China: New Adoption Policies, Refunds & CCCWA’s Closure
As was addressed last Friday on our blog, the CCCWA issued a new set of adoption regulations as of December 5th that will take affect January 1, 2015. All agencies and their representatives will be in a meeting in Beijing on Dec. 18th with the CCCWA, as the Center wants to discuss their new policy changes that will begin January 1, 2015. There are many new and positive changes; however, for many of these changes, the CCCWA doesn’t provide exact and specific detail on how certain changes in some of the categories are to be assessed by agencies and there are still some areas being questioned that need further clarity. These and other topics will be address by the CCCWA during the meeting next week.
New Policies
We will be posting on the blog and sending all current China families an overview and clarification of the new policies once 100% clarity is obtained by the CCCWA on all policy changes. Some of the positive changes are items affecting net worth, income requirements, health status of the parents, single adopters, among many others. We anticipate many more individuals to be eligible to adopt in the months to come which is wonderful! Our website will reflect the new changes in the days to come as we work through all of these new policies.
New Post Adoption Policies & Refunds
There are items in the new regulations that also address post adoption and specific changes that will be taking place for families receiving a Travel Approval (TA) letter after January 1st, 2015 as well as policies noted for families who received their Travel Approval letters before January 1, 2015 and how this affects their process. There are certainly many other policy changes, outside of post adoption, that we will also outline and how it may affect each family. China families should have already received an email from our office pertaining to these items and post adoption. We will send notice of the clarified regulations to all China families who are in process and will provide refunds to all applicable families for any post adoption social worker report pre-payments that may no longer be needed due to these changes. We fully intend to refund any applicable refunds to any China family who would be due one, based on any/all new policy changes. Any applicable post adoption related refunds due to families will be processed as quickly as possible after the CCCWA’s meeting with agencies on December 18th.
CCCWA Closure Dates
The CCCWA will be closed from December 27th (Beijing time) until January 5th. During this time, the CCCWA noted that they will not accept or handle any adoption matters concerning adoption applications and document processing and Departments of Civil Affairs in local provinces will not perform any adoption registration. During this time they will also be updating their internal database that agencies and provinces use. Adoption agencies will not have access to any of this electronic system during these dates as the Center will be closing the system down during this time.
We look forward to providing clear information on all new policies after the all-agency meeting with the CCCWA in Beijing on Dec. 18th. It is very important that we have full clarity from the CCCWA in the assessment of all new upcoming policy changes that will begin January 1, 2015, before outlining all of these policies in specific detail to families. We thank you for your patience and understanding. As noted before, any post adoption related refunds due to any of our families will be processed as quickly as possible after the CCCWA’s meeting with agencies on December 18th.
We hope that you continue to enjoy this wonderful and reflective Christmas season as we reflect on God’s greatest gift to us all.