What is an “apostille?”

An apostille is an official State seal (a sticker on a piece of paper or a stamp) that authenticates a prior seal of approval at the county level for that state.

For prospective adoptive parents preparing an adoption dossier for another country, we go through a set of steps that adequately authenticates every document we include.  The process is:

1) Have a document prepared.

2) Have that document notarized by a licensed notary public.

3) Go to the county courthouse of the county in which that notary is licensed and get a county stamp that verifies that that notary is legitimate.

4) Go to the state’s Department of State that oversees the county in which the notary is licensed, and get a state “apostille” that verifies that the county seal on top of the notary seal is legitimate.

The end result?  Every document has 3 layers of approval literally laid over top of one another.  The notary seal on the document.  Then the county seal is stamped onto a piece of paper that is stapled on top of the notary’s seal.  Then the state’s apostille is stapled on top of the county seal.

Need visuals?  Here’s our latest round:

Notarization:

County Seal (stapled to lay over the notary seal):

State Apostille (full-page, stapled on top of the county-seal which is stapled over the notarized original page):

Full Authentication – 3 Seals:

And what does all this mean?  Basically, it’s a very official way of saying that the person who put together the original document IS who he/she claims to be.  That’s it. 

For our adoption, we had to authenticate everything we submitted.  And for every document that was prepared by a licensed profession of some sort, we had to authenticate photocopies of the licenses of all the professionals involved: social worker (who wrote the Home Study Report), pediatrician (for our kids’ medical reports), physician (for Fred’s and my medical reports), and psychologist (since we were required to take mental health screening exams and IQ exams as part of the El Salvador process).

Our original dossier, therefore, was quite thick with all these authentications stapled onto all the original documents.  Our most recent Home Study Adddendum (required for further explanation of our child care plans) was a two-page “report” that ended up being four pages, once the county seal and apostille were applied to the notarized second page.

When adoptive parents talk about “the paper chase” they are referring to the process of collecting all the dossier documents and then acquiring all the authentications ON all those documents, as required by the country from which they hope to adopt.

And usually, this other blog is pretty facts-only, and I find it helpful.

Their most recent post, however, really bothers me.  (And I’m not going to name them because that’s not the point, and also because their clients’ names are in the post, and while it’s out there on the Internet, my purpose isn’t specifically to criticize them.  But to point to what I think is a problem “out here” in adoption land in general.)

The post begins with the usual facts-only update, but then it goes into a Q&A format.

About “how many birthmoms have been found,” what they’re doing to find more women in El Salvador willing to place their children for adoption, that they have a marketing strategy to reach more women and acquire children (and by “children,” it seems they really just mean “babies”) ”in a massive way” [their words].

Really?  We want to go out there and hunt down women in poverty – LOTS of them at that, since we want “massive” amounts of babies – and persuade them to give over their children to foreign couples who want babies?  With a marketing strategy?

Meanwhile, thousands of kids (and by “kids” I mean “kids”… past the baby and toddler stage) wait in government-backed institutions, with inadequate conditions, for somebody to come get them.  Their families, if possible, but barring that, new families.

But they’re older, and the effects of their “orphan” status might show up-front (rather than cropping up when they’re teens or young adults wrestling with the fact that they were “found” via marketing strategy, and just what does that mean to them?).

And working through the government orphan-qualification stream is painfully slow and very uncertain.  Also, the children El Salvador prefers to match with foreign families are either older or have medical special needs that would be hard for a Salvadoran family to care for, while we have all sorts of resources here in the U.S. and in Europe.

Not babies, except in rare cases.  Because, as it turns out, Salvadoran families feel the same way as everyone else.  When they adopt (which is less common than here in the U.S.), they like adopting babies.  They are less enthusiastic about a 12 year old, or even a 5 year old.  There are a lot of bureaucratic gliches in the child-welfare system, to be fair to this agency and all the other NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) trying to meet a very real need in El Salvador.  And a lot of babies do get abandoned and subsequently placed in the orphanage system.  Without any identification, they just get stuck there, and that truly is a shameful state of things.

So I’m absolutely not against wanting a baby.  But in my mind, if adoption is your “thing,” there’s a difference between trying to assist in the placement of already-abandoned babies before they spend years with no primary caregiver to whom they can attach and going out and recruiting women to supply babies for waiting couples.

Why solicit more separations when there are already so many?

And what of the other already-waiting kids?

What if assisting poor families so they can stay together was considered a greater success than separating them?

It comes back to one of the fundamental questions in adoption.  Is the purpose of adoption to find families for children who:

• otherwise would not have them, or
• whose first families have already decided they cannot care for them and have relinquished their rights, or
• whose first families have had their parental rights terminated due to abuse or neglect?  

Or is it to find babies for couples who want to become parents or have another baby, but can’t (or just like to have lots of babies)?

I don’t think this agency has malicious intentions, and maybe upon reflection they will go back and re-think this post.  I hope so.  Because what this post reveals is that they have at least momentarily forgotten the purpose upon which they say they are founded: to be a non-profit, child-welfare-seeking entity that assists children and families who need help as well as matching already-abandoned children with new families.

Their answer to the “how many birthmoms have you found” question reveals this slip.  They say they have helped several recently.  But then all but one decided not to place their babies for adoption.  So they’re going to look for more.  My thoughts on this?

• Well, then all those ladies aren’t “birthmoms” are they?  We have a word for what they are: MOMS.  Moms who needed some help, and look!  You gave them what they needed, and now they are in a better place and feel equipped to parent their children!  Way to go! 
• That latter part – that families were assisted in staying together – is something about which to rejoice!  Only when you really wanted to have those kids is it disappointing.
• It’s clearly hard to balance the conflict of interest between the genuine desire (as far as I can tell from the rest of their site) to help women and children as a “ministry” and the nagging reality that there are these other couples here in the U.S. who have already paid several thousand dollars for your adoption services.  They want to finish the process and have a little person to parent.  And most of them are probably very nice people, so you want to see them get that little child baby they so long for.

I reflected on the adoptive-parents side of this coin a few months ago – how sometimes we “AP’s” start to think of adoption as supply and demand.  We can start to think that if we “can provide a great home” we are somehow entitled to get to have children.

Clearly from the agency’s perspective it’s just as easy to slip away from humanitarian assistance and into a business proposition.  Complete with strategic marketing.

When the “product” is human lives being permanently altered.

So here’s some info and my personal take, for what it’s worth.

History of “National Adoption Day/Week/Month”

The idea of generating a public awareness of the need for adoption of children who would otherwise simply “age-out” of foster care seems to have originated in the State of Massachusetts in 1976 when then-Governor Michael Dukakis declared an “Adoption Week.”

That idea spread and finally hit the national level when President Reagan designated the first National Adoption Week in 1984.  [Side note: Reagan was himself an adoptive parent of his son Mike, who he and his first wife adopted as an infant 40 years earlier.]

In 1995, President Clinton expanded “Adoption Week” into “Adoption Month.”

National Adoption Month 2010 Information

…kicked off with a Proclamation of Adoption Month by  President Obama.  Like many (most?) Americans, the President seems to have a very positive view of adoption and its benefits for both the children being adopted and their parents.  Hillary Clinton’s message concerning adoption on the U.S. Department of State’s web page follows in the same vein.

And even the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has set up a whole series of pages dedicated to Adoption Awareness during the month of November.

Summary of Purpose

The stated purpose of National Adoption Month here in the U.S. is to increase awareness of the need for families for kids currently “stuck” in foster care here in the U.S.

These are kids whose bio-parents have terminated their parental rights or have had those rights terminated due to abuse or severe neglect.  First option to adopt is usually given to (and claimed by) their extended family members or their foster parents.   But some never get that permanent family.  They bounce from foster home to foster home, in some of which they suffer further abuse and neglect, and in all of which they necessarily (by definition of being in “temporary” situations) suffer separation after separation.

This, for many, feels like rejection.  Why doesn’t anyone “want” them?  (Keeping in mind that they are not the reason they’re there to begin with.  Blame society, blame an abusive first family, blame poverty… but in no way can you say it’s their fault that they’re there.)

And so the need for awareness.  But, more to the point, for good, therapeutic, adoptive parents.

Expanding the Adopt-osphere

In recent years, National Adoption Month has come to encompass all of us connected to adoption in any way – adoptees, adoptive parents, foster kids, first- or birth-parents – international adoptions as well as domestic adoptions.

The “Adoption Month” Controversy

All four of the bloggers in my aforementioned Google Reader who have commented on this month are either adult adoptees or first-parents who relinquished children for adoption years ago and still mourn that loss.

In both camps, the chipper script so often put forth in our country about adoption grates on their experiences.  Sometimes adoptive parents aren’t  the “shining examples of care and concern that define our great Nation” in our President’s proclamation.  And even when they are very good parents whose kids grow to love them dearly, make otherwise unforeseen educational gains, and grow to become fantastic adults and great citizens, those kids-then-adults still deserve the right to mourn the original losses that switched their familial tracks.

And I can’t imagine no longer having my kids – knowing they were being raised by another family, calling those parents “Mom” and “Dad.”  So I’m going to be the last person to throw “your child is ‘better off’” at the biological-parents who made a tough choice they either sometimes or always regret and wish they could re-do, with the hope of a better support network than the one they had back when they signed away their rights.

And then, to complete the triad, there are adoptive parents who have found that adopting a child is in many ways very different than having a biological one.  And they’re peddling quickly to try to get up to speed.  Some make it.  Some don’t.  The kids of the latter then move on to another placement.

My Take

Last year, I was a baby-blogger – barely weeks in.  Adoption Month came and went.  I hardly noticed, let alone having an opinion about it.

This year is different.  I’m nothing if not well-aware of the varying perspectives surrounding adoption.  This week alone, I’ve followed one blogger who is in-country adopting her new baby internationally (full of joy), one first-mom blogger who writes nearly every day to the child she relinquished years ago (with regret, longing for reconnection, and anger at those who pressured her), several “adult-adoptee” bloggers who have the full range of feelings about that very moniker (content-with-the-duality-of-their-family-ties through raging-mad)… on it goes.

I commented on a post today that I feel like I’m tossing a grenade every time I touch the subject now.

BUT.

1.  But there are children today who don’t have families and want them.  And a lot of those kids are right here in the U.S.  I also met a few when I was in El Salvador this past February.  People I trust who are living in other countries in order to serve those cultures say they’re there as well.  There is a need.  It’s just not the type of adoption (cute babies who frequently still do have living bio-parents) that gets the most attention.

2.  But there are families and single parents today trying to make it, so that separation from their kids doesn’t seem like (and isn’t) the only means of that child’s survival and thriving.  Some of them could use a hand toward that end.  All of them could use support.

3. But, there are certainly conflicts of interests for some of the biggest adoption proponents.  Yes, adoption agencies are the ones who frequently meet the need to recruit parents for children who don’t have families.  When they do that, they have served a good cause for that child.  On the other hand, they also have a huge financial incentive to convince a pregnant woman coming to them for advice and information that adoption is “the right thing for her child.”  Adoptions are how they stay in business.  And that pregnant woman might seem like a rough candidate compared to some of the sweet, eager, loving couples sitting over there in the file cabinet, waiting for the chance to become parents.

Adoption is a loaded subject.  And we have this whole month bringing it to the foreground (as though it ever leaves for those already “in the web”). 

What YOU Can Do

I wrote a post a while back, “Is Adoption Right For Us?”.  If you think it is, go ahead and do some serious searching.  Well-equipped adoptive parents are what we need here in the U.S.

Not looking to adopt but still looking to meet needs in this area?  Look into:

1. Sponsoring a Child/Family/Community through one of the many organizations that care for kids and keep families together while fostering financially independent communities.

2. Buy Holiday and Birthday gifts from organizations like International Development Exchange (IDEX)  that provide grants to small business producers trying to escape the patterns of poverty.

3. Support those around you affected by adoption.  Adoptive parents, adoptees (adults as well as children), and first-parents all have voices.  Listen always, help when asked, but maybe most importantly be sensitive in how you talk about adoption.

That’s enough of that for now from me.  Feel free to chime in with comments!  I’d love to hear how others of you view this “National Adoption Month.”

I phrased the header to this post “Is Adoption Right for us?” on purpose.  As potential adoptive parents (“PAP’s” in adoption-circle lingo), that’s frequently where we start off.  Something – infertility, knowing another adoptive family, a major world crisis like the Haiti quakes this year, a picture of orphans somewhere in the world – SOMETHING gets us started thinking about whether we want to adopt.

But I’d like to start from the get-go with a better question:  Are we/Am I right for adoption?

Here’s why I say that’s a better question: it’s the parents who adopt who set the tone, it’s the parents who choose to bring a child into their home, and it’s the parents who are then responsible for meeting the unique needs of their adopted child.  The children don’t ask to be adopted, frequently don’t even know it’s happening to them, and therefore shouldn’t be held responsible for satisfying some need or want or preference his or her parents may have had at the start.

The first question makes adoption sound kind of like a commodity – like “Is BMW the car for me?” where BMW is then responsible for convincing you to buy.  The second question, at least in my opinion, asks us as the parents, “Am I willing to put in what it takes to meet the needs of a child who currently does not have a family?”

Because it’s not as straightforward as bringing a child home, and then we all live happily ever after.

It’s being patient and supportive and reasonable while the child adjusts to a new home, family, sometimes culture, country and language.  It’s empathizing when that little person grieves the loss of first parents, familiar foster parents or orphanage caregivers, friends, and the surroundings to which he or she had become accustomed.  It’s loving that little person long before getting reciprocal affection.  It’s never getting to be the only real parents, becoming accustomed to the fact that we have to share their hearts with the parents who came first.  It’s locating adoption-counseling services and paying for therapeutic treatment when needed.

It’s a lot of things, many of which biological parents experience in some measure, too.  But it’s not the same.  It’s not “worse” or even necessarily “harder” – it’s just different.

So what IS adoption?  What ISN’T it?

In the “best” of situations, ADOPTION IS:

• Providing a child who has lost both parents (and who does not have an extended family member willing or able to step in) with a family, love, a home, and a place to return to for the rest of his or her life.
• Creation of an environment, in the context of that new family, where the adoptee maintains a sense of his or her story – even before the adoption, to the best of the ability of the new parents.
• Inclusion of the adoptee’s original culture into the new family.  For transracial adoptions, this is especially key because the new member of the family doesn’t look like the rest.  Everyone needs to adjust, not just the adoptee.  He or she (and the parents) have a life-time of double-takes and weird looks ahead of them since the adoptee doesn’t “match” the parents.  As a family, be prepared to handle that.  In a positive, backing-of-the-child sort of way.
• Inclusion of the adoptee into the family’s original culture.  (I don’t hear it often, but every once in a while someone will say, “and this is _______’s adopted son _______”  NO.  This is _______’s SON.  Period.  Yes, there are differences going on within the family dynamic, but it doesn’t need to be called out continuously in public.  An adoption happens.  Then it’s past.  The ramifications go on, but the person IS a part of the family, just like every other member.)
• An emotional and at times exhausting proposition.  Like giving birth to a child and then unlike it.  There is a great joy and fulfillment that comes when you and your child have bonded.  Nothing like it.  But the bonding takes time and needs re-cementing through the different stages of life.  Sometimes it’s a lot of work; other times, it feels like coasting through springtime.  Neither should negate the other.  It’s a great blessing and a huge responsibility all at once.
• An opportunity for great joy.  I can testify from personal experience that there is something incredibly magnificent about looking at your kids and knowing that, in spite of the fact that there was a greater chance you would never have even met, here you are, loving each other and feeling like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
• Opening yourself up to become passionate about cultures, issues, and ideas you had never considered before.  When it’s your child who is affected by prejudice or ignorance or something else like those, it’s surprising how quickly you find yourself becoming an advocate for broader societal change.  I know I have!

In the best of situations ADOPTION IS NOT:

• Getting to custom-select your child.  This can be deceiving up-front, especially when adoption agencies or attorneys seem to all-but-guarantee a gender, a race, an age, and even whether or not the first mom/birth mom used drugs, had HIV, or took pre-natal vitamins.  But even if you get all the things on your list, you’re still taking parental custody of a little person with his or her own personality, biological background, and a major loss and trauma to contend with.  You don’t really know who you’re adopting till after the adoption is finalized.  Be prepared to love without expectation, as hard as that is to do in actuality … at least be cognitively prepared and then work to follow with your emotions.
• A replacement for biological children.  If your heart is set on a child who looks just like you and has your father’s dimple in his chin, fertility treatment is the way to go.  Adopted children have been through enough, just by virtue of their having been qualified to be adopted.  They don’t need the burden of living up to un-met dreams and expectations on top of it all.
• Swooping in to save a desperate victim.  This one’s tricky.  Yes, adopting does provide a child who doesn’t have a family with a family.  But on the other hand, it frequently is the parents’ choice to complete the adoption, not the child’s choice of the family.  So when we adopt, as the parents, we’re getting what we want – kids!  Those kids don’t owe us a thing.  Most of the AP’s I know actually get this.  But we have to take it a step further and correct those around us who mistakenly think we’re heroes for adopting.  Our kids hear how we respond (or don’t), and it impacts how they view themselves and their life story.
• A one-time deal.  The ramifications of adoption, self-identification, having been “given up” (feels like “rejected” or “not good/easy/pretty/loveable enough to keep”), and belonging keep coming back up as the adoptee enters new developmental stages.  Several of the adoptees whose stories I’ve been reading didn’t really go through the big adoption self-search until their early adulthood!  Which means we, their parents, need to be ready and available to re-visit what the adoption means at any time.  And sometimes that means going along with a grieving process that may feel like our kids wish we weren’t here because they wish they’d never been available to be adopted.  Even if that’s not what they mean – a rejection of us.  And THAT one is the hardest, I can already say.
• A dangerous or hopeless venture.  I think some people shy away from adopting because they have this idea that “damaged” children are little psychopaths just waiting to tear your family apart or set your house on fire.  Yes, children who have been severely abused or neglected require a lot of therapeutic intervention.  But they’re still kids.  Love, training, consistency, security, play, affection, and belonging is what they need.  And yes, they may have on-going foibles and echoes of their pasts, but I know quite a few parents whose biological children have gone off in an unexpected direction with their adulthood.  There are no guarantees, but then in life, where are there any?  Meeting your child where she or he is can make for some very tight bonding, perhaps tighter than in some biological families.  If you’re up for the openness and emotional work, it’s totally worth it.

There’s my two-cents for now.  If I’ve missed anything or gotten anything completely awry, please comment!  I’m a work-in-progress just like everyone else, and happy to re-examine what I’ve said.

I would say I’m an advocate for adoption.  But I’m an advocate only in certain cases – when the need is truly there, when the parents are truly willing to look at the process through their children’s eyes and live accordingly, and when the family has a sufficient support network around them (including a knowledge of available therapeutic resources).

Given all that, I say “go.”  Make yourself available.  You might be just the person or couple some young one needs.

“And what if you need to go to the bathroom?”

“Well then I’ll go and come right back.”

“And what if one of us gets hurt while you’re not there?  Maybe we could call 911?”  (no, my kids don’t have cell phones of their own) 

… And so on, all the way there.  Even though it’s the same school, the same building as last year, many of the same families, and we’ve done this routine before.  The first year, if I ever dared slip out the the restroom without interrupting the class to let the boys know where I was going and how long I expected to be, I would return to two sobbing and hyperventilating little men.  So much for my attempt at not disrupting the teacher’s flow!

Last year went a little better.  I committed to the boys that I would quietly tap their shoulders if I was leaving the room and then tap them again when I got back.  Somehow that contented them.  All but once, when I got stopped by another mom in the hall and took longer than the customary allotted time for a potty break.  That time, it was back to the aforementioned breakdown.

But this year is the 3rd year, and I wanted to see if they could handle being “like the other kids” whose moms come and go as need be.   So I told them we would try that for that day.  We rehearsed that they know I’m going to be there most of the class time, and if I go out for a moment, I’ll be coming back soon.  And I never leave them anywhere alone.

I have one child who’s ready and one not, it turns out.  One jumped right into participating in class, making friends with the other kids, and only occasionally glancing back to smile at me.

The other kept checking over his shoulder.  And when he wasn’t looking at me, I strongly suspect he was worrying about me leaving most of the time.  Because he wasn’t retaining much of anything.  He was giving incorrect answers for questions I know he can handle.  And then he’d look again.  About every 30 seconds.

He knows I love him, that I have never left him, that I never will.  In his mind he knows that.

But then there’s that other place in his mind, the place that remembers – even though he does not – that he has been left.  That the person he most counted on disappeared.  Twice, that we know of.  And that part of him just knows that if he doesn’t keep a sharp eye on me, I might vanish.  Or maybe forget that I have kids and leave without them?  Or maybe not care?  Or something.  He can’t tell me exactly what it is that he’s afraid will happen.  Simply that I’ll leave.  And be gone.

And so it’ll be back to taps on the shoulder and possibly a seat-relocation to where he can see me without turning all the way around.  For now anyway.

Will I encourage him to stretch himself to trust me in spite of his anxiety?  Yes.  That’s a life-skill I want him to have – acting in courage in the face of fear.  But I don’t need to fabricate occasions for that.  Life does that all by itself. 

In the meantime, it’s consistency, reassurance and more time.  Back to more than just everyone’s typical routines for us this Fall!

However, did you know that you can SEE who needs a home here in the U.S.?

Check out AdoptUSKids.  Also try searching by state – each state’s child social services agency has its own list.  The information is a bit limited (as appropriate, to protect the kids’ privacy), but you can get a basic idea of who they are (with pictures).

If you’re thinking of adopting and don’t have the restrictions we’ve chosen to put on our situation, there are many, many kids who need families who are ready to love them through their adjustment process and provide them with permanent homes to return to every holiday season for the rest of their lives.

It’s something Fred and I will re-consider when our current young kids are a good bit older and can fully understand the process.

We in the U.S. have become so accepting of adoption as “a good thing” and “normal” that it seems like we (and maybe those in other highly-developed countries) have forgotten a foundational truth: Children available for adoption are only available BECAUSE something has gone wrong.  Their birthparents have died, relinquished custody, or have had their parental rights legally terminated because of abuse or neglect.  Many of these kids then go into institutional settings while they wait for placement with a family.  Institutional settings are no substitute for family settings, even temporary foster ones, so more “damage” occurs while the kids wait.  Then, in the best of circumstances, these kids are adopted by a family.  They don’t really know that family, they unsure whether they’re going to like that family, and when they’ve already been “let down” (or out-right abused) by other adults in their lives, it’s very hard for them to trust – and then love! – the newest adults in a stream of them who have passed through their lives.

So even in the best of circumstances, children who have been adopted are going to suffer grief/loss, anxiety/fear, depression, post-traumatic stress, insecure attachment at first, and the other consequences of all they’ve been through.  It is totally normal for the families who adopt them, then, to need outside help in dealing with what their extraordinary circumstances bring about. 

In the harder situations, the children have full-blown cases of Reactive Attachment Disorder.  RAD is nothing short of miserable to deal with – for the child and the parents.  When adoptions “disrupt” (the parents relinquish the child), RAD is almost always the reason.

So Where Can a Family Look for Post-Adoption Help?  Here are a few links to get you started.

POST-ADOPTION INFORMATION, COUNSELING, AND OTHER RELATED SERVICES:

• Adoption.com
• A4EverFamily - Loads of information in their left sidebar!
• ATTACh (Association for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children) – An international organization, based in Lake Villa, IL.
• Attach-China International
• The Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio - Services not limited to Ohio residents. 
• C.A.S.E. (Center for Adoption Support and Education) – C.A.S.E. provides counseling and educational services to adoptive families, educators, adoption services providers, social workers, mental health and human services providers, and to adoptees themselves. 
• Casey Family Services - Serves the New England region with counseling and training services, but also provides resource material nationally.
• Center for Family Connections – based in Cambridge, MA
• Child Welfare Information Gateway – Administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Children’s Bureau, and the Administration for Children and Families.  This site is a great place to start, get validation that the what your family is experiencing, while not “normal” for families in general, is totally normal for adoptive families and that help is available. 
• Dillon International  - For heritage camps, birth country trips, parent education.
• Holt International - An adoption agency that’s been operating since the 1950′s and has a solid reputation.  They take calls, regardless of agency affiliation and will direct you to helpful sources.
• Local Therapy/Counseling Services – I can’t list an exhaustive State-by-State here, but call any local counseling clinic and ask for a referral to someone who has specific experience with post-adoption therapy, or search online (use your State’s name + “post adoption services”).
• Spence-Chapin
• Your Own Agency – Take advantage of every resource they’ll provide.  They know your family and your child; who better to turn to!  (This presumes that you had a good experience with them, I realize.  If not, jump to one of the places above.)

CRISIS INTERVENTION, RESPITE, ALTERNATE PLACEMENT:

• ARCH National Respite Network – State-by-State search for respite services.
• Attachment Consultants of the Ozarks – Based in Missouri, but with intensive-therapy treatments of varying lengths available for families who can travel to participate.  
• Attachment Services of Central Florida - Services include a 2-week intensive therapy service for children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and their parents.
• Attachment Treatment & Training Institute - Run by Evergreen Psychotherapy Center, Evergreen, CO.  Their site includes lodging information for families admitted into their 2-week intensive program.
• Fraser
• The Mending Hearts Program – Run by Kentucky Adoption Services, offers post-placement help for families in crisis and new-placement services for families who decide they cannot parent the child they have adopted.
• The Ranch for Kids - Provides therapeutic respite services for your child.  It is costly, but includes schooling, counseling, animal therapy, vocational training and medication supervision.  The program aims to enable children and families to reunite with a more secure attachment; however, they also provide  adoption placement services for those whose parents decide to annul or disrupt their adoptions.

Obviously, getting help before the situation at home reaches crisis-level is best.  But even if someone has waited a little “too long” and needs more than a weekly therapy session with their child, those kinds of services are out there. 

I’m glad the issue is getting international attention, but awareness of the solutions is the only way to prevent similar stories in the future.

An adoption dossier is the set of documents required by a foreign country in order to be considered to adopt there.  Not ever country requires one, but most do. 

U. S. domestic adoptions do not require a dossier.

Submitting your dossier is the first official step in that country.  Usually, you have to submit some portion of the country fee (the amount of money that country collects from prospective adoptive parents in order to process an adoption) with your dossier.

Submitting a dossier does not guarantee that you will adopt a child.  Each country has the right to decline a family’s file.

What’s in a dossier?

The specifics vary from country to country, but some standard requirements for U.S. citizens adopting internationally are:

• Original birth certificates for all family members (including existing children)
• Original marriage certificate (for couples)
• Certified copies of state and FBI criminal background clearances
• Immigration approval (797-C or similar), stating that USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) has approved you to bring a child or children back to the U.S. [Note: this approval letter will state on it how many children you are approved to adopt.]
• Proof of income/financial security
• Photos of your family and home
• Reference letters
• A certified Homestudy Report that specifically approves you to adopt from that country, a set number of children, and with evidence that you will be good adoptive parents.
• Certified reports from your doctors that all family members are basically healthy and capable of bringing another child into the home.
• Name affidavits for both spouses (certified lists of every name you’ve ever gone by on any official or unofficial document)
• Power of attorney letter (giving the in-country legal team/attorney representation of your case there)

Tips for Compiling a Dossier:

1. Use as few notaries as possible.  Many countries require apostilled dossiers.  Every document must be notarized, then authenticated at the county courthouse in which that notary lives, then apostilled at the state house in the state in which that county is located.  So using a dozen notaries could mean going to a dozen different county courthouses for those county certifications.  Sometimes you won’t be able to help it, but as often as you can, take your documents to the same notary.
2. Pay attention to details.  Make sure the notary dates her or his stamp with the same date on the document.  Dossiers can get kicked out of consideration for things like that.  Make sure you have every document required before submitting your dossier; they’ll get kicked out for missing items, too.  Basically, your dossier is your way of putting your best foot forward in another country, so be picky.
3. Call your agency with questions.  Lots of people (like me!) have experience with adoption, but requirements change frequently, and you are paying your agency a good amount of money to help you out with your adoption.  So rather than polling others, ask your agency what they want to see before they submit your dossier to another country.
4. Get a FedEx/UPS/other shipper account.  It’s a lot of work getting your documents compiled, stamped, sealed, blessed by the powers that be… you want to know where your documents are whenever you have to send them somewhere.  So don’t just put them in the mail and hope for the best.  Track ‘em.  It’s worth the cost just to have the peace of mind (and accountability).
5. Gather as many items as you can during the Homestudy phase.  Some of the items (like the doctors’ letters and the criminal clearances) are required both for the initial Homestudy and also for the later Dossier.  So get them at the same time, if possible.  It’ll save you a second time of running around to acquire them.
6. Make a checklist.  It will help you know where each document is in the process, which ones you still need, and which ones are done.  It’s heartening to watch the list fill out – a good visual reminder that you will get through it all!

Longer Answer and Explanation:

An adoption placement agency is the agency that will match you with a child you’ve said you would accept for adoption.  Ideally, that agency is looking to place children needing families with the best family matches for them and not the other way around, but that’s a topic for another post.  Your placement agency can be anywhere in the country of which you are a citizen.

If you enroll in an international adoption program, your placement agency should have reputable contacts in that country to facilitate the legal process there.  Always check on an agency and what you can find out about their reputation in-country before signing with them!

For both of our adoptions, our placement agencies have been out-of-state.  It’s a little weird not knowing what the people with whom you’re talking on the phone look like, but with a good agency you get used to it, and it doesn’t matter.

You should look for an agency with a good reputation who offers the adoption program to which you feel called.  For example, amidst the current crisis in Haiti, there is renewed interest in adopting orphans from that country.  If that describes you, find a reputable agency who offers a Haitian adoption program.

That agency can provide you with a list of agencies in your own state with whom they are willing to work in order to meet your homestudy requirements.

Once you select a homestudy agency, the two will sign a legal agreement to cooperate for your adoption process.  A homestudy agency does all the background-checking and in-home visitations required to compile a homestudy report, and then they write it.  Depending on the length of your adoption process, your homestudy agency will also provide annual updates when your reports “expire.”  Additionally, the homestudy agency you select will be responsible for any post-placement follow-up visits required by your placement agency or by the country from which you’re adopting.

For domestic adoptions in the U.S., your homestudy agency usually is capable of sending your paperwork between states to make sure you are considered as potential adoptive parents for children in other states who might be well-matched to your family.  Some states are better than others at inter-state relations, but you should be able to complete a domestic adoption using just one agency.  In that case, yes, you should find an agency in the state in which you primarily reside.

The requirements your agency gives you should at least cover everything listed here. 

Also useful for checking the status of currently-”closed” countries (we keep an eye on Guatemala, ourselves, since our twins were born there).