Timeline of expedited program from CB

Hi Jiulu and Hong Yan "Echo",

If you are like most of us, you are preparing for a holiday season. Our kids club met Wednesday night and made gingerbread houses. There was a lot of interest and enthusiasm in this project! There are holiday parties and informal gatherings of parents and children going on everywhere. There are also many couples and families who long for their homes to be more full this Christmas season as it is a time of year that brings out strong emotions whether they are of joy, peace, loss or pain. We are thinking of you as well this season.

The Bridge has been busy. The Board of Directors has established four new committees under the strong leadership of Mr. Carlos Martins. There is a marketing/ communications committee, pricing committee, operations committee, and program committee. I want to acknowledge the very hard work of all of our Board volunteers since the AGM. There have been many evening meetings and a lot of passionate discussion as well as behind the scenes hard work. I also want to clarify that Loyde Henriques continues as a Director on the Board and provides ongoing historical perspective. The board is presently interviewing for the position of Treasurer. Thank you to those who have been generous in their decision to apply and offer time to The Children’s Bridge. This really is a team effort as we face the challenges inherent in international adoption and work to help you form your family.

The best to all of you from The Children’s Bridge Board and staff as you also think about your own families and traditions this winter season.

Cathy Murphy’s telephone extension has changed. You can now reach Cathy at 613-226-2112 ext. 6 (formerly ext. 4) or cathy.murphy@childrensbridge.com

We were very happy to receive referrals in the office last week for Group 256 (Ontario families only) as well as 3 expedited files. Congratulations to these families!

The CCAA matched up to and including February 23, 2006.

The expedited families are in Groups 262, 288 and 290.

We send families a Referral Booklet and Travel Guide approximately 4 months prior to anticipated referral. Sometimes it’s hard to predict a referral, particularly for our expedited families, so the timing on your receipt of the above may not be exactly as mentioned.

Please ensure your home study updates are completed in a timely manner. If you do not have a current Ministry approval and a referral arrives for you, your travel could be delayed.

I’d like to wish everyone a happy holiday!

We have 28 families actively in process for our Waiting Children Green Stream online process. Two families are returning from China this week. We welcome home the Grignon-Jacobs and Maloney-Sieben families!

The Meaklim and Chardon-Warman families are in China and have received their daughters. They arrive home next week just in time for the holidays!

The Children’s Bridge continues to receive individual files through our WC Program. Dr. Lawson and the CHEO team are currently reviewing our 10 new children’s files and preparing pediatric reports. Many thanks to Dr. Lawson and the CHEO team!

The Children’s Bridge continues to have access to a larger number of children’s files in the online “pool” from the CCAA.

Families who are just beginning the WC Program will be waiting on the callback list for approximately 6 months to 1 year and then be in process for approximately 1 year in the active WC Program before receiving their proposal/referral. Families must be approved by their provincial government to adopt through the WC Program.

Once a family receives their child’s proposal/referral, they will wait approximately 4 months until receiving the Letter Seeking Confirmation from Adopter and Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC) from the CCAA and then 6-8 weeks to travel while we await the “Notice of Travel” from the CCAA. It is approximately 6 months from receipt of child proposal/referral to travel/home.

There are exceptions to this timeline (i.e. statutory holidays and additional paperwork requests from the CCAA) that can delay the processing of your file in China.

Families who are already logged into the mainstream China program will move faster depending upon how long they have been in the mainstream China program. Our most recent families have taken 4-5 months from the time they have received their child proposal/referral to time of travel (or 1-2 months off the timeline).

We are hopeful that we have found a family for the 7-year-old girl with cleft lip and cleft palate in our Waiting Children Program. This is wonderful news!

The dates for the next China trip are March 6 - 21, 2009. The deadline for registration is January 23, 2009.

For further information about this trip please contact Darlene Catton or Brenda Bruce.

Homeland Visit – Yangzhou – March 14 – 21, 2009

The Children’s Bridge, The Bridge of Love Adoption Service (BLAS) and Yangzhou CWI are pleased to present

“Love Across Thousands of Miles, A Trip Back to Homeland”
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Yangzhou CWI’s launch of its adoption program and completion of the new children’s building

The activities include a visit to the matching room at the CCAA in Beijing, a calligraphy lesson at BLAS, a tour of the Great Wall and Forbidden City and then off to Yangzhou for the next 4 days.

The celebration is to have a special focus on the children who have been adopted from Yangzhou in the hope that the children will become more familiar with their hometown traditions and local culture.

The party in Yangzhou will include a grand welcome ceremony for your children, a visit to the CWI to learn about its development, a trip to Canal Scenery Belt and Slender West Lake. Your children will be invited to taste traditional foods, visit and play with waiting children, plant trees and make everlasting friendships. Your children will be honoured guests at the anniversary ceremony that will be attended by representatives from the government in charge of Adoption Affairs, TV crews and friends of the orphanage.

Below is the Bridge of Love Adoption Service’s complete itinerary. The last day to register is January 22, 2009.

To register for this wonderful journey, please complete a registration form and send a non-refundable down payment of $125.00USD per person. This amount will be deducted from the final total. Final payment is due February 22, 2009.

To obtain a registration package or for more information please contact:

darlene.catton@childrensbridge.com or brenda.bruce@childrensbridge.com

Yangzhou CWI Reunion Activity Itinerary
March 14 Arrive in Beijing, check in at hotel, balance of day at leisure

March 15 Tour of the Great Wall and visit Olympic venues

March 16 Morning Learn tai-chi at a local park, visit CCAA and a welcoming party at BLAS Travel
Afternoon Visit Tian’an Men Square and Forbidden City

March 17 Fly to Nanjing and drive to Yangzhou

March 18 Morning Welcome Party at Yangzhou CWI, visit the orphanage, and view adoption files

Afternoon Anniversary ceremony, play with the waiting children and make dumplings at the orphanage

March 19 Morning

Have local food for breakfastVisit the Canal Scenery Belt and fly kites

Afternoon Visit Slender West Lake and Daming Temple and Yangzhou toy industry which is very famous

March 20 Morning
Visit Ge Garden, learn paper-cutting and get local featured clothes or souvenirVisit Yangzhou University and go shopping at a local market

Afternoon Farewell ceremony at Yangzhou CWI and plant trees

March 21 morning

Drive to Nanjing and fly to Beijing
Afternoon Fly home from Beijing.

Option to extend your trip in China

Costs:
In China fees: Adult: $1,060.00USD per person double
Child: $960.00USD per child extra cot
Child: $795.00USD per child sharing bed

The price includes: 4 star hotels in Beijing and Yangzhou (including breakfast), airfares from Beijing – Nanjing – Beijing with airport taxes, activities as per itinerary, lunch and dinner daily, bilingual guides, bus service and special souvenirs.

Price does not include flights to and from your home city to Beijing or trip extensions. We estimate flights to be $1,400 - $1,800CAD per adult (economy) and $1,000-$1,300 per child (economy).

We have families in various stages of the process from waiting for Ministry approval to waiting for referral. CAFAC (and therefore CB) families are waiting approx. 8-14 months for proposals. If you are interested in learning more information about our Ethiopia program, foster home in Ethiopia or CBF projects in Ethiopia please contact me.

Four families have received Letters of Invitation from Hai Duong. These four families will travel to Hanoi the first week of January 2009. Congratulations are extended to the families! The families had been waiting with their referrals since the first week of September. From referral to Letter of Invitation has been anywhere from 2-4 months. This timeline remains unpredictable.

Eleven families are in waiting without children's proposals in our Vietnam program. We are hopeful that we will receive referrals in January or February from Hai Duong and Binh Thuan. As soon as we have new information we will send out a memo.

Travel Notices

Two of our families returned from Korea this past week. It was such a joy following some of their blogs. We wish them a BIG WELCOME HOME!

Our quota for this year is now complete.

Citizenship – IMPORTANT
An IMPORTANT reminder to families to please send me copies of your child’s proof of Canadian Citizenship. Once the adoption is finalized you can then apply for this. Please email me or fax me a copy of the large Citizenship Certificate and both sides of the Citizenship Card. WITHOUT THIS THE SWS CANNOT CLOSE YOUR CHILD’S ADOPTION FILE. I have many outstanding for families who finalized adoptions in 2007 and 2006. If you have forgotten to send me copies please do so.

How does the Korea quota work? Is it based on referrals or travel?

As I mentioned in past updates the quota is not based on number of referrals but based on the Korean government approvals of placement of children to be adopted abroad. This approval happens just before the baby's travel visa is issued and there are a limited number of visas issued each year by the Korean government. Ours is a minimum of 30. To date, for this calendar year, the Korean government has issued 30 placement approvals and 30 visas were issued. Our quota for this year is now complete. The Children's Bridge and the SWS do not have any influence over when the Korean government issues these approvals so that a travel visa can then be issued.

Visa Waiver Program for anyone traveling with a Korean Passport to the US
Looks like a B2 Visa is still required for entry into the US when travelling with a Korean passport. This process applies to Korean children adopted internationally as their passports are not biometric.

IMPORTANT: The Korean passport must be a Biometric Passport for eligibility for the VISA Waiver Program. These passports started to be issued in mid 2008. This does not apply to our children http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea_passport

Travelling with your child outside of province (by air) or outside of Canada and Fee for Statutory Declaration:
If you are travelling with your child outside of province (by air) or outside of Canada before the Adoption Order is issued you must request a notarized Statutory Declaration from our agency one month before travel. We have now implemented a $75 (+gst) fee for this service as it is determined to be a special request being that not all families require it. An invoice will be emailed to families with the Statutory Declaration Information Sheet that must be completed.

Income Tax Return and filing adoption expenses
A reminder to families that we strongly recommend claiming adoption expenses the year that the adoption is finalized. For example if your child’s adoption was finalized this year, you can claim expenses in the tax return you will file for the year 2008. The reason being is that CB issues receipts at the beginning of each year for adoptions finalized the year before. Example, if your child’s adoption was finalized in 2008 you will receive the receipt in early 2009. You can claim up to $10,000 in expenses and it is strongly recommended that you provide receipts (i.e. Adoption Practitioner expenses and agency facilitation fees).

chul-goh-un sung-tan-chul twe-se-yo (Merry Christmas in Korean).

One family is currently in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The Children’s Bridge is currently reviewing the Kazakhstan adoption process and the process in each city. If you would like to give input to this process please contact Anjali. Your feedback and suggestions are most welcome.

Congratulations to our two families who recently received their referrals from Chandigarh (northern India) for older children. They are in the process of completing their paperwork. The families will travel to India after the court designates a date for the adoption hearing.

CARA is going to begin processing all international adoptions and has a new computer system to assist with this process. We will wait to see how this affects the process. We thank all of our families for their ongoing patience as the program is evolving in India.

Thailand has a new Prime Minister. Pen had this to say about the news: "Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of Democrat Party has become the 27th Prime Minister of Thailand on Monday morning (Thailand time). He is the opposite side of the old regime". Hopefully this will bring some calm to the country now.

We are still waiting to hear news on two referrals. Hopefully the news will arrive before the holidays!

We currently have 12 families in process and 26 families on the callback list.

Our new Waiting Children program has space if families are interested in this option. Families would be able to send their dossier to Thailand in 2009 and the current timeline for this program is approximately 2 years.

As a reminder, some examples of what are considered to be special needs in Thailand are: cleft lip/cleft palate, club foot, strabismus (eye conditions such as crossed eyes), metatarsus adductus (foot deformity), reactive airway disease, cardiovascular/congenital heart disease, hearing impairment and visual impairment. Also potentially more serious special needs would be speech delays (we would have to investigate cognitive delays), children of incest, HIV positive birth mothers, alcoholic or substance abuse by the birth parents. For further information, please contact me.

I'd like to wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season!

AdopTALK parenting seminars are being held in the following cities over the coming months.

Ottawa, Ontario – February 14 and 15, 2009
Toronto, Ontario – April 2009 (date to be announced)
St. John’s Newfoundland – April 2009 (date to be announced)
Fredericton or Moncton New Brunswick – May or June 2009
Western Canada (Alberta or Saskatchewan) Spring 2009 (date to be announced)

Post Adoption Follow Up Calls
You will be contacted by one of our pre and post adoption services team 2-3 months after arriving home in Canada. The purpose of our call is to touch base with your family and see how your child and family are doing. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to touch base before this time.

Ottawa, and GTA Kids Klubs (for boys and girls between ages 6-12 years) - flyers for our winter activities will be posted on our website. To register please download a form.
Our various Parent Groups for 2008 are on our website. Please check the website for your local Parent Group. We must have a minimum of 10 participants to host a group.
Families in Waiting are encouraged to attend our Parent Groups (minimum 10 participants) and Families in Waiting events. With the longer timelines we encourage you to get involved and gain support from a great network of families! Please check our web site at www.childrensbridge.com

Playgroups for winter are now being posted to the website at www.childrensbridge.com

Lunar New Year
We wanted to give any families who celebrate the Lunar New Year with their children a head's up that The Children's Bridge will no longer be hosting a Lunar New Year Party in the GTA or other cultural events. For families with children from China, FCC Toronto is hosting a Chinese New Year Banquet on Sunday January 18th. If you are interested, you can contact FCC Toronto for more details.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
The Children’s Bridge family camp will be hosted in September 2009. For more details or to sit on our volunteer committee please contact our Pre and Post Adoption Services staff. To learn more about our first inaugural camp please read The Children’s Bridge September Newsletter available in the member’s section of the web site.

http://www.childrensbridge.com/members/nlarchive.html
UN: cbridge
PW: memb001

Like you, Children’s Bridge is not immune to spam. Because most of our email addresses have been exposed on our website for several years, our email addresses are on hundreds if not thousands of bulk email lists. As email is a vital communications tool at CB, in the past year we’ve taken steps to combat the problem. One small part of our strategy was to change all of the employee's and board member's email addresses.

While both the new addresses and the old addresses will currently work, the old addresses will be disabled on December 31, 2008. Below is a list of staff and board members and their email new addresses. Please take a moment to update your address book.

Employees

Karyn Bakelaar
Ethiopia and Jamaica Program Manager

karyn.balelaar@childrensbridge.com
Brenda Bruce
Travel & Referrals Coordinator

brenda.bruce@childrensbridge.com
Darlene Catton
Coordinator China Program, Post Adoption Services Coordinator

darlene.catton@childrensbridge.com
Nana Clarke-Okah
Administrative Coordinator Nepal, India and Kazakhstan

nana.clarke-okah@childrensbridge.com
Tracey D'Aviero
Bookkeeper

tracey.daviero@childrensbridge.com
Sandra Forbes
Executive Director

sandra.forbes@childrensbridge.com
Maria Fulford
Adoption Program Manager South Korea

maria.fulford@childrensbridge.com
Vito Longo
Reception and Administrative Support

vito.longo@childrensbridge.com
Kate Maslen
Director Children’s Bridge Foundation

kate.maslen@childrensbridge.com
Cathy Murphy
Director of Adoption Services, WC Programs and Vietnam Program

cathy.murphy@childrensbridge.com
Donna Paonessa
Coordinator of Events and Program Manager, Thailand

donna.paonessa@childrensbridge.com
Nick Paonessa
IT Consultant

nick.paonessa@childrensbridge.com
Anjali Viegas
Adoption Program Manager India, Nepal and Kazkahstan

anjali.viegas@childrensbridge.com
Board of Directors

Carlos Martins
President

carlos.martins@childrensbridge.com
Krista Shibata
Vice President

krista.shibata@childrensbridge.com
Young Lee
Past-President

young.lee@childrensbridge.com
Jennifer Rodman
Secretary

jennifer.rodman@childrensbridge.com
Gail Carruthers
Children's Bridge Foundation Liason

gail.carruthers@childrensbridge.com
Tina Dayes
Director

tina.dayes@childrensbridge.com
Tracey Lafreniere
Director

tracy.lafreniere@childrensbridge.com
Wladyslaw Kinastowski
Director

wladyslaw.kinastowski@childrensbridge.com
Jason Goncalves
Director

jason.goncalves@childrensbridge.com

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