[sak9645]

Korea is unique among the countries open to adoption, in that it requires you to use an agency licensed in your state and designated by the Korean government to place children with families in your state.

It appears that Korea developed this requirement for a couple of reasons. The main one is that it wants agencies to keep in touch with families and be involved in post-adoption support. It also wants agencies to get to know families BEFORE an adoption occurs, to make sure that they are qualified and prepared to adopt. In addition, since you do not actually adopt a child in Korea -- you get guardianship, and then do a domestic adoption in your home state -- Korea wants to be sure that agencies monitor families during the guardianship period and make sure that finalizations actually occur.

At this time, I believe that there are only two agencies eligible to place Korean children with Ohio families. You can see information on those agencies on the website of adoptkorea.com, a site developed by the Mom of a Korean child. As you probably know, each agency with a Korea contract must work with one of four social welfare institutions in Korea; the two Ohio agencies work with two different social welfare institutions, one large and one small.

Sharon