Working with Agency

While prospective parents expect to be guided and kept informed, agencies have certain expectations, as well. They expect the potential parents to read their contracts, handbooks, and program packets of directions before calling for help. They also trust that the documents required from the prospective parents will be sent to the agency in a timely fashion. Responsible agencies expect that prospective parents will fully partic­ipate in the agency’s training for international adoptive parenting. They also expect that prospective parents will be prepared to take an adoption trip abroad on short notice, if the parents are expected to travel. More importantly, the agencies have the expectation that the adoptive parent has applied to only one foreign child-placing entity.

You may be required to sign a contract that specifies the services performed by the international agency. It should cover the illness or death of a child awaiting adoption, as well as relatives reclaiming the child and adoption disruptions. Waiting pool policies and a post-placement supervisory agreement are usually outlined, as is the addition of a child to the adopting family during the waiting period by pregnancy or adoption through another agency. A reimbursement schedule for international processing and foreign program fees should be included, usually with a disclaimer such as one posted in the International Concerns Committee for Children (ICCC) Report on Foreign Adoption:

“Due to circumstances beyond the control of any agency, the possibility exists that the adoption process could be discontinued by foreign nations, governmental action, or judicial decrees beyond the control of the agency. You must further understand that it is necessary to advance funds to accomplish agency objectives and that the portion of those funds already utilized very possibly cannot be recovered in the event of such discontinuance. You need also to understand that in spite of information to the contrary, the child, when received, might have some undiagnosed physical or mental problem or might develop such a problem at a later date. You need to know, finally, that despite agency efforts to work with competent and honest lawyers; their actions are beyond agency control. This is by no means meant to scare you, but to tell you the simple facts about intercountry adoptions.”