Day two

First thing that happened today was meeting Dr. Jagannath Pati, Dy. Director of CARA. He gave me a book that he penned (I don’t’ think it is released yet) recently titled “Adoption – Global perspective and ethical issues”. He didn’t want money for the book. Isn't that nice??

It has been such a long day. Listening to so many speakers and some of them are outright disrespectful of others time. They forgot the topic that is been assigned to them and promoted their own organizations.

My presentation came and went in five minutes. As mine was the last presentation and they were behind by about an hour, they asked me to wrap it in five minutes, and I must tell you I was profoundly disappointed because I have been preparing for it for so long and I had such interesting points to cover but well….life goes on.

They had a session to talk about the new draft guidelines and that had seen some fireworks. To tell you the truth, even CARA doesn’t seem to have clear idea about what is to be done on some issues. I was able to collect some information that may be appropriate for some of you.

Question: If the process is going to be centralized and CARA refers to a placement agency, what happens if the receiving agency doesn’t like the agency that’s been referred?

Answer: Enlisted Foreign Adoption Agencies (EFAA) will send the photocopy of the dossier to the CARA, which will in turn be sent to a Recognized Indian Placement Agency (RIPA). EFAA will send the original dossier to the referred agency directly. But if the EFAA doesn’t like the referred RIPA, then they can ask CARA to change it.

I have my own questions on this: When EFFA decides to change the agency, doesn’t that delay the process?

Question: What is the tentative date for the new draft guidelines to be implemented?
Answer: January 1st, 2008.

Information on donations: You’re not allowed to donate towards infrastructure of any kind but for family preservation efforts (such as foster care). Donations cannot be made for the first year after one’s adoption. Donations of any kind must be informed to CARA.

I have my own question on this: How does CARA know when someone receives a donation and doesn’t inform? How does CARA know when someone receives a donation earlier than one year?

We had an event with adult adoptees. Two are from Oregon and one from Nebraska. They had very nice things to say about their respective families. One of them is a person with special needs but people were quite thrilled to hear she say that she is a post-graduate in rehabilitation studies. Unfortunately everything was running behind the schedule, they didn’t allow anyone to ask them any questions. It was unfortunate.

RN