I haven't allocated a tremendous amount of my writtings to the subject of agency accredidation, so today's entry may not appear as exciting as it truly is.
Some of you may know that the accredidation process in Russia has been somewhat jacked up this past year. Specifically, Russia has not reaccredited a single adoption agency since April 12, 2006. This is big for two reasons. 1. The only way to adopt from Russia is through an accredited agency. 2. The current laws mandate that accredidations expire after one year, at which point the agencies can then reapply.
Therefore, it would seem reasonable that if the Russian government doesn't figure something out here pretty soon, that all agency's accredidation will run out on April 11, 2007. (Which isn't too far away)
Well, worry no more.
As of today (December 20th) the Russian government has spelled out the new requirements for reaccredidation and is officially accepting applications. What's more is that a recent law was passed that states that Russia must let an agency know whether or not they have been reaccredited within 3 months of the application date.
Here's the bottom line: We were (somewhat) nervous that upon the expiration of our agency's accredidation (April 12th), we would experience "down time" while we wait for the unknown. Yesterday's news from Russia gives us a ton of confidence that we may experience virtually NO DOWN TIME after April 12th.
Naturally, we will always be prepared to expect the unexpected.... Nevertheless, we were very excited to hear he news yesterday.
Side Note: If you want the details, the Russian Ministry of Education website spelled out that agencies whose accredidation runs out AFTER March 15th may not apply until January 10th. (This applies to us). This is not a big deal though, because with the "3 month rule" we'll still know by April 11 whether or not they've been reaccredited. Thus, we will still avoid any lag.
I suppose the worst case scenario is that our agency would get rejected...
That would suck. Let's not go there.
1 comment:
Hooray! Hooray! What great news to hear. This adoption is SO important to all of the family that we were very excited to know that the agency accreditation process is moving forward in Russia. Those little babies are just waiting to come home and this sounds like one more step closer for the family. Now let's keep praying that your agency will receive re-accrediation - it would seem likely if they were quality enough for the previous accreditation. Thanks for sharing the news. Nannie and Poppie
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