Adoption Journeys Of Arizona - Planning Your International Adoption

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Trust that your Adoption Journey will result in Becoming a Parent!

Each prospective family approaches adoption with a variety of expectations. As most of you will discover there may be twists and turns on your adoption path that require courage, fortitude, patience, and a profound trust in a process that is out of your control.

Our agency's mission is to complete the goal of expanding your family. We believe that all children deserve to live in a family with parents that truly want to parent them. The astonishing joy the professionals at our agency have experienced over and over again is how truly committed prospective adoptive families are to becoming parents.

Most adoptive families spend much time in preparation on how to best parent their children. They prepare in a myriad of ways through adoptive parent trainings, reading books on adoption and child development, taking on line adoptive parent classes and from the guidance of other adoptive parents. They learn how adopting little ones from institutional or foster care settings will require a special acceptance of their child's past. Each little person will have had varying degrees of attention, care, and experiences in their short lives. This reality will in most cases require creative parenting from their new mommies and daddies.

Unconditional love and understanding from adoptive parents allows their children to validate feelings of separations and losses from their pasts; providing them with a safe harbor throughout their lives. The feelings your children will have towards you are not comparable to whatever feelings they may have about their birthparents.

You will be the parents your children will grow to love and trust. They will depend upon you for the duration of their growing years and beyond. Honoring your children’s birth circumstances, birth parents and native country can only enhance your child’s sense of origins and self.

We are committed to helping children and families grow together to have happy, fulfilling futures as “forever families.”

In 2006, 19,797 orphaned children from overseas were placed with families in the US. From the countries we work with:

Visas for Orphans	2006	2005	2004	2003
CHINA	6.493	7,906	7,044	6,859
GUATEMALA	4,135	3,784	3,264	2,328
KOREA	1,376	1,630	1,716	1,790
VIETNAM	163	n/a	n/a	382

Our Relationship With Families

The agency assists families choose their path to adoption, navigate the dossier and other requirements, and transition from being pre-adoptive parents to a new adoptive family. Throughout the journey we guide and support, with in-person, phone and email communications. We provide detailed instructions for every step.

Most importantly, when you encounter a "bump" in the road, we will be there to reassure you. Every adoption has challenges and twists; from the beginning, we want families to know that this is not atypical of the international adoption experience. It is not you, and it is not us - it is simply the nature of dealing with foreign entities that have ambivalent feelings about sending their children to families far from their nation of birth.

Post Adoption Requirements

     Many families ask why there are post adoption reporting requirements. Aren't they now the parents of the child? The simple answer is Yes. The rest of the answer is that the child's native country does not relinquish responsibility so easily; thus, part of the adoption requirement is for families to inform the foreign country as to how the child is developing.

     The "Post Placement Reports" are relatively short, about one-third the length of a Home Study. The purpose of the Report may be to satisfy the foreign country, but the benefit of the Report and the visit from the social worker should be yours.

      Adoption social workers are trained to identify developmental delays or to assist you navigate the sometimes rocky shoals of introducing a new child to the family. If you have questions or even if you have nothing as definite as a question, but have some nagging worries, talk with your social worker. If your child experiences any emotional or cognitive delays, it is better to intervene sooner than later.

     Post Placement Reports are required to be submitted in a timely manner. Late or absent reports may trigger political reactions, such as the suspension or closure of international adoption in a region or a country.

     For the sake of the future of international adoption and the welfare of thousands of little ones who need homes, please understand the importance of honoring the commitment to provide Post Placement Reports to your agency on time.

Refund Policy

Our existence is founded on the mission helping orphaned children have improved opportunities. As a non-profit organization, all of our programs provide services, and fees pay for services and humanitarian aid only. Fees are non-refundable at the time of payment. Exceptions are outlined in our Services Agreement.

All refund requests must be in writing, with an explanation of why the request has been made. The Executive Director has discretion in these decisions. If a family wishes to suspend their adoption process temporarily, that may be possible, and the majority of fees already paid will apply when they return to complete their adoption.