New CCAA Policies

On December 8, CCAA held a meeting for all agency representatives tooutline changes that CCAA has agreed upon to ease the current dossiercongestion situation that has significantly lengthened the Chinaadoption process. As all of you are aware, it is taking well over ayear from dossier submittal to referral. CCAA emphasized to agencyrepresentatives that the major reason for this increased time is theincreased volume of dossiers being submitted-there were twice as manydossiers submitted to CCAA last year as there were the year before.However, CCAA does not have enough files for children to meet thisincreased demand.In order to deal with this imbalance, CCAA has decided to both reducethe number of dossiers accepted by applying stricter standards topotential adoptive families and to increase the number of childrenavailable for adoption by improving the situation of children inChina's orphanages. To this end, CCAA has plans to create a newcharity (Blue Skies) to provide the care needed by orphanages to keepinfants and young children alive and well enough to be adopted. One ofBlue Skies' first projects will be giving incubators to orphanages forbabies born prematurely.However, CCAA warns that this will not immediately decrease the lengthof time that families are now waiting for referral of their children.That length of time will remain the same (around 15 months) or evenincrease somewhat. All families should now plan to file a secondI-600A in order to apply for a new I-171H unless they are adopting aWaiting Child.Now for the stricter standards, several years ago, CCAA was similarlyoverwhelmed by increased demand for their adoption program. At thattime, their solution was to limit all recognized agencies to a certainquota for submittal based upon that agency's average number ofsubmittals during three previous years. While this did slow the numberof dossiers being submitted, CCAA was ultimately dissatisfied withthis solution as it did nothing to encourage agencies to submit onlythe most qualified families' dossiers for adoption. In order toaddress this desire for only the most qualified families to adopt fromChina, CCAA has come up with new policies regarding familyrequirements. These new policies will put into effect for all dossierssubmitted (and logged in) on or after May 1, 2007. The following areCCAA's new policies:1. MARRIAGE: Only married couples will be allowed to adopt; no singlesdossiers will be accepted. Agencies may continue to submit single'sdossiers for log-in prior to May 1, 2007, but agencies must staywithin the 8% of their total dossiers. No single's dossier may besubmitted after May 1, 2007. This includes the Waiting Child program.If this is the first marriage for both the husband and wife, they musthave been married for two years prior to submittal. If the husband orwife has had a previous divorce or annulment, the couple must havebeen married for five years prior to submittal. The total number ofdivorces/annulments for the couple can total no more than two.Therefore, if the husband or wife has had two divorces and otherpartner none, the family is acceptable. If the husband and wife eachhave one divorce, the family is acceptable. Any more divorces areunacceptable.2. AGE: Each and every parent must be between 30 and 50 years of age.No parent can be under 30 or over 50. The CCAA will not accept anyparent outside of this range. If the family applies to adopt a WaitingChild, the upper age limit can be 55 years of age depending on the ageof the child requested.3. MEDICAL: CCAA will only approve parents who are healthy. They willnot accept any parent with any infectious disease, mental disease,serious disease, or disability. If either parent is taking medicationfor anxiety or depression, they are disqualified. If a parent hasexperienced a serious health related problem in the past, he or shemust have been free of this problem for 10 years prior to submittal.4. WEIGHT: Both parents must have body mass indexes (BMI) under 40.5. FINANCIAL: At least one parent must have a stable job that providesthe majority of the family's income. Families whose income is derivedfrom retirement, disability, or insurance settlement, will no longerbe allowed to adopt. The family's income must exceed $10,000 perfamily member (including the to-be-adopted child) and their net worthmust exceed $80,000.6. EDUCATION: Each parent must have at least a high school education.7. FAMILY SIZE: No family can have more than 5 children in the home,including the child to be adopted. The youngest child currently in thehome must be over 1 year old. Exceptions to the 5 children in the homerule might be made for the Waiting Child program.8. CRIMINAL: Neither parent can have any criminal record. We assumethat this means an arrest record and not a record of traffic tickets.CCAA is also increasing its dossier submittal fees. As of January 1,2007, all dossiers for regular children must be accompanied by paymentto CCAA (for registration) of $620 and payment to BLAS (fortranslation) of $200, for a total dossier submittal fee of $820. Forfamilies applying to adopt Waiting Children, the dossier submittal feewill also be raised. The CCAA registration fee will now be $540 andthe BLAS translation fee will continue to be waived. All familieswhose dossiers are not ready for submittal by our final submittal ofthe current year (December 22, 2006) will need to include a check tocover these increases.WAITING CHILD PROGRAM:CCAA will begin assigning low birth weight and developmentally delayedchildren to agencies as part of their waiting child program. However,CCAA will not give a Waiting Child discount for these children butwill hope to keep the processing time similar to that for WaitingChildren.CCAA hopes to launch an internet Waiting Children project in Februaryof 2007. Details will be disclosed as they become available. The CCAAis still working on this project.CCAA is also in the process of launching a new email communicationsystem between US agencies and CCAA and will offer this service toagencies for an additional fee.As long as dossiers are logged in prior to May 1, 2007,CCAA's old rules should apply to them.


Posted on Yahoo.com SFLAsia group Dec 13, 2006