Adoption Requirements and Fee Changes

Still no referral. Since our dossier is now aging, we are being asked to update some of our documents and have been told of the requirement that we spend a day in a Moscow clinic for evaluation by a team of Russian doctors in various specialties to report on our health.


This is a news article extract from a few weeks back:

On May 11, 2006, the Ministry of Education and Science called a meeting in Moscow with ccredited adoption agencies to inform agencies of new requirements and law revisions.

Every adoption agency must register with the Ministry of Justice as an international, non-governmental organization (NGO) under a new law that was passed by the Russian Duma, the legislative body, in April.

Because the guidelines for NGO registration are new, the Ministry of Justice has not clearly defined the requirements.

Article 268 in Russia describes requirements for agencies assisting in international adoption. A decree with revisions to this article is waiting for a final approval signature before taking affect. The revisions will most likely provide specifics regarding the submission of post-placement reports, length of accreditation, requirements of the new NGO law, etc. Because these are only revisions to an old law and not a new law, the Ministry of Education hopes that the decree
will be signed within the next two months.


This is an extract from a letter we just received from our agency informing us of fee increases:

Although the Russian government provides funds to the orphanages, their contributions never cover all the costs of providing the necessary medical care, food, clothing and building maintenance needed for the children. Due to inflation in Russia, the current donations and government support the orphanages receive is not enough to make ends meet. Therefore, the orphanages look to humanitarian agencies such as Hand in Hand to assist them with the increased funds necessary to provide for their needs. Some of the things we continue to provide the orphanages are water filtration systems, new windows, toys, drapes, carpets, linens, food, medicine, as well as total refurbishing of the buildings. Many times our coordinators are also required to pay for the costs of medical testing for the children prior to adoption in order to rule out common diseases such as Hepatitis and HIV, as the orphanages do not have the funds to do this.