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.
Questions about child adoption from India
- Thread starter inishaj
- Start date
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.
Hi there, does it cost any money to adopt child ? I’m thinking same too . How can we choose what child we can choose ? Does we get any details or something?
What a lucky child. I hope the process goes very quickly and that you, your spouse, and the child have a very happy life together.
Yes there is pretty significant expense involved with both international and domestic adoption. Adoption through the foster care system has minimal expense but is very different than adopting and infant or adopting internationally.
The cost for us will be $30-40k plus an additional fee for each adopted child, especially if we adopt siblings.
About selection of the child itself - the agency we talked to informed us that age and gender are not something that PAPs can select. For many PAPs that might be a bit disappointing, but I prefer it to be that way after looking at PAPs from India who would prefer cute looking and very younger kids(harder for older kids to get adopted because of those preferences).
Once you get a referral, you'll be provided with the child's details(including gender, age, medical history, social history, behavioural report, etc). You'll have an option to accept or decline a referral. Most social workers don't pay a lot of attention while writing these behavioural reports and you'll often find these reports to be very similar and not very helpful. A part of background report is often very generic too as no one really knows what happened to a child's parents or what their real name even is.
If you decline two referrals, your seniority(rank) will be decreased(assigned a higher number).
CARA has an "Immediate Placement Category" for children, often siblings or older kids, who face challenges in finding adoptive families. They update this category weekly with 1-3 children, available for adoption by any approved PAP. As an Indian citizen, I was ineligible to adopt most of them because the combined age of my spouse and me was below 70 years. However, this age limitation won't apply to me when adopting from Canada as a Permanent Resident.
A few links that are handy:
1. https://cara.nic.in/parents/Guidelines_living_Abroad.html
2. List of countries you can't adopt from: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadians/adopt-child-abroad/restrictions.html
3. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadians/adopt-child-abroad/authorities.html
4. First generation citizen/PR consideration for international adoption: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadians/adopt-child-abroad/processes/choose-process.html
The foster care system is the system for children who are temporarily or permanently taken from their parents because of risk of abuse or neglect or previous incidence of abuse or neglect. You have to take classes and pass background checks to become a licensed foster parent. Adults can take care of children temporarily and some children may be some available for adoption or be solely interested in adoption. The goal of foster care is reunification with family first if it is possible but it is often not possible. If there are no extended family members who are able and willing to care for the children then they look for adoptive families. The provinces pay people to take care of foster children. It is certainly not a lot of money but it is supposed to cover the costs of having children in your home although once children are adopted they are your own children so you only receive benefits like any other parent in Canada. There is a tremendous need for foster parents. I believe all of the fees associate with adoption like home studies, lawyers fees, etc. are all covered when it comes to adoptions through foster care. Private domestic adoption and international adoptions are quite costly 30-40k is fairly typical although could be more and with international adoptions you have to factor in travel costs as well.Oh I thought it would be cheap. What is foster care system?
hI,
I need some information on adoption from india. I am Canadian Citizen(Naturlization) and my husband is a Spain Citizen. We want to adopt my brother- in-law's son from India. We don't know where to start. As a BC residence i tried to call BC adoption agancy to get some information but they didn't picking up teh phone and I left msgs multiple times nobody called me back.
Plaese help where we need to start.
I really appriciates your time.
I need some information on adoption from india. I am Canadian Citizen(Naturlization) and my husband is a Spain Citizen. We want to adopt my brother- in-law's son from India. We don't know where to start. As a BC residence i tried to call BC adoption agancy to get some information but they didn't picking up teh phone and I left msgs multiple times nobody called me back.
Plaese help where we need to start.
I really appriciates your time.
Duplicate. As already stated this would be considered an adoption of convenience which would not qualify for sponsorship.