How to Use This Blog

A Wayfarer is a person who is traveling through......life, a particular place, a circumstance, a stage of life, etc. Let's walk the road of adoption together. The journey is so much better with company!
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Much of this information is useful for any adoption, but this blog is designed to be a
RESOURCE BLOG for ETHIOPIAN ADOPTION.
I hope this blog will be helpful to you in your adoption whether you are considering, waiting or home. I started this blog when we were adopting and found there was next to nothing on the web in any orderly manner. I set about to collect information for myself and then for others. Now, there are more sites for resources, but still not much that brings it all together. I hope this blog will serve as a sort of clearing house for Ethiopian Adoption Information. Please feel free to contribute your knowledge through commenting.
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You can search by topic in three ways. 1. Go to the "key word" tabs on top and open pages of links in those topics. 2. Use the "labels list" in the side bar or 3. use the "search bar" above the labels list. You can also browse the blog by month and year in the Posts section or in any of the above as well. The sidebar links are to sites outside of this blog. While I feel they provide good information, I can not vouch for each site with an approval rating. Use your own discernment for each. If you have more to add to the topic, please add it in the comment section of that page or post.
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Welcome to the journey!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Process in Ethiopia for court and embassy, etc.

This was posted on a parent group and came from an adoption agency. It is great information on how court works and the process you can expect in general on the Ethiopia side. It is very much like what I know to be true and so I have decided to post it here for the masses of waiting parents to peruse to their own encouragement and edification. :) I have added the first section for further clarification.

Your dossier is sent to Ethiopia
The staff working with your agency will translate your dossier into Amharic. Your paperwork will wait to be attatched to the dossier of the child you are referred. Once referral is made the dossier of the child is attached to yours and it then goes on for the rest of this process.

Obtaining a Court Date
After a family receives a referral, it could be approximately one month or longer before your documents are filed for a court date. Keep in mind that no officials have received or reviewed your dossier in Ethiopia until you have accepted a referral. After you have officially accepted your referral is when dossiers are processed in order to obtain a court date and approval from the Ministry of Woman's Affairs (MOWA) and the Ethiopia Federal Court. After the required dossier documents are submitted for a court date, it could take another month to receive that date. Once the date it given, the actual court date is approximately 2 months later. These timelines are not set in stone and can be longer or slightly shorter, but this is a general/approximate estimate of the timelines, and what we are seen in several cases.

The judge in the Ethiopia Federal Court assigns court dates and dates are given based on her schedule; keep in mind also that other agencies families are waiting on court dates as well, and there could be upwards of 70 families waiting for a court date on any given day. Typically the time frame from referral acceptance to travel for the 1st trip is 3-4 months. Each adoption case is individual and can look very different in regard to time lines, therefore you cannot solely rely on what another family's time frame has been. It's a good base to use, but not as an absolute guideline to how your process and time lines will go. There are many things that are out of the control of our Ethiopia in country staff and is completely in the control of the federal court or other entities processing various steps for the adoption once your dossier is submitted. The key here is to remain flexible and to know that it is the process.

Waiting for Visa Interview Date
Once your adoption has been approved in the court, there are many things that have to take place before you can be issued a visa interview date.

The adoption decree has to be created. Again, one judge writes all of the adoption decrees. This could take 1 day or 7 days – depending on the judges schedule.

The child's birth certificate has to be created. This could take 3 days, or sometimes more
The child's passport has to be created. Could take up to 7 days for this to be completed

Child has to go for a visa medical, and children 2 years old and over are given a TB skin test at the visa medical.
If it's determined that the child tests positive for TB, the child will have to return for a chest x-ray. If active TB is found, the child will have to remain in country for a extended period of time for more testing and treatment.

All of the documents obtained after the court approval must be submitted to the US Embassy 2 weeks before a visa interview can be held.

After documents are submitted to the US Embassy, a review is done on the child's documents and the parents I-171H cable and home study and the officials decide if any further investigations are needed into the background information of the child. If so, this could delay confirming a visa interview date as the embassy officials will have to go out into the region of where the child was relinquished or abandoned to conduct such an investigation and it could take, a couple of days, a couple of weeks or even months.

Tentative visa interview travel dates that families receive after court approval are not confirmed by until the US Embassy has let us know that everything is complete on the family and child. That is generally approx. 1 ½ weeks prior to travel, if everything goes like clockwork.

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Disclaimer

The content on The Wayfarer:Ethiopian Adoption Resource Blog is for informational purposes only. We are adoptive parents, but we are not professionals. The opinions and suggestions expressed here are not intended to replace professional evaluation or therapy, or to supersede your agency. We assume no responsibility in the decisions that families make for their children and families. There are many links on this blog. We believe these other sites have valuable information, but we do not necessarily share all of the opinions or positions represented by each site, nor have we fully researched every aspect of each link. Please keep this in mind when visiting the links from this page.
Thank You.

A Links Disclaimer

I post a lot of links. I do so because I feel that the particular page has good information and much to offer. I do not necessarily support all that each site has to say or promote. I trust you to sift the links for information you feel is worthwhile to you. Each person's story and situation are unique and different things will be useful or not useful to each one in different ways. Please use your own discretion when accessing links and information.