Our Poland Adoption Program

Children’s House International received our renewal license from Poland and we are now excited to assist legally adoptable children find loving US homes. Our program will be focusing on children with medical needs, older children and sibling groups. These children come from orphanages and foster homes.

CHI has had experience working in Poland since 1997. This is not a pilot program. We are happy to have been able to assist many children from Poland find their forever family in the USA.

We happily accept all qualified families, however, many families come to us with Polish heritage.

Poland is a Hague Treaty program and CHI is a COA/Hague Accredited agency, approved to assist you through the process. If you would like to be considered for the program, a pre-application is available to help us assess your family situation in view of the Polish requirements. Our goal is to make sure this is a good program for you from the beginning.

Adoption Forms and Fees

For more information including our application, agency retainer agreement and financial agreements and statistical information on: the number of adoption placements per year for the prior 3 calendar years, the number of placements that remain intact, the number of families who apply to adopt each year, and the number of waiting children eligible for adoption, click here.

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com

Adoption Process

The steps below gives a quick overview of what is required:

• Apply to Children’s House International Poland Program

• Submit approved home study

• Apply for I800A CIS approval

• Begin compiling Polish Dossier (file)

• Obtain Apostile seals on Dossier Documents (see CHI for direction)

• Your home study and CIS approval along with complete dossier must be sent to CHI and we will then send your file to Poland. Two to three weeks after your completed adoption documents are sent to Poland, the commission will contact Children’s House International with family approval. Referrals can come anytime after that. Waiting children referrals can be immediate; non-waiting children referrals may take 18 months or longer depending on the characteristics of the children desired.  Shorter referral times most often occur when families are open to older children, large sibling groups or special needs children.

• Once a family decides to accept a child, the I800 process must be initiated. Families cannot travel until that process has been finished and the family is notified that they may then travel to Poland.

  Families are required to be in Poland approximately 6 weeks. This can be one long trip or two short ones. If a family opts to stay for the entire adoption process they will maintain custody of their children. During the 6 weeks the family will meet the child and appear in court. The majority of this time the family is living and bonding with the child.

Please see “travel” for information regarding information on the trips required and details.

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com

Children Available

Children Waiting For Families:

Polish children are available in our program between the ages of 14 months to 14 years old. This includes both boys and girls. The majority of our referrals at this time are for older children and children with medical needs, and sibling groups. The children may be living in loving and supportive foster care families or in orphanages depending on their level of need.

Children are available for adoption because of poverty, inability to parent a child with special needs, abandonment or rights having been severed by the Polish courts.

Two Programs

Families can decide to adopt a child already waiting. In these cases, the children generally are children with a physical, mental or emotional and developmental challenge. There are also older children and sibling groups of three or more waiting for qualified families.   We have information on waiting children; please contact us for information.

Families can also decide to send their dossier in and wait for a healthier referral. At this time due to the very active domestic adoption program only children over the age of 8, sibling groups and children with medical or developmental challenges are available for placement.

A referral is accompanied with a medical history and pictures of the child, if available. The family is encouraged to seek professional medical opinions on the referral information of the child. Once a referral is presented to a family, they have 2-3 weeks to make their decision. We will then inform the government in Poland about their decision.

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com

Adoptive Parent Requirements

While your adoption journey may begin today, adoptive parents should understand that adoption is a lifelong commitment. A successful homestudy plays a vital role in helping on your preparation to become adoptive parents. Our trained and caring professionals’ respect your confidentiality was we work together to educate and create an accurate portrait of you as future adoptive parents. The home study is an invaluable first step toward parenthood.

Approved Home Study

An approved home study preferably completed by a Hague accredited agency social worker who will ensure that all of the Poland requirements for families are met in the home study process. The home study begins with adoptive parent education and a thorough evaluation of your family that will include several background clearances, medical evaluations and financial stability. Your home study is foundation on which USCIS and in country approvals for international adoption are based. They enable adoptive parents to learn, reflect, and prepare for parenting. It involves opening your hearts, minds, and home to a social worker through a series of meetings and gives you the opportunity to ask all the questions you may have as well.

USCIS Immigration Approval

USCIS immigration approval is required for all international adoptions (this includes an FBI fingerprint results). Poland is a Hague Country so the I800A form should be used. This approval allows your newly adopted child to receive a VISA from the US Embassy and enter the US and become a citizen.

Polish Government Requirements:

• Single women are allowed in some areas of Poland for special needs children.
• Parents must be 25 years of age or older
• No more than 40 years difference between the child they wish to adopt
• Parents must be married at least 5 years prior to adoption
• Parents who have been divorced in the past will not be allowed to adopt from Poland
• Families with Polish heritage will have preference over other foreign families
• Two trips are required for a total of 4-5 weeks stay in Poland
• I-800A CIS approval
• International Home Study approval
• A list of other documentation will be provided upon entering the program
*Rules regarding age difference between parents and child, birth order, and length of marriage are general, and are flexible for children with special needs.

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com

Travel Process

Parents will travel 2-3 days before the first hearing, to meet the child and have ‘First Contact’ with him or her. The “First Contact “the Adoptive Parents will travel to the town where the child resides, and will have a meeting at the local Adoption Center. During this meeting parents are informed about the health situation of the child, his/her physical and psychological development, prognosis for the future and so on. Usually a representative of a local Adoption Center, psychologist, medical doctor, educator, and legal guardian of the child are present, so the Adoptive Parents can ask them questions. The Polish side will also ask some questions – just to get know the family. Parents will then go directly to the orphanage to see the child. They will be able to spend the rest of the day with the child, and visit him/her in the orphanage over the next few days. A representative of the Adoption Center will prepare the opinion regarding your First Contact with the child, which is then submitted to the court.

After this process, the first court hearing takes place and the Judge sets a trial/waiting period, (usually 2 weeks). The second hearing date is set for the end of that trial period.

The Judge may decide that the first hearing is a closed session, which means you do not take part in the court. In this case the Judge will send our agent formal information about the trial period (when and how long it is going to be) and the date of second hearing.

During the trial/waiting period, parents will stay at the hotel or in an apartment, if possible.

In case of an adoption of a small child, Adoptive Parents are allowed to take the child for the entire trial period, on the condition that at least one of the parents will stay in Poland for the entire trial period.

If at least parent does not intend to stay for the entire trial period, they are allowed to visit the child and even take the child out for the entire day. However, Adoptive Parents must bring the child back at nights.

In case of older children in orphanages, the situation is more flexible, because older child can understand that parents go home and then will come back in a short period of time. For a small child it would be difficult to understand why she/he has to come back to the orphanage after spending 2 weeks with mom and dad.

During the trial period, the Adoptive Parents and child are visited, (usually twice), by a professional appointed by the Judge (this is usually a representative of local adoption center, or a social worker), to evaluate the parent-child contact, and prepare a report for the Judge.

At the second hearing Adoptive Parents are asked about their final decision regarding the adoption. (Until this time parents have the right to change their decision, and stop adoption procedure). If Parents say “yes” they want to adopt this child, they officially become the legal parents for the child. After the second hearing, the Appeal Period begins (14 or 21 days, depending on judge’s decision), and the Adoptive Parents may go home.

Our agent will receive the court’s final decision, and the new birth certificate from the Registry is given, based on court’s decision, (we will need appropriate POAs signed by the Adoptive Parents for this).

Second Trip

After the Appeal Period the Adoptive Parents will travel back to Poland to apply for passport and visa for their Adoptive Child. They will have to fill in a passport form, and both parents must sign it in the presence of the passport office worker. If both of the Adoptive Parents are unable to return to Poland, one of the parents may apply for the passport, if they have a Power of Attorney from the spouse who could not travel.

When the passport is ready the parents can pick it up from the passport office. Once they obtain the passport, they need to take the child to the medical doctor appointed by the Embassy. The parents can then make an Embassy appointment for the American visa.

The second trip usually takes 8-12 days: passport procedure takes 7-10 days (depending on the passport office), and the doctor appointment and visa appointments take about 1 day.

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com

Waiting Children

Please contact CHI directly for information related to waiting children. We have many that we can discuss with you. Please call Nina: 360 383-0623

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com

Country Facts

information taken from: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/poland-facts/

The largest country in central Europe, most of Poland is low-lying, with woods and lakes. Unlike many of its neighbors, Poland has only a minuscule minority population. Poles as a nation are unified by the Polish language and a common religion—Roman Catholicism.

Buffered by the Baltic Sea in the north and the Carpathian Mountains in the south, Poland enjoys no such natural protection to the east and west. Nazi Germany invaded in 1939 and built the Auschwitz concentration camp, where 1.35 million Jews and more than 100,000 others were murdered. After World War II, Joseph Stalin seized a chunk of eastern Poland for the Soviet Union.

Communists took power in 1947 but did not win Poles away from Roman Catholicism. In 1980 soaring prices and tumbling wages spawned Solidarity, the Eastern bloc’s first free-trade union. In 1989 Solidarity swept Poland’s first free elections in more than 40 years and began moving the U.S.S.R.’s largest, most populous satellite toward democracy and free enterprise. It was the first Eastern European country to overthrow communist rule.

Faced with triple-digit inflation, Poland in 1990 introduced a bold economic reform plan. It developed a market-oriented economy and joined the European Union in 2004. Poland joined NATO in 1999, and it increased its profile on the international stage by joining the U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq. A Polish-led international force, including 2,400 Polish troops, took over responsibility for south-central Iraq in September 2003.

Population:

38,163,000

Capital:

Warsaw; 2,200,000

Area:

312,685 square kilometers (120,728 square miles)

Language:

Polish

Religion:

Roman Catholic

Currency:

Zloty

Life Expectancy:

74

GDP per Capita:

U.S. $9,700

Literacy Percent:

100

More interesting links:

• http://www.poland.pl/info/information_about_poland.htm
• http://www.iexplore.com/world_travel/Poland/Information
• http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/poland.aspx

For more information email: inquiry@chiadopt.com