Information From CCAA Meetings.

Ok, I cut and pasted this from the “China Adopt talk” site http://www.chinaadopttalk.com/ if you are not in the china adoption community this might read like assembly instructions for a jet. I have grown to respect her for what she does for the people waiting. Wile she may not always be right with her information, speculations, and rumors. There is there is always some truth to what she posts and over time her resources‘, (the people she gets information from) have grown to trust her to not revile who they are so she gets better information now.Wile I am under my word that I will not divulge any privet information that my agency gives me, and I keep my word. If I happen to come across the same information some where else I feel it is Ok to post it. To help people who don’t have a agency that is supporting them with information.
Wile I agree with most of the stuff the part about 1/5 are IA adoptions I don't and neather duse Jane Liedtke, Jane is also a person I have beleave to have good solid information. Livng in China She even go's as fare as to say. Don't believe 4/5 of all adoptions are domestic - that would put the number pretty high. If there are 10,000 international that would mean there are 40,000 domestic. I have heard the domestic number around 10,000. With the new one-child policy allowing families to adopt a second child without penalty one would expect a minor increase in domestic adoptions but the core issue remains - people want kids from people they know or blood relatives in keeping with cultural norms. Most adoptions domestically are either a) informal or b) through relatives and c) orphans. Most people who live and work in China do not believe government statistics. And, for sure there are more kids available for adoption than the numbers of people waiting for them. FACE is a big issue - CCAA doesn't want adoptions to be a focus during the Olympics for sure.
So here you go.
Glen

China Adopt Talk
Information from CCAA Meetings June 26th, 2007From the people who attended some of the meetings, most of them made some mention of the CCAA delegates truly caring about the children and being very interested in talking to them and hearing about them. I will again say that most everyone who has ever met someone who works at the CCAA comes away realizing that they take their job of finding families for babies very, very, seriously.Several people who asked direct questions of a CCAA delegate had their questions responded to with a very joking “that is a secret”. It was given with a smile and a twinkle of an eye and no one was made to feel uncomfortable. Kudos to the CCAA for learning a bit about our culture, and that it is better to not answer the question at all than to give a false answer. I know it’s frustrating to not get answers, but IMO if they aren’t going to give an answer it is so much better to be upfront about it in such a friendly way than to give a false answer.The good news is that many people were also given answers to their questions. Does this mean that we can trust the answers? I really hope it does.There is a lot of information here, so I’ve listed them in bullet points of what people and/or agencies were told, grouped together by topic. I’m not going to interject my own thoughts on most of these items, but I will be covering several of them on individual blog posts later on.It seems that about half of the agencies were told the wait will reach from “two to three years” and the other half were told from “two and a half to three years”. (To me, the important number here is that they are acknowledging the wait could reach three years.)One agency reports the maximum wait will be 2.5 years. (RQ note: I put this in because if I don’t I’ll get 50 emails saying , “but that’s not what MY agency says”)Various delegates were asked by several people when they thought it might reach three years. No one reports receiving an answer other than one that basically said it’s hard to know or impossible to know.Based on their conversations, many agencies are reporting that we’ll be at a two year wait when we finish 2007. Several are reporting it will happen before we finish 2007. Several report that the CCAA will be referring some of the December 2005 families in December 2007. (RQ note: All of these could mean something slightly different, but they all point to the same ballpark.)The CCAA feels that in 2008 they will be back to something closer to 15 days per month. (RQ Clarification – I am reading this to say that 7 or 8 months from now they think they will be back to 15 day batches)Expedited families of Chinese Heritage can expect to wait 12 to 15 months for referral. New restrictions mean that eligibility is for second generation only.The CCAA is currently referring 600 to 700 babies per month. This total includes SN and NSN.Backlog figures: total dossiers received in 2006 (NSN and SN) were around 30,000. Total dossiers received January through May of 2007 were around 10,000. (Yes, there will be a post devoted solely to these last two bullet points.)Apparently, $3,000 does not go as far as it did 15 years ago when the figure was put in place. Orphanages no longer see this as the huge incentive it used to be to make babies paper ready. Also, with the Hague came more paperwork for the SWI’s as well, another reason they feel they should be getting more money. So, the orphanages want the figure higher, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has the final say in this and they say no. The CCAA understands why the MoCA says no, but they do not feel they will be able to get more paperwork coming in unless the figure is raised. (I have a lot to say about this, and I will in a later post. We’ve been talking about it in the forum and I’ve received some private correspondence backing this up from some other agencies.)This next one also ties in with the above, but the idea is that some of the Hague requirements have taken away the spirit of cooperation that existed before between SWI’s and the CCAA. One agency uses the word cumbersome, another speaks in terms of the SWI’s feeling they aren’t trustworthy anymore. I get the idea that they are offended by some of the new paperwork requirements.The new rules were put in place to try to bring the wait back down. The program will continue in the long term. If there were plans to stop the program they would not have bothered with the new rules.If the new rules do not create the desired equilibrium, they will put more stringent rules in place.Abandonments are down and domestic adoption is up, however, there are still many orphans in China who need families. The CCAA is working very hard to try to match these children with families. Please be patient as they work to find ways to make this happen.From a question of whether the problem is because there are no orphans or whether there are orphans but they are not being prepared for IA, the answer was that “the problem is paper ready babies”. (RQ note: The question was asked in a longer and much more respectful way, so don’t think someone asked an offensive question here.)Of the total number of adoptions in China, 1/5 of them are IA and the remaining 4/5ths are domestic adoptions.The CCAA only needs to see an updated home study if one of the following major changes occurs: change in health status, birth of another child, adoption of another child, significant change to financial circumstances such as loss of employment. (RQ note: Does this mean birth and adoption are okay while waiting, they just want to know about it? That’s what it sounds like.)As abandonments decrease, the proportion of children with SN increases. The CCAA is working to find solutions to finding families for these children.For families requesting the CCAA match them with a special needs child, the anticipated waiting time is expected to be 12 to 15 months. For those who will only accept very minor special needs it could be a good bit longer since there are so many parents asking for this. For those willing to accept more severe special needs it could be a good bit shorter.The CCAA prefers that families start out in the program they wish to be in. They would like to discourage families from starting in the NSN program and switching to the SN program. They aren’t saying it is not allowed, they are just trying to encourage agencies to help families make up their mind before they submit their dossier so they don’t change their mind later. While this next part wasn’t actually stated, several people got the idea that this is being requested because it’s just so hard to pull a dossier out of those 30,000+ dossiers they must have warehoused somewhere in their new building.While it is not encouraged (see above) those already LID can switch to SN whether they meet the new May 1st rules or not. (RQ note: Apparently they started out requiring that any change meant you must meet new rules, but have changed their stance on this.)Under the new SN pilot program SWI’s will send children’s paperwork directly to agencies as soon as a child’s paperwork is complete, not in batches. The paperwork does not have to filter through the Provincial Authority and the CCAA, meaning children should be placed quicker.The CCAA is still considering an “online special needs program” that they would manage, instead of the agencies having lists. (RQ speculation: I have to wonder if they are going to let bigger agencies work directly with an orphanage and then let the smaller agencies have access to a “big list” that the CCAA would manage. If they are still considering this while they are implementing the new pilot program it’s the only thing that seems to make sense.)The CCAA made it clear that for children who do not pass a medical exam, another referral will only be given if the child’s physical circumstances are different from the information given in the referral packet. (RQ Note: I assume this means the CCAA will no longer issue another referral for a child exhibiting signs of RAD or autism.)Most domestic adoptions happen at the provincial level and the CCAA is not involved.The CCAA hopes that families do not give up hope. Families waiting will get a child. They hope for patience and understanding.Remember, these items are not from a single statement. I’ve put together information from all of the meetings into one long post. Some of these items only come from one meeting, but most of them come from more than one meeting. Some of them come from information agencies have made available to their clients, but much of it also comes from conversations that individuals had with a CCAA delegate. More than one agency reported that the delegates would not give information as a group, it was only during the one-on-one conversations that they received information.