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What are the red flags that may alert that a potential agency may not have the child’s or your best interest in mind? Your adoption agency will guide your international adoption, so choose wisely. Dawn highlights some of the red flags to be aware of and Creating a Family has a 3-step process for finding an adoption agency, and we include a list of questions you must ask agencies before you select. Note that all international adoption agencies must have Hague accreditation to place children in the US.
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Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome everyone to Week in Wisdom by Creating a Family. I'm Dawn Davenport and I'm here to answer your adoption, foster our kinship family care questions.
You can send your questions to us at info @creatingathamily .org. This is going to be short, five minutes, no more. So let's jump in. Today we're going to be talking about international adoption.
We haven't done much Week in Wisdoms with international adoption and we thought we would cover some red flags when choosing an international adoption agency. So first of all,
before we talk about the red flags note that you can check and see the complaint registry. The US State Department maintains a complaint registry for all international adoption agencies.
They have to be accredited and they have to maintain a complaint registry for them. So just type. type in in your Google search, State Department and complaint registry and it will come up and you can check to see if any of the agencies that you are considering have had significant complaints against them.
The other thing you can do is check with the Better Business Bureau in the city is where the agency works. That may seem a little old school, but it's still an effective way of checking up on the background and reputation of the agency to your right.
considering. So let's jump into the red flags. The first red flag would be if the agency treats pre -adoption education as a box that just needs to be checked rather than a crucial part of the adoption process.
That is not an agency that has your or the child's best interest at heart. Another red flag would be if they require the bulk of your payment before services are provided and do not hold it in escrow or provide a detailed refund schedule for you to follow.
Another red flag, they are not readily available by phone or they don't return your phone calls within a reasonable amount of time and I define reasonable as no more than two to three days. Another one,
they are hesitant to give you their financial statements. For nonprofits you can get this information at candid .org but they should be willing to provide you their financial statements. statements.
Another red flag. They discourage you from getting an independent medical review of the referral. Another red flag. They downplay potential problems with the child by saying things like,
you know, "Once you get them home and just love them, all this will go away," or "Love will take care of everything," things such as that. Another red flag. They create a sense of urgency. If you don't decide by today or tomorrow,
you're going to lose out. It's up to you. It's reasonable, of course, that they ask you to decide within a week or so. But it isn't too reasonable for them to hurry you. This is a life decision you are making and you need time to make that decision.
Another red flag, if the waiting times or the costs they give you sound too good to be true, that's a problem. When things sound too good to be true, they usually are. And our last red flag is they don't provide or cannot help you.
find post -adoption services such as family counseling, counseling for the child, respite. Things like that, they should be actively helping you find or telling you how you can find it.
I hope these tips have been helpful for you. Making a decision on an agency is one of the most important things you do in any type of adoption, including international adoption. Before you go,
let me tell you about creating creating a family's interactive training and support curriculum for foster, adoptive and kinship families. We have 25 curriculum, each on a different topic. They're facilitated,
it's interactive. They're video -based, but there's lots of discussion. The videos are of experts, as well as other trauma -informed information. They can be done online or in person.
Check 'em out. Two ways, either go to the website, parent, support groups, .org or go to our website creating a family .org. Cook on the training tab and access them that way.
Thanks for listening to this week's Week in Wisdom. If you liked it, please tell a friend to subscribe to the creating a family.