It seems pretty much confirmed that the SDAPRC's director Volinets (also spelled Volynets) and deputy director Balim and international adoptions director Remen have resigned.

What does this mean to someone adopting from Ukraine?

Probably not very much....

My guess is this boils down to Ukrainian politics. Volynets and Remen resigned back in December... more

Hosting means...

Family pays travel expenses for child to visit the United States. The child lives in an orphanage but isn't necessary available for adoption.

They must be registered for adoption with the Ukrainian government for 14 months. They are available only for domestic adoption during this time frame.

After 14 months the child is now available for international adoption.

And many of the children in the orphanages will... more

Ukraine is a blind referral system. The family must travel to Ukraine to receive a referral.

referral = Ukrainian government employees (SDAPRC department) met with an approved family for 1 hour to discuss specific children.

Family may not receive a referral that mets their expectations on gender, health or age. Under the old system with the NAC department, this happened to about 1% of adoptive families every year. So some families would return home without meeting a child.

2005 was an awful year. This... more

So here I am posting about the Ukrainian government body that processes adoptions again. This isn't unexpected because of the politics and the political parties.

Yuri Pavlenko, the former Ministry of Youth and Sports had his resignation accepted on November 29, 2006.... more

Based on this email, I would say that US citizens have asked for help with filing their dossiers.

40 dossiers can be filed at the SDAPRC per week.

Faciliators have to get appointments to file the dossiers. All appointments are booked for Dec, Jan and Feb 2007. And the SDAPRC isn't booking March appointments yet.

This is a very emotional... more

A person named Nat, posted a translation of SDA's recent announcement. I believe this announcement was posted on the SDA's (Ukrainian adoption authority) office wall.

The SDA asked for (according to article 252 of CPC Ukrainian law) a document that verifies a family's right to use the house. The Ukrainian government wants proof you have the legal right to live in your house.

A copy of... more

As I mentioned on Friday, Ukraine started accepting dossiers.

To make things more complex, the SDA doesn't want to deal with updating expired documents. In the past families were allowed to submit dossiers (papers are good for 1 year from creation date) and update any documents as they expire.

Now the SDA is only accepting dossiers with documents that are good for 6 months (or more).

And they... more

The answer.. NOW. They started taking them now. I just received this information from a facilitator that I trust. And I have heard from a couple other families they are hearing Dec 19 is the start date.

THEY ARE TAKING NEW DOSSIERS NOW.

The Ukraine government is still behind on getting appointments scheduled for the already approved families. So the SDA supplied the following guidance on new dossiers.

Your dossier must contain documents that are less then 6 months old.... more

Ukraine's legislature has rejected the Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (also known as Hague Treaty on Adoption or just "Hague").

ForUm has a short news piece about the voting.

I believe it was a vote against adoption agencies. Only 22% of the deputies (think of them... more

Yuri Pavlenko was dismissed (his resignation was accepted) by the Rada (Ukrainian legislature) on November 29 2006. He was the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports. All adoption processing is done under this Ministry.

Mr Pavlenko seemed to be anti-international adoption because of his focus on domestic adoption.

He was replaced... more