REFORM Talk’s Hague Convention Wording Changes, Additions, Deletions and Challenges

We have mentioned that we do not think the current Hague regulations protect families or appropriately deal with bad-acting adoption service providers. We have put together our suggestions to amend Hague regulations. We invite our readers to add their changes to our comments and discuss what we have written.

Find the wording at the following link to 22CFR96 http://cfr.regstoday.com/22cfr96.aspx

In chronological order, our suggestions and challenges are as follows

96.2 (1) changing ‘and’ to ‘or’ to read, “Identifying child for adoption or arranging an adoption.”

Points: Unaccredited adoption ministries, advocate groups and others are involved in arranging adoptions and should be supervised.

96.2 definition section:

• Adoption records-needs to add that these should NOT be passed to a third party for any reason. Only provider and PAP who is considering the referral should have photos or any information on the child.

96.10 (c)(4) is about accrediting entity and conflict of interest. NCFA board member is on BOD of COA. This is a conflict of interest

96.12 (3) Question: What is an “exempted provider”? Why should a providers be allowed to be exempted?

96.13 (a) Why would a home study be allowed by an exempted provider? Is this for Americans overseas? I don’t understand. If so, why not change it to define who an exempted provider is and define very specific cases when this might be allowed.

96.13(b) re: Child welfare services-all providers need to be licensed. Currently there are PAPs and APs who are unlicensed that are identifying children and passing around private child information and arranging for re-adoptions after disruptions.

96.14(c)(3)(i)-why is ANY foreign provider who works for an agency securing consent to terminate parental rights? This lends itself to NGO and other types of harvesting and coercion

Debarment should be permanent so at beginning and end of regulations, appropriate deletions (96.18 and very end of the re-applications)

96.18 (c) there should be no means to reapply following cancellation of accreditation.

96.27 (b) Again, no reapplication.

96.33 (f) poorly defined. Donations are used to secure children either as bribes to orphanage directors for desirable children or outright purchase of children from families.

Example: Agency X gives $5000 to orphanage director who then buys him/herself a vehicle with the money and in exchange provides agency x with referrals of healthy children. Agency Y does not provide monetary donations and their clients are only presented very ill children with severe special needs outside of what they can effectively parent.

96.33(f)-adoption agency should NOT engage in giving donations to orphanages that referrals are coming from

96.35 (3) Add: must provide evidence of any past disciplinary action by a State Bar Association.

96.35(4) and (5) and (6)-should eliminate “for the prior 10 years”-they should have to disclose ALL disciplinary actions, complaints and investigations

96.35 (8)-increase bankruptcy disclosure from 5 years to in the last 10 years.

96.35 section add: persons or those providing child welfare services in sending country should NEVER directly advertise a child to a PAP. Currently, some Chinese SN orphanages are part of forums where they directly discuss children with PAPs and provide information to privately run photolisting blogs run by PAPs and APs

96.37 section-training for social workers needs to be provided by a disinterested party. Having the agency provide basic training leads to poor accountability for proper training

96.39 Ban public photolistings of children for adoption.

96.40 (b) (2) Include an itemized breakdown of expenses as a part of the total fee.

(4)Why would PAPs ever be required to pay for the care of a child prior to adoption?

Points: This might reduce or eliminate means of corruption and money for trafficking/harvesting.

(g) (3) itemized receipts

96.42 (b) Change to eliminate “unidentifying”

Point: For crying out loud, it’s 2012, not 1950!

96.43 (b)(i)-need to further define what it means to have an adoption “undertaken”-is that referrals given, PAP travel, PAP signing contract?

96.46 (a) (4) Change to “Does not have a licensing suspension or other sanction and has not lost the right…”

Point: Rarely do state licensing offices take action against a provider and when they do it is for very serious violations.

(b) (4) Add: at a wage commensurate to local salary standards.

96.46(b)(12)(c)(1)-why is foreign provider who works for agency gaining consent to TPR?

96.47 Needs something to tighten home study oversight. Possible home study review by a third party who accepts responsibility. Ideas??

Points: Some PAPs “shop” for home study providers who will overlook their deficiencies or commit fraud in writing home studies. Examples, failing to mention psychotropic drugs taken by PAPs, not reporting the actual number of children already in the home, failing to verify verbal information provided by PAPs, etc

96.48-increase number of PAP training hours to 30 PLUS extra medical training for those adopting SN children

96.48 (b)-add adjustments to diet, school options and behavioral health options need to be provided by placing agency or in collaboration with homestudy agency PRIOR to placement

96.48 (c)(5)-Eliminate this. IF training can’t be provided, then the PAP should NOT be allowed to adopt. (c)(4) already has the option of video and long distance learning-if those options can’t be undertaken, then the PAP is NOT prepared enough to adopt.

96.48 Eliminate (g)

Add a requirement that PAPs must be licensed by their state foster care board before they can receive an approved home study as is required by the state of Illinois. Foster care licensing requirements in some states (like IL) are far more comprehensive than the requirements to adopt internationally. For example, in Mississippi, foster care and foster-adopt applicants cannot have more than five children already in the home, however, there is no limit to the number of children who can be adopted internationally.

Need to tighten up the education requirement as there is currently no quality control in the education provided and PAPs remain vastly underprepared.

96.49-no provider should downplay diagnoses-actual examples seen in marketing SN children are stating that HIV, Down Syndrome and Hepatitis are “no big deal”

96.49 Add (1) Agency may not downplay known diagnosis or risk factors, attempt to dissuade PAPs from seeking a third party evaluation, or otherwise encourage PAPs to disregard or minimize known information.

96.49 (4)(e)-Must separate and highlight any description of the child by a nonphysician observer. These need to be highlighted as just observations and MAY NOT BE RELIABLE. The reason for this is to prevent NGOs/ministries from downplaying diagnoses-example bilateral ear abnormality may REALLY be deafness etc.

96.51 (b) Must be changed to follow 96.50 procedures to protect the child. If placing children, must provide the same services in a dissolution as outlined for a disruption.

96.54 When birthparent in private adoption identifies a foreign PAP, there needs to be wording to ensure that this is not really a child-buying operation.

96.69 (b) Eliminate the need to contact provider first.

Points: Reports of poor treatment by agencies; refusal to provide service after a complaint; verbal and emotional abuse to already vulnerable PAPs.

96.109 Question: does this create unnecessary loopholes?

Lastly, somewhere it needs to be added that if agencies are to track dissolutions, that they need to have a standard mechanism to contact APs every year. The APs may not be contacting them to provide this information.

REFORM Puzzle Piece