|
We asked lots of questions about this when we were in Russia almost a year ago. Fortunately we had a WONDERFUL facilitator who was happy to share with us (so long as no one else was listening). I'll try to explain this the way we understood it as short and simple as I can.
The American agency has an in country facilitator. That person is sort of the gate keeper. This person will do all of the communications back and forth with the American agency. Under this main person are in region facilitators. This is the person who has the connections and can help make things happen. Much of what happens will depend on this individual (pray this person has some good relationships). Under this person are more of the worker-bees. Think of the worker-bees as the translators, the "facilitator" assigned to your case, driver, those who take care of documents, etc. There seemed to be a chain of "facilitators". This last one was the actual person who walked us through the process while we were in country.
If you are in a region that your regional facilitator has good relations then things might move a little smoother for you. Not much different than here. You know, the thought process of it's all in who you know. People will help you more if they like you.
That regional facilitator is the one who sends the information about your child to the person who actually speaks with your American agency. So, the individual speaking with your agency only knows as much as the regional facilitator has told them.
Our facilitator who walked us through the process (our worker-bee) does this with several different "agencies" in Russia.
The best way to explain his job is the way he walked us through our process. He received our paperwork and went around to all of the differnent places before we got there on our first trip to make sure that everything was in order (our dossier) for us to travel. This could take up to a months time (just for our one case). Once everything was straight he told the regional faciliator who told the big guy to call and have us come. Sometimes they can give more warning because the way their workload is going but other times the paperwork might all fall into place faster than expected. Just like working with documents with our government. After we arrived and did all of the in-country meeting of the child and signed that we wanted the child he sent us home to so he could get back on the paperwork trail. This was mostly petitioning the court for the adoption and waiting for a date. During the wait time he would start the process for another family or bring another family back into country for court. Sometimes working the time frames out could get a little tricky. Once they received the court date we returned. Again, sometimes they might get a good notice of when court would be and sometimes a few days. Similar to our own legal system. When we returned for our three weeks he spent that time working with us to complete all of the documents along with visits to the child. Keep in mind there is LOTS of paperwork. During that three week time he worked only on our case. He told us that is why they were starting to send some families home during the non-waved court time. It allowed them to move forward with another family.
After we left he would pick right back up with another family. This would be whoevers paperwork was ready for court or a first visit. They went right down the list.
He told us that there is so much that goes on behind the scenes that we don't see. So much in trying to get paperwork completed. Keep in mind that they still do a lot of paperwork by hand and every office doesn't have a fax machine. This means driving documents around town. Anyone who has been in Moscow can tell you that sometimes you can walk somewhere faster than you could drive.
This is just how it was explained to us when we were in country. I know it's confussing. It took a lot of questions for us to piece it all together. I can't say it's the same for every agency but from what he told us, this is how many work.
DH and I said that we wished someone would have explained this to us while we waited. Just to understand what is going on can help the process be a little more bearable.
Do hang in there! Your day will come! I remember thinking I would do all of my paperwork just right because I wasn't going to be hung up in these messes everyone else got hung up in. WRONG!!! EVERYONE gets hung up in them and there isn't one thing you can do except dream and wait.
|