Adoption Update

The follwoing is an e-mail we received from our adoptiong agency about raising fees...it will cost us $4,435 more than we planned

Dear Families,
As you most of you know our program is growing by the day. And with such growth comes the challenge to maintain the quality of service we provide to you. But most of all it introduces a new challenge to us to ensure we are caring for the orphans who are entrusted to us by adoptive families and the Ethiopian government until adoptions are finalized.
Raising fees is never an easy task, and I know that a fee increase is just one of the many pressures on family budgets today. My hope is that after reading this letter you will better understand why, as a measure of last resort, I request the fee increase, effective November 1st 2008, to help us cover the following costs.


NEW CAPACITY BUILDING FEE BY MOWA
After many complaints by us (adoption agencies as a whole) of lower productivity by MOWA in completing adoptions, MOWA has mandated a capacity building fee so they can hire more social workers and purchase computers to process adoptions.
TRANSITIONAL HOME COSTS
Our role as an agency in Ethiopia is quite different than any of our programs in many ways. One is that we care for the children we are to place in homes. These children come from difficult situations. Some are malnourished and many get sick with common cold, pneumonia or parasites. We don’t want to merely “keep” the children until families come for them but deem it our responsibility to give them the best treatment and care we possibly could. Medical care of children, specially when they first arrive in our home is quite high. We also try our best to involve families in the child’s life long before they meet them. We send updates with snippets of their children’s milestones and pictures. We hire qualified nurses and have a lower nannies to children ratio so that the children can get a more personalized care than they would at an orphanage. We also provide transitional services such as hiring English teachers and an American Social worker to help the children adjust better. All of these things involve significant financial undertaking.
We have also found that diapers and Formulas cost quite a lot more than what we projected. This is also due to inflation in the past year and weakening of the dollar.
TRANSLATION AND AUTHENTICATION OF DOCUMENTS
The cost of dossier translation and authentication both at the department of state and Ministry of Foreign affairs in Ethiopia have gone up.

POST PLACEMENT
The Ethiopian government requires 3 post placement reports the first year of the adoption and one self report per year until the child turns 18. As the agency that facilitated your adoption, we are required to follow up with families to make sure that reports are submitted and on time. We will be charging a one time minimal post placement administration fee to cover the administrative cost.
For these reasons we have been unable to cover the cost with the current fee schedule. I recognize that this is difficult news for families, and that the increase in the cost of your adoption will impact each of you in significant ways. The fiscal situation facing the program is a critical one, and these increases are essential in order to maintain our commitment to offering you and the children you adopt the best care and services possible.
Attached is our new fee schedule. Please note the deadlines and fee structure are different depending on where you are in the process. The fee change will be in effect on November 1 2008
I appreciate your understanding, and I pledge to continue to serve you and orphans in Ethiopia by working to make the program the best it can be.
Sincerely,

Duni Zenaye
AWAA Africa Program Director

We also learned that Duni is moving to ET (Ethiopia) with her family to handle all the adoptions from there. I think this a good thing. She and her husband our both Ethiopian and I just know this will be a positive move for our agency.