Carolina Hope is offering a live online course this Tuesday (Mar. 10) about Domesticating an International Adoption in South Carolina. Participation requires a phone and an internet connection.
Please pay and register before Thursday if you would like to participate. More information on the course contents and on registering is available at the course page.

Cindy over at Our Adoption Journey has written about the Federal Adoption Tax Credit, which will expire in December 2010. I encourage you read her post and then contact your legislators asking them to support legislation that will extend the tax credit beyond 2010.
(At present, H.R. 213 is about one sentence long: it [...]

Laura Godwin responds to “The Orphan Manufacturing Chain”, by E.J. Graff. Graff’s article makes untrue claims in an attempt to undermine International Adoption.

On October 7, I posted a call to action from JCICS. JCICS’s advocacy — in conjunction with the advocacy of other stakeholders and concerned Americans — has resulted in at least limited success. Here is JCICS’s announcement.

Dear Colleagues,
After advocating on behalf of adoptive families for the past 6 months, Joint Council is very pleased to [...]

JCICS is urging all adoption stakeholders to actively participate immediately in encouraging USCIS to implement a policy that’s good for families and children regarding I-600A Renewals.

Joint Council and others in our field have great concern regarding the one-time renewal of I-600A approvals and the impact on Potential Adoptive Parents (PAPs). It is very clear that the authors of the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 intended to ‘grandfather’ all I-600A petitions filed prior to the date on which the Hague Convention went into force in the United States (April 1, 2007). At the time the legislation was drafted, the authors did not foresee the lengthy processing time now associated with adoptions from countries such as China and Haiti.

Sign up today (May 20) for Carolina Hope’s online education course, Domesticating Your Child’s International Adoption in South Carolina. The course will provide all the information you need to domesticate your child’s international adoption under South Carolina law.

[Update: 5/14: The date for this webinar has been changed to 5/22. Please register at least 3 days in advance.]
Are you a South Carolina family that has grown through international adoption, but you don’t feel that you can afford a South Carolina readoption at this time? Well, there’s an alternative in our state, something called [...]

Carolina Hope has achieved 1-year temporary Hague accreditation through the Council on Accreditation. This status permits Carolina Hope to conduct adoptions from all Hague countries and to do Hague-approved South Carolina adoption homestudies.

Yes, it’s old news now (six-days old!), but I wanted to pass along this notice from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services about the current status of Guatemala adoptions and adoption law. This press release is available from the USCIS website as a PDF.
USCIS Update
January 25, 2008
USCIS ANNOUNCES NEW GUATEMALAN ADOPTION LEGISLATION
Intercountry Adoptions Under the Hague [...]

I’m passing this request on from another adoption agency. If you have a friend who has faced this problem, please point them here. Personal adoption stories are an extremely effective force for policy change.
Please help me collect stories of families who have had difficulties changing incorrect birthdates on Certificates of Citizenship.
If your child was assigned [...]

[Update, 10/11/2008: Carolina Hope now offers a live online education course to assist families domesticate an intercountry adoption in South Carolina. More details available at the course page.]
The following information is adapted from the post-adoption support files here at Carolina Hope. Note that this information is directly applicable only to SC residents who have adopted [...]

On January 11 the U.S. Department of State issued a warning (dated January 9) about the status of Guatemala adoptions. (As mentioned in a previous post, Carolina Hope has put its Guatemala adoption program on hold pending new standardized procedures for adoptions in Guatemala. Of course, cases registered under the old system are still being [...]

Today the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) issued an update regarding its Guatemala 5000 initiative:

Joint Council Update
Program: International Relations Initiative
Date: January 14, 2008
Regarding: Guatemala 5000
Dear Colleagues,
As part of our ongoing Guatemala 5000 Initiative, Joint Council has maintained dialogue with USDOS and USCIS and met with them most recently on January 7 and again [...]

This morning the Joint Council on International Children’s Services issued the following announcement about newly proposed adoption legislation in the Guatemalan congress. Although this legislation hasn’t passed, this is a good step in the right direction, and it’s encouraging to adoption agencies and adoptive families. More importantly, it’s good news for Guatemalan children in need [...]

The Joint Council on International Children’s Services has posted copies of the letters sent by the U.S. Congress to Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and to UNICEF. If you participated in lobbying your congressmen to sign the letters, thank you. The announcement (and link) from JCICS are below.
Dear Colleagues,
Joint Council has posted copies online of the [...]

This morning, Thomas DiFilipo, President of JCICS, sent out this update of the Guatemala 5000 initiative. (I’ve previously blogged about this initiative here and here.)

Joint Council Update
Program: International Relations Initiative
Date: October 31, 2007
Regarding: U.S. Congressional Letters – 203 Signatures
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Through our collective efforts, the Guatemala 5000 Initiative has resulted in 203 Members of [...]

Today Thomas J DiFilipo of JCICS released an update on the Guatemala 5000 initiative, an effort to organize families with a stake or interest in Guatemala adoptions - or in child welfare generally - to advocate for a humane process while Guatemala transitions to a new adoption law. At present, there is no certainty

In a press release yesterday USCIS announced an interim rule that will govern adoptions under the Hague. The announcement, which is reproduced below (and available as a PDF here), essentially states that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has formalized the procedures that will govern international adoptions from countries that are party to the Hague Convention [...]

This article was written by Laura Godwin, Director of Carolina Hope, and originally published by The Greenville News on September 11th, 1997. Since adoption law has not changed too much since then, we thought we would recirculate this thought-provoking article to encourage lawmakers to make state laws more pro-adoption.
 
Make adoption wonderful choice, not humiliating ordeal
By [...]