Why the long referral wait?

Adoption consists of a complicated process that produces a lot of paperwork. [and just telling of this one step...a long blog]

Times of transition generally mean backlogs of charts and delays with the discussion and implementation of proposed changes. Haiti's transitional delays we pray result in a smoother system with reduced possibilities of abuse.

One of the big changes in Haiti's adoption process involves declaring a child's adaptability status prior to referral. This should prevent referral of children not meeting 'adoptable requirements' of Haitian and American governments.

In theory: A Haitian family meets with the social service team and makes an adoption plan. If after every possible effort to keep the family together, including education, and counseling the family stand firm on the decision to place the child up for adoption and IBESR agrees it is in the child's best interest, a one-month waiting period starts. After a full month, consent can be granted.

Abandoned children remain in an orphanage for at least 6 months while the family is looked for after which time IBESR can decide to make a referral for adoption. The mayor of the area where the child was found will need to appear in Children's court.

Child's Dossier - after IBESR declares the child adoptable these items need to be collected:

1. Passport Pictures
2. Birth Certificate
3. Attestation of signature on Birth Certificate or a copy from the National Archives
4. Legal relinquishment of custody by family/mayor if abandoned in family Court [this step can take 2-3 visits]
5. Death certificates and extracts from archives of biological parents if applies
6. Parent's marriage certificate if applies
7. Psychological evaluation
8. Medical evaluation
9. Laboratory tests
10. Social history

Now a referral can be proposed. The orphanage/creche directors will be asked to review the charts of waiting families. Once IBESR approves a potential match  the adoption agency will be given an official letter, and the family notified. After notification, the family will have 15 days to consider the match and accept or decline the referral. 

At this time, no one knows what will happen should a family not feel able to accept a proposed referral. 

As you can see there are many steps in the process and many potential areas for delays and problems. Praying for protection for everyone, every step, every paper, and every signature.   

Pray for us to be patient, wait well, and for our children while they wait too. Yesterday marked our 9th month in IBESR.  

No families without a 'soft' or 'pre-matched' admission to IBESR along with a proposed child have yet reported a match by IBESR on the Facebook group.  

We know that generally a child's development becomes more delayed for every month they live in an institutionalized setting, but we're praying our children will miraculously thrive.   

43 Days in IBESR for file 43.

Today makes day 43 days in IBESR, entering in as file # 43.

 A report yesterday stated that in March the IBESR plans to meet with crèches for 3 days in March and until that time will not be referring  children for matching or scheduling birth parent interviews.

Know some people now marking the 1 year mark in IBESR waiting to match.

Praying for patience. Praying for the mountains of paperwork to move!!

Praising the Lord for protection and guidance.

We also heard this week that one family who had pre-matched with a non-sibling set were told by IBESR that they can only match with one of the children as non-sibling adoptions will not be allowed in the same process.

We thank the Lord for protecting us from being in a similar situation.

When we started the process we were open to adopting non-siblings and knew that our crèche did not often have sibling sets available to adopt.

Then we looked and asked around for a agency willing to travel to Haiti to perform our home study. During our study while we talked about siblings we did not realize that our approval would be for siblings only.

Because of being open to non-siblings we wrote back asking about this restriction and learned that the agency would not make any exceptions.

Believing that the Lord controls our lives and had led us to this agency we remained at peace that He would either send siblings to the crèche or open a door for us if His plan included non-siblings.

Because of our advancing ages we feel the Lord wants us to get our children at the same time.

We praise Him that we did not travel down that path only to find out that the new procedures would not allow it.

Prayers:

• Praying for the IBESR meeting with the crèches so that referrals and parent interviews can start.
• Praying for the staff to focus on their work despite the Carnival season and holidays.
• Praying for our children and their family.
• Praying that the Lord will continue to prepare us for our children.
• Praying for the time table and needed steps.
• Praying for those stuck and loosing hope.
• Praising the Lord for His guidance, wisdom and protection in situations when we don't even realize the dangers.