According to the current view, it is almost impossible to adopt a child in Russia or, in any case, extremely troublesome. Potential adoptive parents are frightened by the collection of documents, communication with guardianship authorities, and supposedly hostile attitude towards adoptive parents of employees of children's state institutions. However, if the family once and for all made a decision, adoption in Russia takes place according to a rather well-established algorithm. Of course, this will require both strength and time, and, possibly, overcoming some obstacles, but this is far from as impossible as it seems to many for some reason.
Adoptive Family Status
Often the most worrisome problem for families or single people is the question of their status, and for many it becomes a discovery that not only a couple living in an official marriage has the right to adopt a child, but also a couple living in a civil marriage, and even a single person. People with this status have no legal restrictions.
Moreover, if the marriage is registered, then both parents become adoptive parents (respectively, they both need to collect documents), or consent is required for the adoption of the spouse. If the spouses live in a civil marriage, then one of them adopts the child, and the consent of the civil spouse is not required, he will be able to adopt the child after the first spouse does, and the procedure for this will be completely different, since the child will have completely a different status (it will already be equal in rights to “native”, and a simple application and re-issuance of documents, rather than a court, will suffice).
Visits to guardianship authorities
In the event that you decide to accept a baby or a grown child into your family, first you need to contact the guardianship authorities and find out what documents for adoption you need to collect. An employee will get to know you, get acquainted with a document proving your identity, ask you to tell about your family, about the reasons for adoption, about the conditions in which you live, about your lifestyle, profession; as well as asking what gender and age child you would like to see in your family.
This meeting cannot be called decisive, it is only a preliminary acquaintance of the guardianship authorities with you. Not a single employee has the right to make any subjective decisions. However - as everywhere and always - the impression that you will make on an employee will probably play an imperceptible role in the future, since we all live in a world of people, and no matter how legal everything happens, human help and timely advice not canceled.
You will be registered as a person who wishes to become a candidate for adoptive parents. At the same meeting, you will receive a list of documents that need to be collected, they will tell you about further steps that need to be taken.
Collection of documents
Federal and regional laws are constantly being updated and changed, and the trend of their changes reflects the facilitation of the adoption procedure. Adoption in Russia involves the presentation of the following documents:
- certificate of your health, compiled in a special form;
- certificate that you were not convicted of a heavy article;
- income statement (note that the minimum family budget is calculated not from the number of people who enter it before the child is adopted into the family, but taking into account the child);
- a document confirming the ownership of the housing, or the consent of the owner of the housing to adopt a child, or otherwise. What kind of document you need to present depends on your rights to housing, and a guardianship officer is required to advise you on these issues;
- a characteristic from the place of work, which can be replaced by a characteristic at the place of residence or a response to a request to the Department of Internal Affairs;
- application for adoption;
- short autobiography;
- document proving that you have taken foster parenting courses.
In fact, to get acquainted with this list before visiting the guardianship authorities has only a “theoretical” meaning - to understand what, in principle, may be required. However, it makes sense to collect documents for adoption only after the employee gives you not only the current list of documents, but also forms to fill out. The fact is that any certificate can be drawn up not in form, and guardianship authorities have the right not to accept such a certificate - not out of their own arbitrariness, but on the basis that these documents will then be required in court, the decision of which depends, inter alia, on the correctness of the documents . Most often this happens with medical documents or with income statements.
Foster Parent Training Courses
At the moment, adoption in Russia is impossible without attending special training courses for foster parents. One of the main objectives of such courses is the prevention of the return of children from foster families to orphanages. Recently, this problem, unfortunately, has been really acute.
On the one hand, the state exercises control over that children do not fall into the hands of incapable and unprepared families, as well as families pursuing certain selfish goals. Very often, children return to orphanages as presumptuous people, and if for the family it is nothing more than disappointment, then for the child it is a deep trauma and depriving him of one of the chances of finding a family: after all, it is known that with each failure the child is less and less ready and able "Take root" in the family.
On the other hand, specialists are preparing potential adoptive parents for possible difficulties of a legal nature (first of all, the adoption procedure is being discussed), domestic, medical and, with special attention, psychological. Classes at such courses are taught by trained psychologists, qualified medical workers, lawyers, as well as adopted foster parents are invited for lectures. Of course, as in everything, the human factor plays a role in the quality and meaning of such courses, but most often future parents really learn a lot in these classes, and they can turn to these courses for psychological help and advice after adoption .
You do not need to search for these courses yourself. An employee of the guardianship authorities will issue a referral to these courses and the coordinates of the center, which, as a rule, operates at one of the orphanages. The duration of these courses may vary, depending on the frequency of meetings and the completeness of the group at the time of your request. It generally takes from two months to six months. In parallel with attending courses, you can collect adoption documents. At the same courses, you can discuss the conditions of adoption in more detail and ask all your questions.
After attending the courses and passing the final certification, the psychologist will write a conclusion about your readiness to become a foster parent and transfer him to social security, and you will be issued with a certificate of attendance at the courses.
After collecting documents
With the collected documents you need to go to the guardianship authorities again. After reviewing the completeness of the documents, the employee will appoint the day of his visit to your family - to get acquainted with the living conditions and the possibility of placing the child in these conditions. This meeting should take place no later than two weeks later, at a time convenient for you. At a later date, the employee can arrive only at your request. However, most likely, you will be asked not to allow this, since recently social security officers in this sense have been especially controlled, and their arbitrariness and delaying the dates of this meeting are over in most regions.
His visit is only formal evidence that the potential adoption of a child in this house is possible. There are no special requirements for housing; it should be just a safe house suitable for housing. A child can be adopted in a private house without amenities, and in an apartment with a modest decor, and in a family with pets. Neither the lack of sewage, nor the old wallpaper, nor the dog can be a formal reason for refusal. However, adoption in Russia is possible only if your home is safe, hygienic standards are observed in it, there are no, say, aggressive, drunk relatives, and there is also enough room for the growth and successful development of the child.
Status of foster parents
After all the documents have been collected and a social security officer visits your family, you will be registered as “foster parents”. This means that you will have the right to visit the databank of orphans. Candidates are issued a special certificate giving the right to search for a child in all regions of Russia.
After that, as a rule, future parents visit the regional data bank and register there, filling out questionnaires with their wishes for the unborn child. Columns are filled in on the child’s gender, age range, appearance, and other requirements. Then the employee acquaints future parents with profiles of those children who at this moment are in the database of this region.
It seems to many that in Russia, foreign adoption has priority and that it is almost impossible to obtain information about a healthy child without financial leverage over the employees of the data bank. However, this is not the case. Hundreds of Russian families adopt beautiful healthy babies of the age they dreamed about.
Requirements for the unborn child
It may take some time to find a child, but it all depends on the expectations of the family. Of course, if the list of requirements is long, and the family needs the child to be not only of a certain age, but also of a certain appearance, and of a high level of development, not have a single medical diagnosis and have a "crush in the heart" at first sight, it will take much longer than if the family just wants to adopt a child without serious diagnoses, say, from one to four years of age.
Of course, if you filled out the wishes in great detail and prescribed the maximum requirements, then you will be presented with a minimum of children's profiles, and vice versa. Therefore, many future parents indicate only an approximate age, and in the column “gender” underline the word “desirable” in order to be able to see profiles of children of the other sex, as they rely more on fate than on their own ideas and stereotypes. Employees of custody and a databank will tell a lot of stories about how, for example, a couple dreamed of a one-year-old blond boy, and as a result adopted a five-year-old black-eyed girl in the family.
Referral to a child care facility
Employees representing the so-called “adoption bank” have the right to show an unlimited number of profiles of children that meet the requirements of the candidates. However, future parents can take the direction only to get acquainted with one child. Then, if necessary, candidates can get acquainted with an unlimited number of children, but each time they will be given permission in the data bank to get acquainted with only one child.
After meeting the child, potential parents have the opportunity to visit him for ten days and then decide on the possibility of adoption. Only if the candidates write an official refusal of adoption, they will have the opportunity to get a referral to meet another child.
It often happens that potential parents write such a refusal, not getting to know the baby, because even before they meet with them, a conversation is held between the employees of the children's institution. For example, if they arrive at the orphanage, the adoption may be supervised by the head physician, psychologist and social worker. Candidates are provided with complete information about the child: their medical records are shown, their development, biological parents, and their behavior are described in detail. In order to avoid traumatic situations, candidates may ask to talk with the group teacher, with the teacher and, based on the current impression, refuse to meet and adopt.
Getting to know a child
Acquaintance with a child is a very quivering and crucial moment for both parents and the pupil of the orphanage. Even the smallest kids somehow understand that they are "chosen", and often get nervous, shy, worried, try to please.
At this point, of course, it is impossible to prepare psychologically. Most adults experience anxiety and stress in front of the unknown. The most traumatic thought is the thought that you will have to meet “the wrong” child who will have to refuse. Therefore, even before the meeting, it is better to find out from the employees of the institution at least about the details of the conditions of the meeting, so that you can best imagine this day and exclude as many “unknowns” as possible.
Acquaintance with the child most often occurs in the playroom, where there are many toys, comfortable furniture. In some institutions, with a child they are allowed to stay alone, in others the meeting takes place strictly under the supervision of the teacher. In some cases, you can walk with your child, in others you can only communicate indoors. In itself, the unnaturalness of dating literally constrains both adults and the institution's inmate. However, as a rule, emotions are so overwhelming on both sides that after a while everyone stops paying attention to embarrassment, and the meeting goes on naturally.
The first meeting is usually quite short. Adults and a child get a first impression of each other. This is enough for some families to make a decision, others need other meetings. As a rule, the older the child, the more meetings with him are required.
After making a decision
If everything is fine, and the parents understand that they have found their child, they either take him first under guardianship, or immediately prepare documents for the court for adoption. The court most often makes a positive decision, since guardianship officers monitor the correctness of paperwork and compliance with the adoption procedure. Sometimes in court a decision is made to postpone the hearing due to improper execution of a document.
Mystery of adoption
After adoption, the family may be saddened by the thought that a grown child may find out about its origin. Now more and more adoptive parents make a decision in advance that they will not keep a secret from the child the story of his appearance in the family, and gradually prepare him for a story about his origin. Most of them proceed from the fact that a child can still somehow find out the truth and feel cheated, and the outcome of this "deception" can be not only dramatic, but also tragic. There may be plenty of people willing to “open the eyes of a child”.
The fact is that the so-called “adoption secret” applies only to officials. Employees of guardianship agencies and government agencies do not have the right to provide anyone with information about the fate and past of a child. As for relatives, friends and neighbors, they are free from these obligations, and it is possible to hide the true state of affairs from them only if the newborn is adopted. Neighbors, colleagues, and casual acquaintances are the most reliable involuntary witnesses of our lives, and it is they who often turn out to be the culprits of family dramas related to adopted children.
It is precisely because of these circumstances that reality dictates that the family often does not rely on the moral values ​​and kindness of people and decides to save the child and himself from such interventions, independently revealing the truth to the child.
The “adoption secret” is kept only in the sense that, according to the law, employees of institutions do not have the right to give the former relatives of the child his coordinates, if he was adopted in order to insure the foster family against encroachments on the child on their part.
In general, the adoption procedure in Russia is quite regulated, and in standard cases there is enough initiative, time and patience to find and accept a new family member.