Bless This Child, Inc. is a fully licensed, 501© (3) non-profit adoption agency.
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Who Can Adopt In Russia? (Requirements of Adoptive Parents)
. . . The Russian Government recognizes that many types of people can make wonderful parents. Older parents, single women, and families with children already in the home are welcome. Adoptive parents must meet the following specifications:
- no child or domestic abuse in your background
- no extensive criminal history
- have no drug/ alcohol problems or mental illness
- over 25 years old
If you have a question as to whether you might be accepted or not because of some special circumstance, please feel free to call us and just visit with us about your concerns. We will be happy to answer your questions.
Children Available
. . . Children from the ages of 8 months to 12 years old are available for international adoption from Russia. You are able to choose the age range of the child(ren) you would like to adopt.
. . . For the first 8 months a child is in a Russian orphanage, they are available for adoption only by Russian families. In an attempt to increase domestic adoptions and ensure biological siblings are adopted together, the Russian officials have created a national computer listing of children available for adoption. Once 8 months have passed and the children still have not been adopted, they are released from the Central Data Bank and available for international adoptions.*
. . . In addition to the age, you are also able to specify the gender, hair and eye color of the child(ren) you desire. We will submit your request and when we have a referral for a child who most closely fits your desired description, we make arrangements for you to visit the child(ren). This is a great advantage of our agency working in so many different regions. We can allow families to have a variety of choices so that a perfect match can be made.
. . . * We do not recommend reviewing the Central Data Bank in search of potential children to adopt. The website is in Russian because it is only availble to Russian citizens. Please also note that we cannot choose children from the Data Bank and we have no ways of confirming any information of children on this list.
Adoption Process
The Russian adoption process is not at all difficult if you work with an experienced, reputable agency. There are basically 4-steps to the process before you select the child.
After you have been accepted, we will begin to take you step-by-step through the adoption process. The caring staff in our office will help you through each of the remaining basic steps.
The steps might sound challenging at first, but with our help they are really quite simple.
Selecting Your Child
Once the four basic steps of the adoption preparation have been completed, you proceed to the fun part of the process! You are ready to receive a referral of a child. We take the information regarding your preferences from your home study and the questionnaire you filled out, and locate the region we believe have children that most closely match your request. Then we present your file to the Russian officials and they assign a child to us for you to consider. A medical report, information available about the child’s background, and a picture or video of the child is then provided to you. You can review the information and take the medical report to an international medical specialist for an opinion on the child’s health. We can provide you with a list of experienced medical professionals that do this type of review for adoptive parents all the time. There are professionals located across the country who are familiar with the medical terms that will be on Russian medical reports. If you decide this isn’t a child you are interested in, you can call us and decline the child. In this case, a letter is sent to the Russian officials and they send information on another child for you to consider. The process repeats itself until you select a child you would like to visit in Russia.
Travel to Russia
When you arrive at the orphanage, you will spend some time with the child and if desired, talk to the child’s caretaker, the orphanage doctor, and the orphanage director. You can ask questions and they will share all they know with you about the child. Even at this stage you are not locked into any decision. You are simply gathering information to further consider the adoption of this child or children.
A point of interest concerning the adoption is that even after you get to Russia, if for any reason, you are not pleased with the child you have selected, there are other options. As stated before we do not wish for adoptive parents to adopt any child they are not completely sure they can accept into their home and community. Our staff would work with the Russian officials, and all involved would do their best to help you locate another child from those available, that you could feel comfortable adopting. The children are not told in advance that you have selected them, just in case something like this arises. If there are no children in that Russian region that you feel comfortable adopting, the option of moving to another region is available (with permission from the officials in the second region). This is yet another benefit of our agency working in multiple regions.
Two trips to Russia are required for every adoption. The first usually takes about 4 to 7 days depending on which region of Russia you travel to. One of our representatives will meet you when you arrive at the airport in Moscow and you will be taken care of every step of the way from there. We will make all the arrangements for in-country transportation, which includes drivers, translators, hotels and any other services you will need for the adoption process. We will take care of your needs until you are on the airplane to return to the United States.
The members of our staff in Russia are very experienced and will make sure you are taken care of and where you need to be. They are some of the most experienced and finest professionals available in Russia. We can truly say that we work with some of the most respected adoption professionals there. In fact, some of our people have been involved since the beginning. They have been helping Americans bring wonderful babies and children into their lives since the government opened the Russian adoption process to United States citizens. The members of our staff know the adoption process inside and out, the officials involved, and what will allow you to have a successful adoption experience.
We believe parents appreciate having as much information as possible from medical professionals regarding the health of every child being considered. This is an issue of particular concern to some people and we want every parent to feel as comfortable as possible with their adoption. Therefore, we offer some additional optional services for those that wish to have these services. If you would like to have a local, independent physician do an examination of the child while you are in the orphanage, to provide another medical professional’s opinion, we can help you make the arrangements for this service. If you want to go even one step further, you can have an American or Canadian trained doctor fly from Moscow to the region and examine the child while you are present. These are optional services that we will be more than happy to assist you with arrangements for, if you desire. Again, our interest is just to make sure that you adopt the child that will most comfortably fit into your home and community. We want to provide you with as much information as you wish to make the best decision for your situation and for the child involved.
The second trip is normally 4 to 12 weeks after the first trip and is 5 to 10 days in duration. The Russian officials, depending upon the court date set by the regional judge, set the date for the second trip. Again, we will arrange everything for you. You will go to court with one of our experienced professionals and you will come away parents of a new baby or child! Once you have received the official documentation of the judges ruling, you will fly back to Moscow and be processed through the American Embassy and the Russian Consulate for registration. (This will be finishing the paperwork you started with the US government when you started the adoption process!) Again, be assured that one of our employees will guide you through every little step. It is not difficult or complicated at all because our staff will be right there beside you. They will guide you and tell you exactly what to do and when. Your child automatically becomes a U.S. citizen the moment he/she crosses the border and comes into the United States.
About Russia
Russia is a country about 1.8 times the size of the US occupying the vast area between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean. It has an area of 10, 672,000 sq. miles and a population of almost 150 million people. Occupying a large territory in Europe and Asia Russia is spread over all climatic zones except tropical. It takes over 8 hours by plane to reach from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.
The country possesses a wide array of natural resources including major deposits of oil, coal, natural gas, many strategic minerals, diamonds and timber. The economic zone along the 23,533 mile long coastline (Arctic and Pacific Oceans, Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas) holds significant reserves of fish and oil and natural gas on the sea shelf. Most of the country has a so called harsh continental climate characterized by a big difference between summer and winter temperatures. Average January temperatures range from 0 to minus five degrees Centigrade in Western European Russia to minus 40-50 degrees Centigrade in east Yakutia ( Sakha Republic). Average July temperatures range from plus one degree Centigrade on the northern Siberian coast to plus 24-25 degrees Centigrade in Russia's CisCaspian lowland. Some 150-2,000 mm of precipitation fall annually on Russian territory.
Russia is a multiethnic society. The largest ethnic groups include Russians (81.5%), Tatars (3.8%), Ukrainians (3%), Chuvash (1.2%), Bashkir (0.9%), Byelorussians (0.8%), Moldavians (0.7%), etc. Over 80% of the population name Russian, the official language of the country, as their native tongue. Other languages are used in ethnic minority regions. Russia has equal religious diversity: with the main religions being Russian Orthodox Christianity and Muslim overall over 150 confessions could be found across the country.
Administratively, the Russian Federation is divided into 21 republic, 6 krays (federal territories), 2 federal cities, 49 regions, 1 autonomous region and 10 autonomous areas. The capital of the Russian Federation is Moscow. With a population of 10 million, it is the largest city in the country. It is also the principal economic and political center - the seat of the President, the government and the State Duma (Parliament).
helpful link - http://www.russianembassy.org
Fees & Expenses
. . . The adoption fees for a child vary based on the age of the child. Except for most twin sets, the adoption fees for more than one child are substantially less than completing two separate adoptions. Additionally, there are reduced fees in some cases when a special needds child is involved.
. . . Please contact us for our fee schedule and list of expenses. We can also provide you with information about how to finance your adoption.
