Update! About A Child is
pleased to announce it has received full Hague Accreditation from the Council On
Accreditation in the
first batch of accredited agencies as of February 29, 2008.
By now, most of the families adopting
internationally have heard of "The Hague," primarily
in reference to Guatemala adoption program.
However,
The Hague Convention on
Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect
of Intercountry Adoption entails a lot more.
It is is an international treaty created to ensure
that inter-country
adoptions are in the best interests of children and to prevent
abduction, exploitation, sale, or trafficking of children.
U.S. has joined this particular Convention back
in 1994, but is ratifying it only now. This
involves implementing a regulatory
process for inter-country adoption with countries
that too have joined and implemented this treaty,
with the full list found
here.
One of the first steps required by the
Hague Convention was designation of a Central Authority,
responsible for setting procedural standards, tracking
international adoption cases and statistics and
providing general oversight. U.S. Department of
State has stepped up to the challenge.
The State Department has developed a rigorous set of
ethical, financial, educational, and other operational
standards, which would need to be met by any U.S. agency
or attorney providing adoption services in Convention
cases. Two organizations,
Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) and
Council on Accreditation (COA), have been entrusted
with the accreditation process of U.S. private adoption
agencies and attorneys.
We created a short Q&A below to help answer some of
the questions adoptive parents might have. In
addition, we recommend reading
Prospective Adoptive Parents Guide published by the
State Department.
How will this affect parents
currently in-process?
Families already in process (particularly those who
have formally submitted their I-600 or I-600A by the date
the US shares the names of accredited agencies with The Hague),
will follow the current system. In other words, families applying to the
USCIS with your I-600 or I-600A prior to mid-February, would not
be affected. Families applying to the USCIS afterwards, will proceed under the new regulations.
How will it affect parents adopting a year from now?
After U.S. is fully compliant with the Hague
convention, adoptive parents wishing to adopt from a Convention
country would be required to use a Hague-accredited agency or person
in the U.S. (please note that not all Convention countries allow
individuals, i.e. attorneys, even accredited ones, to provide adoption
services). We hope that more Convention countries like Brazil,
Mexico, India, and others would be more open to adoptions into U.S.,
once the Convention is ratified. How
will About A Child families be affected?
About A Child has long ago met many of the
standards of the Hague Convention, and in the last few months worked hard to
improve all operation areas to meet or exceed the standards established by the
State Department. We are very proud to
receive the Hague accreditation through the COA and continue to
provide ethical and professional international
adoption services to all our families.
Our fees are based on actual operating costs.
As of March 1, 2008, we must raise our fees slightly
to cover additional costs associated with
maintaining the accreditation, including audits,
higher insurance and bonding levels. However,
we will continue to waive agency fees for families
adopting special-needs children and keep overall fees
reasonable for all other families. We are looking
into opening new country programs to give both
current and prospective families wider choices and
to help more kids find permanent homes and loving
families.
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