Ontario Intercountry Older children/sibling adoption

Hi Carol-Anne, I think there are families who have recieved approval to adopt older children from Haiti. I'm not sure about other countries! Hope that helps! S. sis2kensia@yahoo.com

Yes and no - our son was 3 and a bit when he came home. You have to ask for special permission while doing your homestudy to allow you to adopt children older than three due to the special needs/attachment issues many of them will have. Generally if you are a first time parent the Ministry will not allow it unless you have other qualifying factors (education in child psych., etc). Seeing as you already have extensive parenting experience you probably would not have any trouble getting approved for an older child adoption.

I heard of an Ontario family who adopted sibling boys aged 4 and 7 from overseas so it has to be possible somehow. I am interested in finding out how people were able to get around this rule and how we as an adoption community may be able to get this rule changed.

Hi kem, Like I said, it is possible, but you need to get special permission from the Ministry, and it is not a guarantee. You need to show you've done extensive research on attachment issues and other issues, and you also need the support of your SW - and many of them don't support older childer IA's.

I just received this form the director of an adoption agency in Ontario. Please PM me if you wish to know which one. "Regarding the age of children, there is no rule about it. If the social worker judges that you have the parental capacity to adopt an older child, it will almost always be accepted by the Ontario Ministry (even though it is true that they do not encourage it). The fact is that fewer children are available for adoption who are infants, and there is supposed to be an adherance to the principle of finding families for children in need, so things ARE changing."