[chickymum]

I am confused about something. Why do different agencies take different amounts of time for a referral? I thought the referal would be in a line up in Ethiopia no matter what agency.

[ocracoke]

Nope not like that at all.

Here is an example. My agency used orphanage X. Two other American agencies used orphanage X along with several French agencies. My dossier went to the board of directors of orphanage X and I got in line behind all those waiting for children using the agencies using orphanage X only. My agency only pulled from the children available in orphanage X.

However a friend of mine used a different agency. Her agency ran their own care center. Her dossier went to the care center and she got in line waiting for a referral behind those people already waiting. She only had to wait with other people using her particular agency as no other agency pulled from that care center. Her agency only pulled from that care center.

So your referral wait will depend on the number of children available at the orphanage/care center that your agency pulls from (some pull from more then one) and the number of clients your agency has already waiting before you.

So if you agency can process 20 children from an orphanage in a month (no idea if this is ever accurate) and your agency has 20 families waiting, your wait time will be 1 month. However if your agency can process 20 children from an orphanage in a month and your agency has 100 families waiting, then your wait time will be about 5 months. However if your agency can process 5 children from an orphanage in a month and your agency has 20 families waiting, then your process would be 4 months. Where as in China everybody gets in the same line waiting for a referral no matter what agency you are using (centralized system that does not exist in Ethiopia).

Hope that helps some.
Samantha