Evaluating the Agency

Evaluating Your Options

Choosing an adoption agency is an act of faith. The agency assumes a lot of responsibility toward coordinating an adoption. Trust is the key word. And a lot of paperwork.

Warning signs that may make you decide against using a certain agency boil down to communication, administration, and finances.

• Was your initial phone call, fax, or e­mail requesting information during business hours responded to within a reasonable period of time? If not, the agency may be understaffed or overextended.
• Are the admin­istrators experienced enough in international adoption to be able to solve all the com­plex problems that arise?
• Does the agency work in more than one country?
• If a foreign country changes its adoption requirements and you no longer qualify, will they help you to apply in a dif­ferent country?
• Does the agency have sufficient financial reserves to cover losses due to major changes in a foreign adoption program and the resultant loss of income?

Other factors to consider are expenses and the extent of service provided. Not surprisingly, the more work an agency does for the adoptive parent, the higher the agency fee is likely to be. For example, some agencies assist the adoptive parents in filing with the USCIS, as well as preparing the dossier of original documents for the foreign court, while other agencies show the adoptive parents how to do it themselves. Either the international agency or its networking agency must be licensed in the state where you reside in order to handle the documentation for you. Generally there is a separate fee for this service that can range from $3,000 to $7,000.

Your choice of an international agency will also be driven by the country or coun­tries you are most interested in adopting from, as well as whether you qualify in terms of age, length of marriage, and so on. No agency has adoption agreements with every country in which it is possible to adopt. However, it’s best to have more than one coun­try in mind when selecting an agency. Choose an agency with several foreign programs that interest you.

For example, a lot of potential parents decide to adopt from a particular country because they have met an adoptive family or seen a television show on adopting in that country. This has been particularly true of Russia, and China, where the media has given the orphans a lot of coverage. The couple’s next step is to contact an agency with a program in that country. However, if that agency only has one viable program and that country changes its requirements or puts a moratorium on adoptions, the couple may be left without other options.

The determination of some couples to adopt from a particular country can some­times get in the way of good sense if they do not fit the age restrictions, length of mar­riage, and so on. If the prospective parents are unusually persistent, they will call every agency in America until they find one that will take them as clients, not fully realizing that they could be turned down at the end of the process by a judge who reviews that country’s national adoption law before granting a final adoption decree.