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Update: Russia Adoption Program
A Year in Review
Although CWA anticipated a slow pace from Russia’s reaccreditation process in 2006, we were able to help find families for 54 children.
The Twitchells, one of the many families who successfully completed their adoption, wrote of their experience:
“In late February 2006, we made our first trip to Russia to visit a nine month old precious baby boy. The trip was fantastic, despite having to do without our luggage for most of the week! It is amazing what one can “survive” on in Siberia! Throughout the trip and all of the airplane rides, Daniel, our first adopted child, was a trooper and we enjoyed the snowy weather since we had not yet seen one flake in the desert. We left Russia smitten with the baby and came home to await news of our second trip. We returned a couple of months later and our court hearing to adopt our new son was April 18. His name is Andrew Michael and we’re calling him Drew. He is nineteen months old now and is bright, funny, and definitely a Tasmanian handful! We’re so happy to have a second child and feel our family is complete…for now.”
The following is an outline of everything that happened in Russia during 2006:
A few years ago, Russia began accrediting adoption agencies to be able to work in the country. The accreditation was issued for 12 months, at which time the agency must re-apply to the Russian Federation Ministry of Education to continue working as an accredited body. If the agency was in full compliance with all Russian regulations, the whole process was rather routine.
CWA has been working in Russia since 1992, which is when they began allowing adoptions to foreigners. We have worked in several regions, and have a very large and qualified staff throughout the country. Our many years of experience have allowed us to obtain a favorable status with the government of the Russian Federation, and we have weathered the many law changes, administrative changes and scandals that periodically cause hysteria throughout Russia regarding international adoption. The prosecutor's office routinely inspects all U.S. adoption agency offices in Russia to ensure compliance with their laws. We are required to have 100% post-adoption reporting, perfect tax records, and endless other reports too numerous to be able to recount here. Our past compliance with these requirements has aided us in gaining an excellent reputation with the Russia Federation Ministry of Education
CWA’s Russian accreditation expired on May 17th, 2006. We had prepared all the needed documents for our reaccreditation, however during that same month, Russian legislators began revising the current regulations regarding international adoption. Our reaccreditation for 2006, as well as the reaccreditation of all other adoption agencies, was put on hold.
In May of 2006, Russia passed a new law that required non-governmental organizations (NGO's) in Russia to register with the Ministry of Justice. No one thought it would affect adoption agencies, and in fact, our U.S. Embassy in Moscow was telling our State Department that adoption agencies would be exempt from this registration. However, it was decided that adoption agencies would indeed be required to register in Russia as an NGO.
CWA gathered all the needed information for this registration, and in August of 2006, CWA received NGO registration status through the Ministry of Justice! We were the 7th adoption agency to receive this registration!
While all of this was going on, the Ministry of Education in Russia was drafting new regulations regarding international adoption. It did not change the process too much, but the new regulations needed to be finalized and signed by the Prime Minister before any adoption agencies could be reaccredited.
In November of 2006, the Prime Minister signed new regulations regarding international adoption (Stature 654), authorizing the Ministry of Education to begin the reaccreditation process. CWA had all the documents ready, as we have gone through the accrediting process before, and knew approximately what was needed for the application. Even though the Prime Minister had signed the new law regarding the international adoption reaccreditation process, CWA could not start the process without instructions from the Ministry of Education regarding exactly what needed to be submitted.
On December 19, 2006, the Ministry of Education finally published instructions about what exactly needed to be submitted for reaccreditation, and included in it were several new requirements. We had to obtain several additional documents, and we worked very hard to get these as quickly as possible.
On December 28, 2006, CWA submitted all the required documents for reaccreditation to the Ministry of Education - much sooner than many other agencies, and right before the Ministry closed for the holidays. For the last three years, all the Russian officials and most of the Russian offices have been closed for the holidays until the 9th or 10th of January.
The Ministry has up to 90 days to issue the new accreditation. However, we hope and pray that we will receive accreditation even sooner, maybe even in mid-February. This upcoming accreditation will no longer have an expiration date, so there will be no need to reapply and go through this process again. After accreditation, our family’s dossiers must immediately be accepted by the regions’ Ministry of Education departments, and should be processed in a speedy manner.
Our CWA Russia program team greatly appreciates the understanding and support from the families in our Russia Program. We admire the dedication of these families, and will continue to do our best to expedite the process whenever it is possible. We truly hope that 2007 will be much better than 2006. We look forward to finding loving homes for many more children in the next year to come! |
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