CCAA is tightening their requirements

Here we go on another roller coaster ride.

I hate beleiving the rumor site, I hate even going there, but I wanted you all to get a feel of how unpredictable and nerve wracking this process has become. The China program used to be the program that all other countries tried to model. Timelines like clockwork, communication flowing back and forth, everyone was happy.

There's a rumor floating around that the China Center for Adoption Affairs is about to announce a tightening of their requirements. We're not sure how this affects us. If the requirements and dates are as stated in the rumor, we should be OK, but it seems that this process is unpredictable so who knows whats next on this roller coaster of a ride.

Cross your fingers and toes, say your prayers and eat your vitamins. we need all the good thought that we can get.

If you don't know us, December is not a good month for us. Between having our car stolen and having to put Jen's old Buddy Dillon the Golden Retriever down, December does not hold good memories. December is only a third done so far. Still a long ways to go before we're in the clear.

Stay tuned...

Below is a copy of the posting that was on the Rumor Queen website.


The Big Meeting

The CCAA yearly meeting with all of the agencies happened last night (U.S. time).

We have information out of the meeting from one agency, a reputable agency that is trustworthy. I will feel better when we have this coming from more than one agency, but I have no reason to doubt the information that this agency is giving. They give information from their notes of the meeting and state that the CCAA will be issuing a formal statement at a later date. Again, it will be interesting to see what other agencies have to say about the meeting and compare their notes.

They state that the number of dossiers is 2 times the number of children the CCAA has to place. The wait time from LID to referral will not shorten at this time and it may get longer. They note that the CCAA does not define what they mean by longer. I note that they don’t say the number of dossiers is twice the number of children, but twice the number of children the CCAA has to place - I believe we are still talking about paper ready children and not total children.

They state that the following requirements will be in place for all dossiers accepted after May 1, 2007. Read that again - for all dossiers accepted after that date. If your dossier is in by that date then presumably you are okay under the current rules. The new rules are stated to be:
- Married couples only. No singles. Agencies may continue to submit singles dossiers within their 8% constraints until May 1, 2007 and then the CCAA will not accept any more single dossiers.
Married couples must be married over 2 years if there are no previous marriages. If there are previous marriages then the present marriage must be over 5 years. However, no more than two previous marriages will be allowed (it is unclear if this is two per person or two per couple)
- Each parent must be 30 to 50 years old. No parent can be outside of this range. Upper limit can be 55 for a family in the waiting child program (and that “can be” kind of looks like it’s going to be on a case by case basis, not an absolute, but it’s hard to tell).
- The CCAA wants healthy parents - no infectious disease, no mental disease (including depression or anxiety), no blindness, and no serious disease or disability. There is a note about waiting to see what the CCAA’s formal notice says, which sounds to me like they hope there will be more information in the formal notice about these things. There is another note that cancer was not specifically mentioned.
- Both parents must have a BMI under 40.
- At least one parent must have a stable job. Income requirement is $10,000 per family member including the child to be adopted.
- Family’s net assets must be over $80,000
- Each parent must have a high school education or higher.
- No more than five children in the home including the child to be adopted. The youngest child in the home must be over 1 year old. Exceptions will be considered for the waiting child program.
- No criminal record. There is a note about the CCAA not elaborating so we will again have to wait to see what the formal notice says.

There are also some notes about the Waiting Children’s Program. It sounds like there will be a category between the current NSN and SN categories for children with low birth wait and developmental delays. Fees will be the same as for the NSN program but the wait time will be closer to the SN program.

Also, they will be launching the internet waiting children project in February. The CCAA is still working on the project and more details will be available later.

And last but certainly not least - the CCAA will be launching a new email communication tool that will be open to agencies that want to pay a fee to participate.

I am putting all of the information that I have out here. This is all I know. I do not have time right now to deal with 400 question in my inbox of “this is my situation what do you think?”. What I think is that this is the first information and it is probably going to be pretty close to what comes from the CCAA, but it may not be exact. Also, if you are already logged in then you are okay for this child - we are told that these rules will be for people who submit their dossier after May 1, 2007.