Outgoing Adoption Information

The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention) governs adoptions from the United States to other Convention countries. Adoptions from the United States are often referred to as outgoing cases.

Only accredited, approved, supervised, or exempt providers can provide an adoption service in an outgoing Convention case. An outgoing Convention adoption case occurs when:

• There is an adoption of a child resident in the United States by someone residing in a Convention country; and
• In connection with the adoption, the child has moved (or will move) from the United States to the Convention country. (from travel.state.gov)

Hope International can help with outgoing adoptions in the following siutations:

• Relatives
• Adoptions from the U.S. foster care system
• Infant adoptions, when a mother has independently chosen a non-U.S. family to adopt her child

In placing a child in an outgoing international adoptive placement, Hope International:

1. Uses reasonable efforts to find a timely and qualified placement for a child within the United States before considering an outgoing adoption.
2. Gives significant weight to the placement preferences expressed by the expectant/birth parent(s) in all voluntary placements.
3. Makes diligent efforts to place siblings together for adoption and, where placement together is not possible, to arrange for contact between separated siblings.
4. Complies with all applicable requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
5. Arranges for independent legal consultation for expectant/birth parents prior to any adoption consent. We will routinely disclose to birth parents that the child is to be adopted by parent(s) who reside outside the United States, except when parental rights have already been terminated and/or it is not in a child’s best interests.
6. Gives due consideration to the child’s upbringing and to his or her ethnic, religious, and cultural background.
7. Takes all appropriate measures to determine whether the envisaged placement is in the best interests of the child, on the basis of the child background study and the home study on the prospective adoptive parent(s).
8. Prepares the child for the transition to the foreign country.
9. Requires Prospective Adoptive Parents will travel to the United States to visit and receive custody of their child.