IBESR Update

Thankful again for Dixie from God's Littlest Angel's for sharing what she knows about Haiti's adoption process. Her long detailed blog can be found here. Lots to pray about!

Without flash. 

Summary- Dixie does not want to be passing along rumors so waited to hear confirmed news from a meeting between the Joint Council Haiti Caucus Meeting and IBESR. The basics:

1. NO changes in the procedure to declare a child adoptable. Total of 3-4 trips for family members to IBESR. 
2. Family will also need to sign away parental rights in front of the Children's Judge.
3. IBESR prepares the child's chart. Then the creche staff pick it up, bring to court staff, then when ready to sign bring the family to sign before the judge. [Detailed and time consuming]
4. No details yet if the US consult will do away with parent interviews currently needed at the end of the process before a visa is issued. 
5. IBESR will do all the matching of all children. Creches to be involved but no one knows what this looks like yet.
6. Multi-disciplinary team at IBESR to be formed by early 2015 to make the matches.
7. Starting with dossiers accepted after Oct. 1st 2015 the referral can come from any creche accredited by IBESR.
8. IBESR currently working on the backlog of dossiers and intend to start with those that were submitted first and been waiting the longest.
9. A family/agency will be able to submit a letter of intent for a specific child with special needs.
10.  Fees given to a creche to care for child is being reduced. IBESR says the creche will need to make up the difference in funds in other ways. Each creche will receive the same amount of funding per child regardless of the level of staff, food, education, medical care given.

With flash. 

Many creches are hurting financially because of the lack of matches in the last year. IBESR set the fees without input from the creches about services provided or current budgets. Some creches are already talking about closing to adoptions. 

"Please keep all of the creches and children in your prayers.  We will see less and less children adopted out of Haiti and there will be some that die waiting for a family.  I agree with all of the articles about economical orphans but unfortunately I've seen severely malnourished "economical" orphans on the point of death whose parents just could not care for the child even with a little help!  To save the life of those children, yes, I believe adoption is a better option than long term orphanage care in Haiti!  I agree there are some children that need to go back home with their parents and thankfully, the new IBESR process will weed some of these children out of the creche and return them back to the parents." - See more: here [same link as above]

Please continue to pray for Haitian families. Please continue to pray for our adoption and our family. Pray for the children of Haiti.