Adoption Agencies

 Adoption Agencies

Basic Requirements for Foreign Adoption Organizations in Cooperation with CCAA

    In order to practically ensure the lawful rights and interests of adopted Chinese children, foreign adoption organizations in cooperation with CCAA should meet with the following basic requirements.

    Ⅰ. They shall put the interests of adopted Chinese children in the first and foremost place.

    They must honor the basic principles of the Convention on the Rights of Children and the Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption, fully recognize the fact that children should be in a family environment full of happiness, love and understanding, and choose optimal families in the best interests of adopted Chinese children.

    Ⅱ. They must abide by the related laws and regulations of China and the regulations and requirements of CCAA.

    They must abide by the Adoption Law of the People's Republic of China, the Measure for Registration of Adoption of Children by Foreigners in the People's Republic of China and other related laws and regulations; they must observe the regulations of competent governmental departments, and the regulations and requirements of CCAA and offer active cooperation with CCAA.

    Ⅲ. They must be adoption organizations entrusted by their governments.

    They have the Power of Attorney authorized by their governmental departments for adopting children in china. The Power of Attorney must be within its valid time limit. The American adoption agencies must currently and provisionally possess an effective license approved for inter-country adoption by the governmental department.

    Ⅳ. They must be non-profit organizations.

    They must be non-profit charity organizations approved by their governments. They should require reasonable payments and have no improper financial and other gains associated with inter-country adoption. Adoption organizations in the US must be non-profit organizations with the legal status of 501 (C) 3 as approved by the American Internal Revenue Service.

    Ⅴ. They must have experiences with a certain scale for international adoptions.

    They must have experience of international adoption services; and they must be capable of handling over ten (ten inclusive) adoption cases from China for each year; they must have other children and family service programs other than adoption.

    Ⅵ. They must be able to provide a complete range of international adoption services.

    The services mainly include:

    1. They must have a standard working procedure and standard China adoption procedure, and be able to guarantee that the related adoption policies and regulations from China are conveyed to adopters smoothly, truly and accurately.

    2. They can provide pre-adoption training, adoption guidance and related consulting services for adopters and assist adopters to make pre-adoption preparations.

    3. They can make home study of adoption families and complete home study reports. If provided by the laws of their countries that adoption organizations are not responsible for home study or for completing home study reports, they should assist adopters to make good home study reports.

    4. They can provide post-adoption services to families adopting Chinese children and make true and timely post-adoption feedback reports for CCAA.

    5. They could take active measures to protect the interests of the adoptees, while the adopters were not able to continue the nurture of the adoptees, till the adoptees were replaced properly.

    Ⅶ. They must have stable and sound organizational setup.

    They must have stable and formal offices and a sound organizational setup, with clear division of functions and responsibilities of the board of directors and executive bodies.

    Ⅷ. They must have a professional team specialized in international adoption.

    The staff of adoption agencies should have been well educated and they should have professional knowledge and experience for families and children's services.

    (China-ccaa.org October 16, 2006)

    Management Procedure for Authorizing Foreign Adoption Organizations by China Center of Adoption Affairs to Seek Adoptive Families for Children of Special Needs (On Trial Basis) 

    In order to achieve a better placement for the children of special needs, and guarantee their legitimate rights and interests, the following management procedure is specially formulated for the authorized foreign adoption organizations (hereinafter referred to as "adoption organizations") in their work for seeking adoptive families for the children of special needs.

    A. The Sending -Out of Power of Attorney and Children's Materials:

    1. The China Center of Adoption Affairs (hereinafter referred to as Center) will send out in batches and in turn a certain amount of materials concerning children of special needs to the authorized adoption organizations.

    In accordance with the situation showed in the materials of the children of special needs and the ability of the authorized adoption organizations in their placement, each adoption organization will be authorized with 5 to 30 children in each batch.

    2. The term of validity of the authorization for each batch of materials is three months from the date of the signing and issuing of the Power of Attorney (for details, see Appendix 3). If the organization still cannot find adoptive families after the expiry period of three months, the adoption organization should return all the materials concerning the children of special needs to the Center; then the Center will rearrange the placement. When there appears an intent to adopt but yet no adoptive families have been fixed, the adoption organization may keep the materials for the time being with the permission of the Center, even if the three months period is expired, and it will be listed in the next name-list of the authorized adoption organizations.

    3. After each batch of authorized materials has become due, the authorized adoption organization should explain the progress of placement of the authorized children in the present batch to the Center, the contents of which include "the adoptive families have been found"; "there is an adoptive intent"; "adoptive families have not been found"; etc. And at the same time, the adoption organization may put forward to the Center the intention of requirements for the age, the number and the kinds of disabilities of the children of special needs in the next batch.

    B. The Preparation of the Relevant Materials

    After the adoption organizations have found adoptive families for the children of special needs, they should, first of all, investigate the basic condition of the adopters intending to adopt and be responsible for filling in the form Basic Information About the Prospective Adoptive Parents (for details, see Appendix 4); and then, help the prospective adopters fill in the Letter of Intent to Adopt Children of Special Needs (for details, see Appendix 5). After the prospective adopters sign the Letter of Intent to Adopt Children of Special Needs, the Center will take it as a formal decision of the adopters showing their agreement on the adoption of the child, and no Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter will be issued in the ensuing process of verification of documents.

    After the preparation of materials has been completed, the adoption organizations should submit the original copies and the Chinese translation version of the Basic Information about the Prospective Adoptive Parents and the Letter of Intent to Adopt Children of Special Needs to the Center.

    C. The Examination of the Relevant Materials

    After receiving the Basic Information about the Prospective Adoptive Parents and the Letter of Intent to Adopt Children of Special Needs submitted by the adoption organizations, the Center will carry out the examination of the basic condition of the prospective adopters and their treatment and rehabilitation plan. Through examination and consent by the Center, it will send out the Notice to the adoption organizations (for details, see Appendix 6).

    D. The Submission of Adoptive Documents

    After receiving the Notice sent by the Center, the adoption organizations should handle the following according to the different situation in which application documents for adoption have already been submitted or yet to be submitted to the Center.

    1. If the documents have already been submitted to the Center, the adoption organizations should inform the Center by letter to offer the names of the adoptive families, the date of the delivery of documents and the names of the children to be adopted of special needs with the copy of the Notice attached sent by the Center.

    2. As to the documents not yet submitted to the Center, the adoption organizations should wait for the completion of the application documents for adoption and inform the Center by letter, stating the names of the children of special needs to be adopted by the adoptive families, when submitting documents to the Center with the copy of the Notice attached sent by the Center.

    After receiving the whole application documents of adoption of the families for the children of special needs, the Center will expedite the examination and management of the adopters' application documents.

    China Center of Adoption Affairs

    March 29, 2002

    (China-ccaa.org October 16, 2006)

    Clarification on Issues of Payment of Adoption Service Fee 

    To the competent state offices and adoption agencies:

    Some adoption agencies raised questions one after another recently about the payment of adoption service fee. In order to offer good services for the foreign adoption agencies and adopters when they give the payments and to ensure that the adoption processing in China goes well, the China Center of Adoption Affairs would like to clarify the following attention-requiring points about the payment that the foreign adopters should make when doing adoptions in China:

    Ⅰ. The best channels for service fee paying

    For the sake of a secure and convenient payment of the service fee, the following two channels will be suggested:

    i. Telegraphic transfers. After an adoption agency completes the formality for the service of telegraphic transfer in a local bank, it should fax the telegraphic money order to the China Center of Adoption Affairs (herein referred to as the CCAA), or send its copy to the CCAA together with the adoption files.

    ii. Cheques. The adoption agencies can send the cheques together with the adoption files to the CCAA.

    The CCAA will accept the foreign adopters' adoption applications in accordance with its rules and register the adoption application documents after it receives the telegraphic money orders (fax or copy) or cheques.

    Ⅱ. Issues for attention when paying service fee

    i. If the telegraphic transfer is adopted, the transferring date, the name of the agency or the person that makes the transfer should be clearly written down in the telegraphic money order, and a statement should be made as the sender would pay the entire bank handling charge. If the way of transferring money that the sender chooses often brings about costs, the way of using cheques will be suggested.

    ii. If the cheques are adopted, the filled Arabic numerals of the sum and the written words should be identical, and it should be ensured that the cheques are still in their six-month term of validity. The name of the beneficial person should be written accurately in the cheque who will be the China Center of Adoption Affairs with its abbreviation as the CCAA or the ccaa.

    iii. The adoption service fee should normally be paid by the foreign administrations or the foreign adoption agencies when the adoption files are submitted. In case that many files are submitted together at the same time, the usage of one single cheque will be suggested. In order to avoid any unnecessary confusion, the payments for the files of different batches should be delivered individually.

    iv. The service fee that the CCAA refunds the adoption applicants who cancel their adoption application could not be used for the other adopters.

    v. Since it takes 2 months for the money paid through cheques reach the bank, the usage of telegraphic transfers will be encouraged for the expedited cases that require a shorter processing time.

    vi. The CCAA will promptly notify the competent governmental departments or the adoption agencies the situation of returned money order, debt, insufficient payment, charge of bank, and etc. that arise after the payment is made. The relevant office should, with the notification from the CCAA, make a timely supplementary payment for the sake of a normal processing of the adoption files.

    vii. The CCAA does not accept cash.

    The bank where the CCAA opened its account is the Dongdan Branch of the China Communications Bank (Beijing). The bank account number is 060194145300010181. The SWIFT code is COMMCNSHBJG. The address of the bank is No. 8, Da Ya Bao Bystreet, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100005.

    Ⅲ. Some more points

    i. The work is carried out in the CCAA through certain procedure. Only when every step of the procedure goes smoothly can a good performance be ensured. If certain problem arises, the procedure must be restarted with the problem resolved.

    ii. The problems that arise when making payment will work on the normal processing of the adoption files. Your understanding of this situation and your efforts on avoiding it will be appreciated.

    iii. If the above points are not clear enough or problems are met with when paying the service fee, please consult the Financial Department of the CCAA, whose telephone number is 63575780, and fax 63575780.

    (China-ccaa.org October 16, 2006)