Information from the weekend Children's Bridge Regional Coordinator seminar

Well, we're back from the Children's Bridge Regional Coordinator / Post Adoption Coordinator seminar. 30+ women and myself! Where are all the other men?!?!?! There was one other guy there for part of Saturday AM, but he had to leave. Maybe he got a look at the numbers and ran off!

A lot was discussed and for most of us, we're concerned with the China program, so I'll summarize that section below.

1... timelines have lengthened for the following reasons
a... more applicants than children within the system. The key part of that statement is children WITHIN the system.
b... not all orphanages participate in international adoption. No orphanage around Beijing participate in international adoption for example. There are no signs that China will be adding new orphanages to the program.
c... More children are being given work #'s. If they are given a work number, they are eligible for all rights/priviliges as a Chinese citizen. CB used to receive referrals from Anjui province, but because of this, CB hasn't received any referral from this province in close to a year.

2... The Beijing Olympics in 2008 will most likely affect international adoption time lines. There will probably be no activity and travel in the month prior to, the month of, and the most post-Olympics.

3... The current wait for referral is 13.5 months. We should expect this to extend to 16 months for any new dossiers.

4... For children with Special Needs, Children's Bridge participates in China's Waiting Children program. Children's Bridge has recently received Green Stream accreditation from CCAA. They are the ONLY Canadian agency to receive this privilige. What this means is that CCAA will refer children directly to CB and this will allow CB to get extra medical tests and evaluations, etc for these children. Any other agency doing Special needs adoptions will not have access to this program.

5... It is suspected that China will be revising their international adoption program. A timeline for this is unknown. When this is done, it is expected that maximum age requirements will be lowered and that restrictions on things like serious illnesses, alcohol or drug issues will be tightened. it is not suspected that these changes to the program will cause a shutdown like it did before.

So, that's it. Good news on the Waiting Child program but not much else for positive news at this point.

Children's Bridge is investigating some new international adoption programs with some other countries, but nothing to report at this point.

In the afternoon on Saturday, they had an adult adoptee from Korea there. He was adopted at 18 months by a family in Quebec in a small primarily Caucasian city. His parents divorced when he was around 10, and he spent most of his time with his mother. He led a fairly normal life but endured some teasing form the kids at school because of his race. When he went off to college, he found much more diversity and enjoyed his college years much more. From what I could tell, his home life was a bigger issue for him than racial issues when he was growing up.

There were reps at these meetings from all over Canada and they're all reporting the same issues. People are frustrated by the lengthening time lines, the Canadian part of the process seems to be about the same with no major changes for anybody, interest in the programs is still high.

It was nice to put faces to alot of the names I have seen in the chat groups and as most have already adopted at least once, they all told us to relax and enjoy the quiet time we now have.