Referal Times

Couples who are CURRENTLY adopting are frustrated with the Philippines. It's not as easy as ICAB says it is...

Hi I am sure if you are only asking about relative adoptions or non relative adoptions through ICAB. I only know about non relative adoptions. After your documents are lodged to ICAB it takes approximately one month before you are approved by ICAB and put on the Prospective Adoptive Parents list which is then circulated to all the orphanages. It can then take up to 24 months to be actually given a referral of a child and then a few more months before you can travel to pick that child up. Most allocations to Australia at the moment are taking between 18 to 22 months for both boys and girls. Some are sooner though. ICAB recently issued advice to say that waiting times had lengthened and it is no longer realistic to expect a 12 month wait. We adopted our daughter who was then 2 years old. We sent our file to ICAB in May 2002. We were approved by ICAB in July 2002 and allocated our daughter in July 2003. We travelled to pick her up in Sept 2003. Things certainly do seem hard when youa re waiting. But It is so worth it in the end. RegardsTina

Hello - In regards to wait times I believe it really depends on the sex of the child, age and health history that you are requesting. Apparently there are fewer females under 24 months available thus the wait time is longer. Also, there are many children that are older and are children in "waiting" with less wait times. As for us we are in entering our 17th month of waiting. From another website, the wait times are now 18 - 24 months -- it's rare to find the wait times shorter. When we first started the process, we were told it would be 9 months since I am of Filipino heritage . . . needless to say I'm learning patience! Jennifer Dossier Sent to PI: 02/05 Approved: 02/05 Waiting for female under 36 months