Post Placement

People are quite often surprised to learn that there is yet more paperwork that needs to be done after you have traveled to adopt your child and bring him/her home. It's definitely not the shear amount of paperwork that you do leading up to the adoption, but it's a decent amount. In the state of WI where we live, we have post placement paperwork for 6 months after receiving the child as per the state. We need to fill out a small questionnaire/report each month for six months as well as have our doctor fill out a form each and every time the child visits a doctor for any reason during those first 6 months whether it's for an illness or simply a check up. We also need to meet with our social worker to discuss how things are going at month 3 and month 6. At this time, after the 6 months have passed, the social worker helps us to fill out the correct forms and use all of the information she has gathered from the reports and meetings from the last 6 months to apply for adoption finalization (re-adoption) in the state of Wisconsin. Some people choose not to do this because the adoption is fully legal and binding from the court system in Colombia so it's not really necessary as far as the adoption process goes. We always choose to do it though because there are benefits. The biggest benefit is that the child will be issued a Wisconsin recognition of birth certificate. Though it may seem silly to get this when the child was not in fact born in Wisconsin, it just makes things a lot more convenient down the road. When we or our kids need a new copy of their birth certificate for any reason (register for school, apply for marriage license, etc...) it's a heck of a lot easier for us to go to our county court house to get a new copy then to try to get one from the county they were born in in Colombia. It also makes the application for a social security number down the road a lot easier too and thus applying for a US passport down the road as well.
Now there is also separate post placement paperwork requirements for Colombia in addition to the Wisconsin requirements. For Colombia there is a longer report/questionnaire to be filled out every 3 months for 18 months. Along with this report they also request 5 pictures of the child only (no other family members) to show that the child is growing and doing well. Again the adoption is in no way hinging on these reports. The adoption is legal and binding from the court system in Colombia once we singed sentencia. The main reason for the reports back to Colombia is that the orphanage staff and directors truly care about, love and have genuine concern for all of the kids and really do want to see how they are doing:) I also think there is some element of them reporting to the ICBF officials about how the children they placed are doing in order to keep their license/ability to maintain an adoption program, though I don't know the specifics. The following are the photos I choose to send for Altons 6 month post placement:) Handsome little man!


After the 18 months of post placement report are done, you don't need to maintain any further contact if you don't wish to. I do though. I still send information back to the orphange once a year for Athena and will for Alton. Just a photograph and a short letter saying how she's doing-what types of things she likes, activities she's involved in, how she's developing. I figure after the gift of family that they have given us, it's the least we can do to let them know that the kids are amazing and doing wonderful:)