Social Welfare Society Extends Wait Time?

Hi ommawannabe -I'm about 4 weeks into the waiting periods as well and I haven't heard anything about SWS making such a change. After seeing your post I checked with my agency and they said SWS doesn't actually give out time frames, and that the estimated wait times given by the agencies are based on the referall's they're getting at the moment. Right now that's 7 - 10 months.It would seem the only way to get such a significant and sudden jump in the wait times starting Jan1st would be to suspend the adoption program overall from January through June. Could this be something related specifically to your agency and SWS, as opposed to SWS overall?

Yes, this might just be related to our agency only. We are going through Barker foundation. All I know is that they said that met with some of the leaders at SWS and that they have been encouraged by the recent increase in domestic adoptions over there. As a result, our agency anticipates a longer waiting time for referral. And that the famililes still waiting for one after Jan. 1st will have to wait atlease another 6 more months. It really didn't make since to us either. We didn't understand how they could go from moving right along to all of the sudden tacking on another 6 months! I just wanted to see if anyone else has heard anything, b/c it doesn't make much since. I get the feeling that our agency doesn't like to get people's hopes up with thinking they might get an early referral and always go for a longer wait time. Atleast that is what I am hoping anyway. :) Thanks so much for your response.

The Korea program through all of the four social welfare agencies involved with international adoption is getting smaller and smaller. With the increased prosperity of the country and changing social mores, the number of children -- and especially healthy infants -- coming into care has decreased dramatically. And with the Korean government's increasing emphasis on domestic adoption, the number of children needing overseas families has declined sharply. The program is likely to evolve into a special needs only program. For these reasons, American agencies working with the social welfare agencies in Korea are seeing much longer waits than in the past, because there are often few NSN children available for matching. SWS is a small agency, and it almost certainly receives nowhere near enough children, at any given time, to accommodate all American families wishing to adopt healthy infants. When you look at a country like China, where the same sort of decreases are occurring, you realize that Korea's waits are actually quite short; people are anticipating waits of anywhere from 3 to 5+ years with China's NSN program. Conservative American adoption agencies, like the one you mentioned, are taking account of changing conditions. Not wanting to mislead families, and wanting to reflect what they are actually seeing, they are becoming very cautious in predicting the timing of referrals. It wouldn't surprise me if some agencies are saying that waits for referral could approach or exceed 12 months. Sharon

Hi, I'm with Barker as well. Actually the wait times start now. The fee increase is effective January 1st. We've been waiting for 3 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days (not that I'm counting...). There isn't anything stopping, they just really believe it's going to start taking longer. They're guessing, they don't know, and things can change, but they want us to be prepared. Sharon - awesome job explaining it. The increased wait is due to the fact that they've been successful in helping single mothers parent if they want, and increasing their domestic adoption. I didn't realize that SWS was the smallest but I know Eastern is the largest and they have lots of babies matched with parents who are now waiting almost a year to travel. I'd rather wait longer for a referral than wait after I have my child matched to me, kwim? Remember that they tend to give you a conservative time frame. So we can hope for sooner, but a year isn't unlikely. I'd rather have the info up front, but I'm extremely frustrated right now too. I understand how you're feeling. Hugs and hoping for sooner than they're predicting!

Actually, I'm not sure whether SWS or KSS is smaller. But clearly they are far smaller than Holt and Eastern. Sharon

Great information ladies, thank you!

Wait times are short compared to what they were 22 yrs ago when we adopted our son. We waited over 2 yrs for him and over 1 1/2 yrs for our daughter 4 yrs later! It might seem like forever to you now but you will get through it and it will all be worth the wait! I wish the past 22 years had gone by as slow as our wait times did!;)

The agencies by largeness go in order by Holt, ESWS, SWS then KSS.