May 2007 FTIA Newsletter - It's A Busy Summer

Keith M. Wallace

First, I want to remind everyone about our Celebration of Children Reunion to be held Saturday, July 28th in Indianapolis, Indiana. You will be receiving an e-mail within a couple of weeks advising that our online registration is ready. We look forward to seeing you at the reunion!

FTIA is taking over another licensed international adoption placing agency, Special Additions, Inc. (SAI) out of Kansas and Missouri. This is occurring at the request of SAI because of the illness of their Executive Director. We were honored to be asked by SAI because they are also COA accredited and have very high standards. I have known SAI’s Executive Director for years and she has been a leader in adoption advocacy. SAI should be fully part of the FTIA team by the end of May. However, there is a tremendous amount of logistics involved. The impact on FTIA families will not be noticeable since SAI is a much smaller agency. For SAI families becoming part of the FTIA family, although there will be a few changes, it should not affect the timing of their adoptions.

Several years ago, myself and our former Director of International Adoption Programs, Tina Ji, created another 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization named Childvision, because of our concern for older children who were aging out (forced to leave) orphanages because of their age. While in orphanages, the children very, very rarely receive any education, job skills or life skills training that would prepare them to survive once outside the orphanage walls. This year we hope to expand Childvision’s activities, so we are having the first annual FTIA/Childvision World of Hope Gala including live and silent auctions on Saturday, November 3, 2007, in Indianapolis, Indiana. You will receive information through the US mail in the next 30 days about the many ways you can participate.

Many of you know the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (The Hague) will be fully implemented by the U.S. early next year. This summer FTIA will be going through our Hague accreditation process. Since we are already COA accredited, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. But, there will still be a lot of work involved.

In addition to all of the above, there is the long China wait for referrals, anxiety in Guatemala because of change in the adoption process likely to occur within the next year, frustration with Russia because of the slow pace of re-accreditation, and much more. As you can see, there is a lot going on for FTIA and our team. We expect to maintain excellent service for you during this summer, but hope you are patient with us during this busy time.