Friday was UPDATE day again and here's what we found out....

This is a very long update and some of it will not make a lot of sense to some of you reading it. It sums itself up for our adoption of Derek as 1. We still need that dreaded signature that the official is reluctant to give and 2. The bilateral agreement that is coming up for negotiation in March would need to be signed so that we are sure that the adoption will follow through. The agreement doesn't actually expire until Sept.1, 2008 so hopefully we will finalize and have Derek home long before that happens. We are just going to have to keep praying and hold on tighter than ever to the hope of him coming home to his family. Please keep praying with us.

Dear Vietnam Program Families:

Because of the continued delay in getting referrals in Vietnam, it is imperative that you be informed of the conditions which are affecting the CAI referral process in Vietnam. Beginning with a new program in Vietnam in 2007, authorized by the Department of International Adoptions in Hanoi, CAI embarked on a campaign to provide prospective parents with the necessary pathway to creating the adoption of a Vietnamese child. Using prior experience and in-country staff of CAI, guidelines in place with the new laws in Vietnam, and the promises of the regions’ People’s Committee, this program was supposed to be a quick and successful pathway to our goals.

As many of you are aware, these expectations were not met. While the entire year slipped away and continuous problems plagued this program, numerous promises not kept, and a variety of obstacles were placed in the way of completing the adoption process, we were forced to pass on to you the information provided us by those people in charge. In many cases our information was inaccurate or overly optimistic.

Along with this and recognizing the failings of the program, we asked one of our board members and a cofounder of the agency to go to Vietnam in August of last year in an effort to correct these problems and to make the necessary changes in the existing program to secure the children already there. In addition, two more orphanages in a neighboring region were added to the program to enable us to get more referrals to our waiting parents. It has taken up to now to make the progress we had hoped for last year and this is where we stand now, as reported by our in-country team.

The children placed in our first project Lien Chieu orphanage (5) were improperly documented by the government employees who had been put in charge. Those of you involved in this process have been exceptionally patient and we thank you for that. Working with the orphanage director and the newly appointed officer in charge of our project, we have now corrected these dossiers making them acceptable for processing by the DIA in Hanoi. These documents must have a signature of an official who originally delayed this process last year. He is proving reluctant to provide his signature. We expect this to be taken care of momentarily and these dossiers will be sent to DIA for processing for the parents involved. The dates for all of these still have to be confirmed with the DOJ in Da Nang but it appears we are going to see quick resolution to the existing problem.

Also at present in the orphanage is one new born baby girl who will be available for international adoption in another 30 days if no domestic parents are available and there are three more children in process right now who will be also available over the next 30 to 60 days.

Our project in Tam Ky (Quang Nam) has one referral in process and all the documentation for her has been sent to DIA in Hanoi. Over the next ten days to two weeks, we should have the official assignment to the parents who identified her from DIA and we expect a travel date for the parents in early March.

There are two other children in this orphanage at present that we are going to refer to parents in our waiting queue. The dossiers for one of these children shall be processed this coming week through the Department of Justice and submitted to DIA. This is a thirty day process but we are trusting that we can shorten that with the proper submissions to DOJ. The other child still has some documentation issues that need to be resolved and most likely we can get that accomplished in a couple of weeks.

We have another project in Hoi An that has yet to provide us with any referrals. Discussions with the orphanage director there have given us new hope that referrals will be coming within the next thirty to ninety days.

We have in our employ two new associates in Vietnam who have been instrumental in providing us with new opportunities in projects already existing and new locations in the country. In one through four above the work done by one of our associates is evident. He has also provided us with a new location, not yet announced that will be on line in 30 days or less. We were told that there are waiting children with this project who need forever homes.

Our other associate is working in the Northern provinces and has given us two new projects in areas about one hour outside of Hanoi. We have been given verbal approval to work there and waiting for permission from the local People’s Committee’s which we expect in the next thirty days or so. These two orphanages have been working with European agencies and they were successful in placing over 70 children with those agencies in 2007. We are taking the place of those foreign agencies. We expect a similar number of referrals from these sources in 2008, although we cannot guarantee it.

In our working with items 1 through 6 above, and given our success in achieving our objectives with them, our overall goal for 2008 is to provide as many as 70 referrals which should take care of all of our waiting parents. However, this all is subject to the information following.

The referral process in Vietnam is difficult at best. There are a handful of agencies that have been very successful in the areas they chose to work in. However as many of you are aware from internet chat rooms there are many more agencies that have been experiencing extreme difficulties with providing new referrals to their waiting parents. There are 42 US agencies licensed in Vietnam. Of those, 12 have not completed any adoptions since licensing; others have been successful in creating one to three adoptions but have gone months without a referral. In addition, there are 20 families who dossiers have been stopped in process by the CIS or State Department because of improper or fraudulent presentations. Many of those parents are still in Hanoi awaiting resolutions to these problems which may never be forthcoming. Listening to the problems encountered by the CIS and State Department concerning field inspections of referral sources, it is very apparent that there is reason for extreme caution in what, where, and how agencies are to receive their referrals.

We were advised on Thursday, January 24th, in a meeting in Hanoi with the State Department and the USCIS, that they are going to post a warning to parents regarding the signing of a continuing agreement with Vietnam due in March. From the standpoint of the State Department, the Vietnamese government has failed to provide the necessary transparency in the adoption process agreed upon in the original bilateral agreement. In addition, there have been two provinces being shut down for improper practices and agencies working there have had their licenses suspended or revoked. In the event a new agreement is not forthcoming, your waiting dossier may not be able to be completed prior to the expiration date of this current bilateral agreement at the end of August. For families who are still working on completing their dossiers, the State Department will most likely be advising them to discontinue their effort on getting the dossiers submitted because of the risk of time running out. The State Department also speculates that there may be a possibility that the Vietnamese Government will require that all dossiers in queue, but without an assigned referral, be returned to the parents at a later date.

A NOTE OF CAUTION HERE: The US State Department and the CIS have asked that we notify all of our parents, PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE OFFICES OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OR THE CIS DIRECTLY. They do not have the staff or the time to deal with your inquiries or comments. Whatever your questions or concerns are, they can be sent on line to the State Department’s web site. Please respect their wishes..

If families want to tell the State Department that the U.S. should continue to work with Vietnamese authorities and allow orphaned Vietnamese children to be adopted by U.S. families, please email your concerns to the State Department at AskCI@state.gov. Another option is to talk to your Senator or House Representatives and ask them to forward you opinion to the State Department.

From the agencies’ side, as a result of the Vietnam Summit hosted by JCICS in late November, the “Vietnam Standards of Practice” (VSP) will have a final draft available by the end of this week. Like CAI, the majority of agencies working in Vietnam are members of JCICS and member agencies will be signing the final draft to endorse the set standards. The standards will be presented to both the Vietnamese Government and the State Department. JCICS hopes that it will help coordinate the ways agencies work in Vietnam, and to improve the transparency of the adoption process in Vietnam so that procedures will be in compliance with the conditions set forth by the Bilateral Agreement. At this point, agencies are still hoping that the VSP will act as catalyst for the renewal of the bilateral agreement. JCICS will also be attending a conference call with officials of the State Department and USCIS. As we hear any further information, we will keep families posted.

It appears that the intent of the US side is to continue to do adoptions in Vietnam as long as the Vietnamese Government is going to be more transparent with the adoption process and in compliance with the bilateral agreement. It is also the hope of the DIA, per several discussions between CAI and the director there, that the US and VN government will resolve these differences and continue to provide adoptions to waiting US families. However, it is another 30-60 days when that deadline will occur and obviously nobody can assure a perfect outcome by then. In the event the agreement is not renewed and the VN program is going to be closed by September, families will still have the option of changing program. The US processed just slightly over 800 adoptions from Vietnam last year. There are over 2300 dossiers logged in with the DIA office in Hanoi, which also means more than 1500 dossiers are still in the waiting status. All of these issues will affect your ability to receive a referral this year.

In an effort to aid you in your choices, the agency will provide you with information regarding alternative programs at any time you wish to make a change. You may wish to make that decision now or you may choose to wait and see if the final issues are resolved between the two governments. However, that being said, with a continuing Vietnam program, we are hoping that all waiting families will receive a referral within the next twelve months or so if the new projects will proceed as planned.

As usual, we are open to your questions and suggestions. In these difficult times, in order to relate most current information to families, we will be providing program updates every other week, rather than on a monthly basis. Please be assured that CAI as your agency will do whatever we can to protect the best interests of waiting families as well as those of orphaned children in Vietnam. Please contact your case manager if you would like to discuss switching programs.


Sincerely,

CAI staff

FRIDAY.....

A day of things to come---

1. Norm's 37th Birthday. Be sure to check out the pictures of him with his birthday cake. We were out shopping and wanted to pick up his cake but he is a chocolate fanatic and well....this is the only cake we could find in chocolate!! Cute huh!!!!
2. Hopefully an adoption update. After skipping last week I have myself set up for a good update this Friday. I hope we won't be disappointed!!!

ANOTHER UPDATE DAY......

Woohoo it's UPDATE FRIDAY....and it is a GOOD one!!! The news below is so encouraging to us. It has been a long road to get this far and I can feel the final outcome on the horizon. Only a little more work and a lot more patience and we should be headed to Vietnam to bring Derek HOME!!!!

Here's the update....


1) The move to the new orphanage location was completed on January 2nd. The new location is quieter and more convenient, and most importantly, provide more spaces for increasing the capacity of the orphanage. There is a relinquished baby girl accepted into the orphanage already since moving into new location, but will require another 6 weeks of waiting to become eligible as referral to families. The new location is still in the same district, hence the move will not affect the documents already in process. Commonwealth is fully supporting the orphanage financially, and the local government is committed to referring more orphaned children to be accepted into the orphanage.

2) The DOJ has formally asked the orphanage director to submit the child dossiers. The orphanage director has been cooperative in the past two months, and has been working diligently on fixing the child dossiers. As mentioned in last update, it was reported that all child dossiers has been corrected, and simply owing the signature of the former population committee director. There seemed to be another round of reluctance from this man to rectify the documents. PC and DOLISA officials are doing their best to convince the man to backdate the documents. Their plan B is to have the new population committee director to sign those documents, to be used alongside with an explanation letter signed by senior PC officials.

3) CAI also intends to consult the USCIS in Ho Chi Minh City on the child dossier documents, because of the special circumstances of the errors made by the orphanage director previously. Copies of child dossier documents would be available to adoptive parents once approved by DOJ in DN and given the green light by the USCIS. The documents will be needed for filing the I-600 petition with the USCIS in HCMC. Although much progress is made, it is still early to come up with an estimated timeframe for these steps to be completed. We should know better in the next month.

OUR TRIP TO L.A. TO VISIT WITH MICHELLE & JEFF....

I thought I better post some pictures from our magnificent trip. We had a wonderful time and the weather was perfect. Aside from the horrific travel delays and cancellations our trip was nothing short of perfect. It was hard to pick out pictures to post here since they are all great and each one has a meaning. This will definately be a trip we remember forever. On the last day Michelle asked Norm & I what our favorite part of the trip was and I had to study the question but looking back I would have to say it was the time spent with Michelle & Jeff that meant the most to us. Not to mention they are fantastic tour guides!!!!