Latvia is one of the least known Eastern European countries processing
international adoptions. For a number of years, strenuous requirements of
months-long bonding period before the adoption discouraged potential parents. Recent
laws, however, allowed orphan courts (local guardianship authority) to shorten
the bonding period to their discretion, and foreign couples are now asked to
spend up to two weeks rather than months for the orphan court to make their
recommendation. The legal process of providing official children's
referrals including pictures and health information before travel makes Latvia once
again an attractive option for families looking to adopt, especially older and
special-needs children.
What differentiates Latvian adoption process from that of Russia or Ukraine
is their foster residence requirement during the bonding period. Instead
of visiting children at the orphanage once or twice a day, parents are able (and
required) to rent apartments or other family-type dwellings and live together
with the children. Not only does it provide a stronger bonding experience,
but also gives both parents and children a feel of what their life would be as a
family. By the end of two weeks the child no longer feels being taken away
by strangers, while parents are able to discover any serious issues before
bringing their child home.
Ministry For Children and Family Affairs (MCFA) in Riga is the central child adoption authority in
Latvia. They process all submitted applications centrally, and upon the family
accepting their referral, the documents are forwarded to the local office of child's
guardianship authorities. MCFA adheres to a non-discriminatory Queue
system, meaning all referrals for a specific age group are assigned in the order
dossiers are received. However, due to the limited interest in older and
special-needs children sought, any dossiers for such children are processed
immediately and given priority. Please see U.S.
Department of State overview
for more details.
Status
Our Latvian program is fully open and
operational. MCFA welcomes new dossiers from American
families and hopes to help more orphans find their forever
homes soon.
The Children
Children from 1 to 16 years old are
available for international adoption. However,
healthy infants are usually adopted by local families and the Queue for
international families moves very slowly. But there are a lot of healthy
children over 6 or 7 years old and special-needs children waiting for their
forever families. It may be possible to adopt a younger child with her
older sibling in a reasonable amount of time. Many siblings groups are
available, but it is possible to adopt unrelated children as well. Most kids
are Caucasian and Scandinavian-looking. Depending on the region, children
speak Latvian and sometimes Russian as well. Many children
over 10 years old take English as a foreign
language. The Process
While in the U.S., prospective families are
required to prepare an adoption dossier (a set of
documents required for adoption processing by local
authorities abroad). For Latvia, dossier
includes USCIS (former INS) permission to adopt
internationally, homestudy prepared by a licensed
agency, a short autobiography and a number of documents
verifying family marital status, income, health
condition, criminal history, etc. Once the dossier is completed, it is mailed to
Latvia. There, it is translated into Latvian, authenticated and delivered
to MCFA. After the dossier is processed
and registered, MCFA issues an official referral with
pictures and complete medical information for family's review. About A Child
does not withdraw a referral until the prospective adoptive parent(s) have had two
weeks (unless extenuating circumstances involving the child's best interests require
a more expedited decision) to consider the needs of the child
and their ability to meet those needs, and to obtain physician review of medical
information and other descriptive information, including pictures of the child. If a family
accepts the referral, a first family visit to Latvia is arranged. At this point,
a family can no longer "lose" their
referral to another agency or international adoptive family that might be
interested in the same child.
Both parents must travel on the first trip to meet the child(ren) and accept
their referral. Upon arriving to Riga, they then travel to the orphanage to meet the
child(ren). Upon acquaintance, parents are
required to rent an apartment, a small house, or any other family-type dwelling
(not a hotel) where they will live for the next one or two weeks together with
the child as a family. This time allows both parents and child(ren) to begin the bonding process and ensure a positive family match has been made. The family has a right to
refuse a referral for any reason and go back to the
MCFA for a new referral. In approximately one week, a family will be visited by
a social worker who assesses how well things are progressing: if both
parents and child(ren) want to proceed with the adoption, s/he makes a
recommendation for an orphan court hearing (local guardianship authority) to be
set. At this point, one of the parents may go back to U.S., and the other
stay behind to complete the adoption.
Depending on the region where the adoption is processed, a formal court hearing
to finalize the adoption could be set within days or within weeks of the orphan
court's hearing, and only one parent is required to attend it. When the
court hearing cannot be set right away, most families choose to go home and
return. By Latvian law, adoption becomes final 20 days after
the court, and this waiting period is practically
never waived. The parent(s) attending the court hearing may choose to stay
or go back home and return to pick up the child.
Immigrant visas for the child(ren) are currently
processed in Warsaw, so a family must first meet with
a U.S. Embassy in Riga and then fly into Poland for a
couple of days.
In U.S., parents are asked to register their
child with the Latvian Embassy within one month of
arrival. After that, parents are asked to submit
annual reports about their child's well-being to the Latvian Embassy
in USA. For the first two years after adoption, post-placement reports
done by a licensed agency are required.
Timeframe
Adoptions from Latvia may take anywhere from
6 months to 3 years depending on the child(ren)
requested. Older or special-needs children may
be referred right away, while the wait for an infant
may be over two years long. Typically, it
takes 3-5 months for dossier preparation, but
unexpected circumstances and USCIS
delays might extend the wait time. Once the
dossier is mailed to Latvia, it usually takes one to
two months to be registered as prospective adoptive
parents and be placed in the waiting Queue. The
length of stay in Latvia is quite predictable for families not planning to stay
in-country between the orphan court and the regional court hearings.
Except in special circumstances, the first trip to get acquainted with the child
and stand the orphan court hearing is around two weeks. There is a 20 days
waiting period after the court hearing, and parent(s)
planning to travel for the court and staying during the wait
on their second trip should plan for about 3.5 weeks to
complete all Embassy paperwork. Alternatively, the second
trip could be split into two separate short trips to avoid
the long wait.
The Cost
Latvian adoption program is on average more
affordable than those of other former Soviet Republics. Most of all, it
affords a convenience of a planned two-week stay (for one of the parents) for
families with one parent on a tight work schedule.
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