Hello kind folks, I recently got my Canadian citizenship and I have been trying to adopt a child from India. Out of the many complexities that are there in the adoption process, I was wondering how people sponsor that child to Canada. What do Canadian immigration want to see viz, birth certificate, adoption certificate? If anyone has gone thru a similar situation, can you please share your experience? Thanks.
Me and my spouse decided to adopt instead of having kids of our own. I've been through this process(started) as an Indian citizen who was living overseas and now going to resume it from Canada. My spouse is the one that's primarily dealing with the adoption agency, so my details can be a little fuzzy.
As a Canadian citizen, you'll not be able to directly adopt a child (unlike you being an Indian citizen). The steps for adoption from India as a Canadian citizen are:
1. Go through eligibility assessment as a PAP (prospective adoptive parents).
2. Find an adoption agency - you can't directly adopt as you are not a citizen anymore. This agency will work with CARA of India.
3. Do a bunch of paperwork - In India, I did references, personal info documentation, no background checks, etc - I submitted what was maybe a book sized paperwork. But I'm told that the Canadian agency will not need that extensive (100+ page) documentation.
4. You'll go through a home study where a social worker from an adoption agency will visit your home, interview you, ask you a bunch of questions, and will verify some documents.
5. In India, I didn't go through any educational sessions from them. But my spouse told me that we will have to go through 2-3 such sessions on adoptive parenting.
6. Dossier - This is basically #3 + a bunch of additional documents.
7. The adoption agency will submit #6 to CARA.
8. You'll be on a wait list once approved as a PAP. You'll get CARA login credentials and will be frustrated by how often "Database error" shows up on CARA's portal. You'll get a number and it will indicate your level of seniority (sort of a rank) and the smaller it is, the likely you are to get a referral soon.
9. Once you get a referral, you'll be asked to make a decision very soon.
10. If you decide to accept, you'll have to land in India to officially meet your child.
11. (I think) You'll have to be in India for 2 weeks for the process to be over and then CARA will issue all relevant documents to you by then.
Since you are considering adoption, a few things to know:
1. We were observing very poorly managed adoption process through CARA. They used COVID as an excuse, but last year the courts ruled that a child shouldn't suffer because of CARA's incompetence. You can now expect a much faster adoption timeline (e.g. 1 year vs 3 years).
2. Most kids in Indian orphanages need a lot of support as the conditions in those orphanages are terrible. I met a adoptive parents of a girl child who was adopted a year ago, she used to pat the floor at night to tell her mom that she needs to use the toilet - this was simply because they were not allowed to even move from their beds during the night in the orphanage. It is just an example, but there are lots of things these kids go through in orphanages. My suggestion would be to join Fb and Whatsapp groups of PAPs, talk to social workers in India, etc to get a better idea of how to prepare for these things. If it is a 4+ year old child that you end up adopting, expect anywhere between 6-18 months of efforts behind them.
3. The queue to adopt siblings is smaller in India. Also under Indian law, siblings cannot be separated from each other during adoption. You can get a referral for sibling adoption in as less as a month upon getting approved too.