Fall of the Mighty ASPs

With the recent closure of a number of adoption agencies specializing in international adoption I stand shaking my head at why the Department of State allowed these yahoo’s to be accredited in the first place. For those who have been around the IA arena awhile, two countries stand out as keeping more control over agencies than most others. South Korea and Thailand have for years only allowed a very small number of agencies to process adoptions while other countries allowed everyone and their brother to place children here, there and everywhere.

The suggestion was tossed around by adoption reformers several years ago as to why DOS doesn’t just choose the five largest and most professionally staffed agencies, accredit them, oversee and actually REGULATE them. There has never been a need for the smorgasbord of agencies that opened in the hey day of international adoption, many of which are run by individuals with no real social service experience other than adopting themselves (for much more detail on this see www.bewareofbbas.org). Likewise, there was no good reason to accredit so many when the Hague regs went into effect. Home study providers could be accredited in different locales, but given most PAPs do not use local agencies as their placing agency, why bother having so many

Alas, it appears as the agencies shutter their doors one by one natural selection is taking place and I couldn’t be more pleased. Too bad DOS didn’t close them years ago by weeding out the masses. I do have to feel for PAPs who have been told by one agency, Frank Adoption Center, that there will be no refunds of the funds they paid because it has already been spent. Classic. Even in their -Woe is us message-they have the audacity to unabashedly make this announcement to their clients. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the mother organization, Frank Foundation (who I highly doubt is going to issue refunds out of their coffers).

I wonder if my cleaning service could get away with this? ‘Sorry, even though we haven’t done any work at your house we spent your money on cleaning supplies. Now please take pity on us because we can no longer clean your home.’ Something tells me this wouldn’t go over very well with state regulators, but in the world of adoption a free pass for poor practices is modus operandi.

Department of State is the Central Adoption Authority for the Hague. This is their responsibility (although accrediting and regulation was contracted out to the Council on Accreditation), and if this is the way they handle things any PAP out there ought to think twice before signing on with any ASP in the United States.

Rally adds the following: “This is an excellent idea. The way agencies operate now requires a great deal of cashflow. They do this by signing on many more applicants than they can finalize adoptions for. This current method never benefits the PAP nor the child.

Another pet peeve of mine is the wanton spread of  information of waiting children and children not yet declared legally adoptable. The regulation could be that only these 5 agencies  may have access to waiting child information. Anyone outside these  5 agencies that possessed this information would be breaking the law and be prosecuted.”

REFORM Puzzle Piece