Wednesday, January 12, 2005
And the parents wait...and wait...and wait......
Excerpts from the director of our agency...
Russia is changing the rules midstream with no regards to the children that have been referred to families. A child who was considered off the data base at the time a family traveled may no longer be considered adoptable until a total of six months in the Federal Register. Notice that I said “may” as we just do not know.
Right now the only thing that is fact is that the new law was passed. No one has gone to court to see what a judge will interpret. Russia is still on their holiday schedule so officials have not had the opportunity to meet and make any rulings. Our argument will be that we understand this law but that it should be applied to children who have not yet been referred to a family.
Many agencies will be fighting for this to be the interpretation so there will be huge pressure on this point. Understand that we will not have an answer on this in January as there will be a lot of turmoil around the changes, but we will be fighting hard with a very aggressive strategy.
Although we have heard from a high ranking official in Moscow that this will affect all children, in fact no one has been in their office to actually apply the new law; so much is to be seen when they all return.
All of you have suffered greatly while waiting for your child. The orphanages are telling us that they have never seen it like this before; it is affecting everyone. The orphanages are also being affected as they are full to capacity and are unable to take in more children and consequently the hospitals are backing up with children who cannot be released to orphanages.
We hear from each of you about your documents that may expire, about work schedules and bosses not happy with the constant changes, and your frustration with the whole process in Russia. Unfortunately the factors that are within our control are not the ones that can make this process go faster. Each of you has a compelling reason and each of you has a neighbor or friend that says it can go faster. We have two families who are very connected (name recognition in the USA and overseas) and they too have been stuck in this nightmare and have been unable to move the system faster.
Rest assured that we are doing everything that we can to get you there but we are also making sure that each child that we have placed with a family is getting whatever the orphanage director has asked for.
We are hoping to be able to break the log jam, get court dates and get your child home!
¶ 10:31 PM
Russia is changing the rules midstream with no regards to the children that have been referred to families. A child who was considered off the data base at the time a family traveled may no longer be considered adoptable until a total of six months in the Federal Register. Notice that I said “may” as we just do not know.
Right now the only thing that is fact is that the new law was passed. No one has gone to court to see what a judge will interpret. Russia is still on their holiday schedule so officials have not had the opportunity to meet and make any rulings. Our argument will be that we understand this law but that it should be applied to children who have not yet been referred to a family.
Many agencies will be fighting for this to be the interpretation so there will be huge pressure on this point. Understand that we will not have an answer on this in January as there will be a lot of turmoil around the changes, but we will be fighting hard with a very aggressive strategy.
Although we have heard from a high ranking official in Moscow that this will affect all children, in fact no one has been in their office to actually apply the new law; so much is to be seen when they all return.
All of you have suffered greatly while waiting for your child. The orphanages are telling us that they have never seen it like this before; it is affecting everyone. The orphanages are also being affected as they are full to capacity and are unable to take in more children and consequently the hospitals are backing up with children who cannot be released to orphanages.
We hear from each of you about your documents that may expire, about work schedules and bosses not happy with the constant changes, and your frustration with the whole process in Russia. Unfortunately the factors that are within our control are not the ones that can make this process go faster. Each of you has a compelling reason and each of you has a neighbor or friend that says it can go faster. We have two families who are very connected (name recognition in the USA and overseas) and they too have been stuck in this nightmare and have been unable to move the system faster.
Rest assured that we are doing everything that we can to get you there but we are also making sure that each child that we have placed with a family is getting whatever the orphanage director has asked for.
We are hoping to be able to break the log jam, get court dates and get your child home!
¶ 10:31 PM
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