Hosting Program FAQ

Advocate for Orphans is not an adoption agency.  Our focus is to advocate on behalf of orphaned children, promote the positive impact of adoption with American families, and provide opportunity for families to interact with these children through seasonal orphan hosting programs throughout the U.S.

HOSTING PROGRAM FAQ

What is required to be a Host Family?

Host families are required to complete:

• A host family Application Form – This form collects information that helps us in discussing your desire to participate in our program.
• A Hosting Agreement – Families are required to comply with some guidelines for participating in the program. Those details are presented in this document.
• Background Check – A criminal record check as well as a state child abuse clearance is required. The record check and clearance is usually performed by one of three providers, depending upon your location and the amount of time before the program begins.
• The three sources for the background checks are the FBI, the local sheriff’s department, or Accufax. The estimated $50 fee per adult in the home is paid directly to the FBI and the sheriff’s depart. In some hosting program areas, another service, Accufax, is also used for the background check and can be completed by submitting a form by fax to our office and paying the $50 fee charged by Accufax.  In some cases, clearances through other organizations (church volunteer, government, or law-enforcement professionals) can be used by submitting a reference letter from that organization.  When a family decides to adopt, the record check by the FBI can be used to fulfill one of the homestudy requirements. Specific directions for obtaining the background clearance for your program can be obtained by contacting the local Program Coordinator.
• Families will also need to schedule a one-hour home-readiness visit and safety check with a local Hands of Hope representative. If a family is intending to adopt, the home-readiness visit will sometimes be conducted by a staff member of our local homestudy partner for the program. This visit is arranged through our office.
• Orientation Meetings – One or two orientation meetings are required before the program begins to help families prepare for the hosting experience.
• Online Hosting Course – Last year an online course became available that has provided a convenient way for families to learn about what to expect from their Ukrainian camper. The cost to enroll in the online course is about $40.

 What if we’re not in a position to adopt but want to help?

• There are many ways to help us “create an opportunity for every child to find their forever family”. Sometimes there is a need for a “non-adopting” family to host a child for an Out of Town family. This is a great way to serve a child and a family! We call these families “Advocate Families” because they advocate for the child and open their homes to visitors.
• There are opportunities during each program to provide host accommodations for the adult Ukrainian escorts. Ukrainian and Russian-speaking families make especially hospitable hosts and can really help our adult guests enjoy their time in the evening and weekends when they are not helping with the day camp.
• Lastly, there are volunteer positions that provide opportunities for participation and service. Complete the online “Registration to Host and Help” on the homepage of our website, note your interest in participating as a volunteer on the form, and you will be contacted with details.

What are the costs to participate as a Host Family?

• The Hands of Hope program is unique in all of the United States in that no application fee or hosting fee is charged to the family, even though a full day camp program is provided! There is the fee paid for the background check (about $50 per adult in the home) and for the child’s food and activities during their visit. Other hosting programs charge $350 to $500 for an application fee and require the host families to prepay the travel costs for their hosted child ($1,500 to $5,000). The Hands of Hope program is structured to enable interested families to easily engage with us in considering if adoption of one of the visiting children is a fit for them. We assume all the risk financially for the travel costs for bringing the children here. We are excited to be able to create the opportunity for families to meet these adoptable children!

What if we want to participate in the program but live outside the local area?

• There are two parts of the reply to this question, one addressing the short term opportunities for this spring and the other answer addressing a longer horizon of time.
• In the short term, one opportunity that is open to families outside the local commute radius of 45-60 minutes from the day camp locations is that you can participate as an Out of Town family. This mode of participation compromises the hosting program experience for the interested family, but still creates an opportunity for the child to meet a family. You can read about details of the program via the link on the homepage on the website. In short, the child you select is hosted by an Advocate (host-only, not adopting) family closer to the day camp location and your family visits the day camp by making the commute or relocating with friends or in a local hotel for the first few days of the program so you can have the time and opportunity to assess the child you are considering. Our Out of Town program grew out of an unexpected experience in January of 2003 when 10 out of 24 children were adopted by families from outside our area! This unusual method of meeting and considering a child can work for you too!

How old are the children?

• The children who participate in the Hands of Hope programs are between 6 and 12 years old. Sometimes a sibling older than 12 participates. Children younger than 6 aren’t permitted by the Ukrainian officials to travel outside their country.

What is the process if we meet a child in the program whom we want to adopt?

• Host families are asked to make their intentions known by a certain day of the program, at which time an adoption services agreement is executed and fee paid. For summer programs where the children visit for three weeks, families have seven days to make an assessment. Our spring program will provide five days before we will ask for a decision.
• After the children return to Ukraine, families gather their paperwork and submit it to Ukraine to initiate the court proceedings over there. Once a completed dossier is sent to Ukraine, families can expect to travel 6 to 8 weeks later.
• If families already have their homestudies completed, they can travel sooner.

What if the child we are hosting isn’t a “fit” for our family?

• Our focus is on creating an opportunity for each child to meet their forever family. If a child is not a “fit” for their hosting family, we want to shift gears and introduce them to other interested families while there is still time during their visit. Some families have been able to make that determination in less than two days and the child was moved to the home of another interested family. Host families can consider other unmatched children and there is movement of children to other host families after the first decision point of the program.

My spouse and I are both in our early 50’s. Can we adopt one of these children? What about suggested lower age limit?

• Families with spouses in their mid-fifties have successfully adopted children in the 9-11 year old range. One family already has six grown children and ten grand-children! Ukraine is flexible regarding age of the spouses for older children. Ask us to assist you in assessing your situation if both spouses are over 55 years old.
• For spouses under the 35-year old suggested minimum, please discuss with our team your specific situation. Ukraine considers many factors.  We can help you assess the possibility of having your adoption petition received successfully.

What if we’re going on a family vacation during the program? What options are open to us?

• Our day camp program provides a wonderful support network for our hosting families. There are group activities and translators to help with communication. When families break the day camp routine and don’t have access to the translator support, stress levels can go up for the child and an otherwise pleasant hosting experience can turn sour. This kind of request from a family requires individual assessment and premission from the guardian who travels with the children. Unfortunately, a visiting child’s adaptability and ease with all the transitions here can’t be evaluated until they arrive and are observed for a few days. Some children can do fine with all the changes and the language obstacle.
• What we have found to be a successful option is for the child to be hosted with another family for the duration of a host family’s absence. This situation also deserves individual assessment because the timing of when the family is absent during the host program occurs is critical to the consideration. Families must be present in the local area during the first week of the program in order to be able to make the decision about adoption.

What if both of host parents work during the day?

• Most of the several orphan hosting programs around the U.S. put the burden of entertaining the visiting child upon the host family. Without a structured activity program like the one provided by Hands of Hope, the hosting families must either create their own plan for the visit or enroll the child in a local YMCA or other youth program during the day. Both solutions are costly, isolate the child from his familiar peers and language, and place the burden on the family to create a memorable visit. Hands of Hope’s day camp program offers weekday care from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. so that families with working spouses can easily participate! 

What do the children do during the day?

• One of the unique elements of the Hands of Hope program is a structured day camp program for the children from 9-4 p.m. during the weekdays. This day camp provides a day care solution so families with working spouses can participate, plus a wonderful, organized setting for the visiting children to enjoy their time with us. By gathering together each day, the children see their friends and their escorts and continue to speak in their Ukrainian language. That familiarity helps them adjust and feel secure. The activities that are part of the day camp program provide meaningful and memorable content to the days. The mornings are filled with structured sessions for craft projects, learning English, songs and dances, and playing games. In the afternoon, there is usually a trip to a nearby park or swimming during the summer. Several days during the program are dedicated to full-day excursions in the area: the zoo, beach, children’s park, etc., depending on the specific location of the camp and time of year. There are translators present at the camp at all times to help with communication. The children are picked up by their host families at 4 p.m. happy and, sometimes, tired!

Why do the children have to go back to Ukraine?

• The children visit the U.S. on a visitor’s visa that expires in 30 days. Both the Ukrainian government and the U.S. government expect the children and adult visitors to return according to international guidelines. The visitor’s visa provides the opportunity for the children to visit interested families. A permanent stay with a family requires much more extensive paperwork to be completed and a formal adoption proceeding in Ukraine.

How long does it take to complete the paperwork and travel to get our child?

• There are two parts of the answer to that question. The first part of the paperwork is completed by the family and is comprised of a homestudy and Ukrainian documents.
• The homestudy satisfies the adoption requirements of the U.S. government and the family’s state of residence and is prepared by a licensed homestudy agency. The homestudy involves several meetings with a licensed social worker, collection of documents, and completion of a narrative report on the family’s readiness to adopt. From start to finish, homestudies can take between one to three months. Sometimes unexpected difficulties are encountered that require additional time to collect documents or financial reports.
• Permission from the U.S. immigration service is required to bring an adopted orphan into the country. A family’s homestudy is presented to the BCIS and an FBI background clearance check is completed, something takes 8 to 12 weeks.
• The Ukrainian documents include about 20 documents that meet the standards of the adoption authorities in Ukraine. These documents are completed with the assistance of the Advocate for Orphans team and can usually be gathered within a couple of weeks after the children return to Ukraine.
• The paperwork phase done by the families (homestudy and Ukrainian documents) can be completed in about 2-5 months typically. Families can get their homestudy portion completed BEFORE the children arrive and effectively cut their time-to-travel by a couple of months. This is highly recommended!!!
• After the collection of documents (called the dossier) is sent to Ukraine, the dossier is translated, sent to the local adoption officials, and court filings are initiated. Families can expect to travel four to six months after presenting their dossier for translation.
• The first visit to Ukraine can take about 17 days. Ukraine recently instituted a 10-day waiting period after court before children are released. Families can return to the U.S. or stay and continue to visit the child. One parent may complete the paperwork at the end of the waiting period.

Do both parents have to go to Ukraine?

• Yes, the Ukrainian government requires both spouses to appear at the court proceeding. After the court appearance, one of the adopting spouses can return to the U.S. and one spouse can complete the exit process at the U.S. Embassy.

Why are these children in orphanages?

• The economic conditions in Ukraine are difficult and families suffer from poverty and stress. In an informal analysis of the group of 29 Russian children who visited here in our Winter 2003 program, half of the children were without living parents, one quarter were birthed by unmarried women, and one quarter had been removed because of abuse or neglect in the home. Not all the children in orphanages are adoptable. The formal severing of parental rights occurs by a court decree, then the child must be placed on a Ukrainian national database for adoption consideration by Ukrainian families. After two months on the national registry, the child can be considered for adoption by foreign families.

How probable is it that we could host a young child under 7 years old?

• That depends on the roster of children in the group and it depends on your place in the list of interested families.
• Every group of children is different! Typically, one third of the group of children is siblings, one third of the group is boys and one third is girls. Our foreign partners look for the youngest children available, then they form a group from likely candidates.  Many factors affect the formation of a group – we rely on our Ukrainian associates to identify and assemble the groups. The Adoption Adventure team then screens the group to best conform to our standards (age, gender mix, siblings, health, other issues, etc.).
• Your place in the list of interested families is established by the date and time that you register on our website and submit the form (“Register to Host and Help” link accessible on the home page in the upper left corner). The list of interested families is assembled for each program and ranking is assigned based on concrete criteria: date of registration and whether a homestudy is started.  We ask families to identify several children they would be satisfied with hosting and considering for adoption. Then the matchups occur by simply starting with the family at the top of the list and matching them with the available child they identified on their list.

Do sibling groups participate in this program?

• Siblings groups do participate in the program. Fewer families are willing to consider adoption of sibling groups. That means that if you are interested in adopting two or more children, you may have a higher probability of being matched with a sibling group of your choice. In some cases we require hosting families to participate with us in the financial risk of bringing a sibling group over by helping to pay the travel costs. The contribution by the family to the travel costs are applied to the fees a family would pay if they decide to proceed with adoption of the siblings.