ICBF Question

While some families with ICBF may get a quicker referral than others, it is usually not 6 months quicker. Perhaps 1 or 2 months, this depends on the region you are assigned to. Here is a little tidbit I learned about the process. When a region --let's say Boyac cause I love it -- has a child 0-12 months become available for adoption, they send the paperwork to the National Office. The National office then sends 2-3 family dossiers back to the region for consideration. Once the dossier is sent, that family stays in that region until they are assigned a child. Now, you can quickly see that dossiers are going to pile up and the 2-3 families that are sent for consideration are not necessarily even reviewed for placement of the child they were sent with -- because the regional office may already have a dozen older dossier files that they need to choose from first. Typically they pull out the oldest 4-5 files and review them when deciding whom to place the child with. This is where Colombians have an advantage, because they are always considered for each child until a palcement is made. This is where timelines can become shorter or longer. There are cases where the adoption committee doesn't pick the oldest file for a child because they feel, for example, the 4th oldest file is a better match. There are people that wait at the top of the pile for several months without a referral because the committee doesn't feel the children they have available are a good match. If it gets to a point where no child has been assigned and the family has been at the top for a while they can reassign the family to another regional in hopes of finding a better match. ( I think that might have happened to people in our group). ICBF is really diligent about finding good matches. They look at your requests, your physical characteristics, the child's characteristics, the child's needs, etc. We actually got a call from the regional office where we had been assigned while the adoption committee was meeting on a case -- a child that would turn out to be our son. The psychologist had written in our son's file that he would do best in a two parent home where the mother did not work. They called to confirm that I would continue to be a stay at home mom after placement -- that is diligent!! They wanted to make sure that he would be in the best environment for him. At our integration appointment, I spoke with the director about the call, she said that she had never had a psychologist write that in a report before so they were very happy that our papers crossed the adoption desk the same week his did. For me this all adds up to -- you get the child that is meant for you no matter the time frame. But, you need to be prepared for a long wait and then happy if it turns out to be shorter than you thought it would be. I originally posted this message a few months ago. Today, there has been some changes and now the wait at regional offices is much shorter. I am not sure how they have changed the system, but I will find out and let you know. However, I do not think that this will impact overall timeframes, just the time that you actually wait in Region. All timeframes can be shortened by requesting a waiting infant. If you agency doesn't have a waiting child list, or if you would like to request a child with a specific problem, you can write a letter personally to the ICBF director and ask if a child/infant with ______ is available.

Thank you so much Sumerce. That was a great explaination. I am so happy to hear that they really consider your requests and the needs of the child. For some reason I have had a hard time wrapping my brain around all the little nuances. I now feel like I have a better understanding of the process. Thank you for that!

Also, were you informed when you were sent to a region? Or not until you actually received the referral?

Depends on your agency. As an independent adopter, I knew everything within a day of it happening. But, I get the impression that agencies are not as quick in distributing information. I'll give you an example. On the day ICBF assigned us a child, we knew and had a scanned picture sent to us. We also knew that another US family got a referral -- we didn't know who they were or what agency they were with or anything about the child they had been assigned other than we knew that 2 infants 0-24 months had been assigned and we got one of them. I waited for the the family to post expecting them to be in COlombia picking up their child at the same time that we were. We travelled with in 10 days and had our child. About 2 weeks later the family posted that they had received their referral -- I assume some of that time was spent translating their referral. But, we were well into our court wait by the time they arrived in Colombia. So, I am not sure if agencies let you know that you are assigned a region or not. I am not sure how quickly they inform you of referrals. That is a question to ask your agency.

We were told the very day that our paperwork was sent to a region. Matter of fact, we were told before our colombian worker even knew WHAT region. She just knew that it had left the central office and had to wait to receive word on which region it was sent. there was a same day fax to our agency who in turn sent us an email (we were out of town at the time) telling us that our paper work had left the central office!!! Our referral was the same, there is just a few hours time between faxes and scans and our offical "you're parents" phone call. i think many times agencies will wait a few days to offically translate the paperwork for families. My agency said that they'll call as soon as they've read thru the paperwork and tell the families the basics. since I speak spanish however, they went ahead and faxed the information that ICBF sent. it was hard to read because it had been faxed and/scan several times before it made to my husband's fax machine at work!