[Melor]

After finally settling on an agency and nearly completing our Home Study, we were told that waits for a referral have increased from 10 months to 18 months.

We are being encouraged by our agency's social workder to find an agency with a shorter wait. She will send our completed home study to the other agency.

Any ideas????

We live in NYC.

Thanks so much for your help!!

[sak9645]

Right now, Korea's waits are increasing. There are fewer children available for adoption, overall, and Korea is also giving incentives to promote domestic adoption.

While the four Korean child welfare agencies that work with American adoption agencies each will have a different wait time, I'm not sure that the differences really will prove to be all that significant in the long run. Wait times change from month to month, and a Korean child welfare agency that is faster now may slow down in a month or two.

My feeling is that you should probably go with the agency with which you feel most comfortable. A couple of months one way or the other won't really matter all that much, in the long run.

Sharon

[tinkerbell11599]

We went with the agency that we felt most comfortable with...the agency that we felt more like a family member than a number, the agency whose social worker felt like a long lost friend that we can talk to about anything, etc. Research the agencies and see which one you feel at ease with since this will be a lifelong relationship for you and your child.

Jen

[LJR1974]

I think it's your call. If it were me, I'd look into it.

I somewhat disagree w/ Sharon. In international adoption, things change quickly. A few months can absolutely make a difference (coming from someone caught up in the Guatemala mess. According to our social worker, we were her last family to get a child out of Guatemala). I know Korea has a long well established track record, but they've changed procedures before. Personally I hate waiting. If there were an agency that was just as good that had shorter wait periods, and my social worker was recommending them to boot... I'd switch.

[teachamy]

I will PM you.

[kim0521]

Another thing to realize is that not all the agencies compute wait times the same. What I mean is that some agencies make couples wait longer to do their home study and send it to Korea, even though they are waiting the whole time. So, one agency might quote a wait time from HSTK as 6-8 months and another agency would be at 12 months. But the family with the shorter wait had to wait 4-6 months until they could file a formal application and do their home study. The family with the longer wait time might have been able to do their application and home study very quickly.

So the both the quicker and longer wait time families could have both decided to adopt at the same time, but the one who did their HSTK after officially waiting a few months will seem to have shorter referral. That is if you only look at HSTK dates.

Another thing is that some agencies require I-600A to be approved before HSTK, which makes the wait appear shorter than if you did HSTK before I-600A.

Hope that makes sense.

Kim
HSTK 5/5/08
(we were told 10-12 months for a healthy girl referral)