Bay Area Adoption Services is privileged to be among the agencies recognized by the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) to do international adoptions from China. Since 1991, Bay Area Adoption Services has helped over 700 Chinese orphans find homes in the Bay Area.

The following are some facts about the China adoption program:

TYPES OF CHILDREN

Almost all of the children who are available for international adoption in China have been orphaned or abandoned and reside in the social welfare institutions. There will be little to no information regarding medical background or family history.

The CCAA, located in Beijing, is the governmental agency that coordinates adoptions from China and this agency makes the referrals of all children who may be adopted by foreign families. Adoptive parents can make a request to the CCAA that the child they wish to adopt be of a certain age or from a certain province, or with no known special needs. They also may request to adopt a boy. However, the final decision rests with the CCAA who assigns all children to the adoptive parents. Infants over 8 months old are available. The China authorities will not "guarantee" that all requests will be honored.

Bay Area Adoption Services is one of the agencies approved by the CCAA to seek adoptive families for children with special needs and older children over 6 years of age. For more information on this program, click here or contact our China program coordinator Xiaoqing Cai at xqcai@comcast.net.

REQUIREMENTS

• Married couples only. No singles. Agencies may continue to submit singles
  dossiers within their 8% constraints until May 1, 2007 and then the CCAA
  will not accept any more single dossiers.
• Married couples must be married over 2 years if there are no previous
  marriages. If there are previous marriages then the present marriage
  must be over 5 years. However, no more than two previous marriages will be
  allowed.
• Each parent must be 30 to 50 years old. No parent can be outside of this
  range. Upper limit can be 55 for a family in the waiting child program.
• The CCAA wants healthy parents - no infectious disease, no mental disease
  (including depression or anxiety), no blindness, and no serious disease or
  disability. No blindness of deafness, unless the applicant is applying to adopt a special needs child with this specific disability.
• Both parents must have a BMI under 40.
• At least one parent must have a stable job. Income requirement is $10,000
  per family member including the child to be adopted. * Family’s net
  assets must be over $80,000
• Each parent must have a high school education or higher.
• No more than five children in the home including the child to be adopted.
  The youngest child in the home must be over 1 year old. Exceptions will be
  considered for the waiting child program.
• No criminal record. The CCAA states: “Adoption applications will be given consideration on a case by case basis when either the husband or wife has less that three criminal records of slight severity with no severe outcomes” and it has happened at least 10 years ago. Also, the applicant must have less than five traffic law violations with no severe outcomes.
• The CCAA fees are also changing - going from $410+$100 review fee to $620+$200 review fee.

BAY AREA ADOPTION SERVICES

(BAAS) will assist families in all the necessary steps for completing a China adoption. This includes: assisting with procedures, conducting the homestudy (which is mandatory both for CIS/USCIS and the Chinese government), putting you in contact with an experienced China program coordinator and with other adoptive families of Chinese children, and conducting post placement visits when you return home with your child.

The BAAS China Program Coordinator will be your link to the CCAA which oversees all adoptions. The coordinator will translate your documents, forward your dossier to the CCAA in Beijing and monitor its progress. Once your dossier arrives at the CCAA, it will be reviewed, approved, and a child will be assigned to you. It currently takes about a month to get your dossier to China and 22-24 months to receive a referral. The program coordinator will then inform you as to when you will travel to China to complete your adoption.

IN CHINA

Once you arrive in China, you will be met by a guide who will escort you through the adoption process. This person will remain with you until you are ready to leave China with your child. You will have two travel destinations in China:

• 1) The orphanage city where your child is residing, and
• 2) Guangzhou - where you will get a US visa for your child.

TIME INVOLVED

At present, the entire adoption process usually takes approximately 24-36 months. The first 6 months of the process involves completing the homestudy and receiving CIS clearance. Then the adoptive family must gather, legalize and translate documents required by the Chinese government. The referral time frame currently is about 22-24 months after families' dossiers are registered at CCAA. The referral time frame for the Chinese American families is about 12-14 months. Once a child has been assigned, the family is expected to travel to China approximately 8 weeks later. The stay in China is about two weeks.

FEES INVOLVED

All adoptions are finalized in China -- that means they are "adopt-abroad" adoptions. The following is a general estimate of the costs involved:

• BAAS fee: ($4,600 - $5,400)
  Includes registration, pre-adopt class, homestudy, paperwork assistance, CIS support, overseas program consultation, 2 post placement visits, assistance in obtaining a California birth certificate for the child and all post-adoption paperwork. The higher fee applies if only one parent of a two parent couple travels.
• China adoption fee: ($9,000)
  Includes state certification, authentication and translation of documents, China government fees, orphanage donation fee of $3,000, visa and passport fee, coordination fee including communication with CCAA.

Internal China travel

$900 - $1,200 (approximately, per person for stay in China)
Includes hotel, China guide, trips to adoption authorities, translation services, internal travel during full stay in China. Airfare to China is additional.

Airfare to China: (varies)
Generally speaking, the entire cost of completing a China adoption is approximately $15,000 to $17,000, including the BAAS fee, all adoption processing in China and travel.

• Please note that this information is subject to change without notice as changes occur in government/country regulations and/or adoption procedures. For the latest information, please call BAAS directly.