Haiti Family Program Update
May 7, 2015
Dear Families,
We have a short update from our legal representatives in Haiti that we want to share with everyone. If a child’s file is presented to IBESR by a crèche to be considered for adoption and the child has a living birth parent, IBESR officials will meet with each biological family considering making an adoption plan for their child. A multi-disciplinary task force will work with the family to learn about their social history and current issues. Every effort is made to keep the family unit intact. If despite education and counseling the biological family receives, they remain committed to place child for adoption, and IBESR agrees that an adoption plan is in the best interest of the child, a one month waiting period ensues. Only after a full month can a full consent for adoption be granted. After a second interview with the biological family, IBESR may choose to issue a request to the Children’s Court to issue a Process Verbal terminating parental rights and authorizing the child to be adopted.
In the case of children who are found abandoned, the child will remain in institutional care for six months in the hopes the biological family can be found or will come forward. If no family can be found, IBESR may choose to grant the crèche permission to present the child for referral for adoption. In such cases, the Mayor of the zone in which the child was born must appear in Children’s Court to sign the Process Verbal for his eligibility for adoption.
Our legal representatives have indicated that IBESER has not been scheduling birth parent interviews recently as they wanted to work on the backlog of cases and also because the director had been on leave and not available to sign the referral letters. They indicated they will resume scheduling of birthparent interviews in May and our legal representatives were informed that these will resume next week. We are hopeful that some of the children’s files presented by MDA will soon come out of IBESR so they can move forward with the matching process.
Please feel free to contact us if you have questions about this month’s update.
Tania Griasnow
Angela Jackson
Program Coordinators for Haiti program
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