born baby girl to our center that had been found abandoned outside in the cold. The temperature at that time was about 2 degrees over night. The orphanage was not equipped to care for her and hoped our foster center could help. Frank and Hannah, our staff in China, (Frank is a pediatrician) were with me at the center. Frank examined the baby and immediately started to warm her up. She was actually very cold to the touch and weighed less than 5 pounds. It was clear she needed to be in the hospital so we transported her there and she was placed in an incubator. Unfortunately it was too late for her and she died the next day. She had too many problems to overcome. It appears she was premature and spent too long out on the cold. Because of this little girl we have purchased an incubator for the Foster Center so we are better equipped to handle a child like this the next time.

    This is just one example of how precarious life can be for many children. They need everyone's help to see that they have the opportunity to grow and thrive. The staff we have in China are wonderful and give the children exactly what they need. A special thanks to the ladies who work everyday with the children, to Frank and Hannah for their hard work, and to all the parents everywhere who adopt these children and give them loving homes.



    Hannah with one of the Children in Siping



    One of the children in Siping

    		Post Placement Cover Page

    The CCAA is now requiring a specific cover page for the post placement reports. You can go to our site and download the cover page by CLICKING HERE. Once you have logged on to the site go to the post placement section under China. The cover page can then be downloaded in WORD format.

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