North Bay Adoption

From http://www.wco.com/~nbadopt

The Agency

North Bay Adoptions is a private, non-profit international adoption agency, licensed by the State of California since 1991. We offer pre-adoption education, homestudy, and post-placement services to residents of 11 Northern California counties: Napa, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, Yolo, Lake, Colusa, Alameda, Mendocino, Marin, and Contra Costa. We also serve as a facilitation agency for families who live outside those 11 counties. We are able to assist families in locating children from all over the world and have established programs in China, Guatemala, Vietnam, Korea, Colombia, or Eastern Europe. Families outside our licensed area have their homestudy done by an agency licensed in their state and county. North Bay Adoptions works with both traditional and non-traditional families on an individual basis, and does not discriminate on the basis of sex, age, religion, race, or marital status.

Our Mission

Our primary goal is to find permanent, loving homes for orphaned and abandoned children born outside the United States.

Services Offered

Pre-adoption education and classes
Assistance with the Immigration and Naturalization Service application
Homestudy report required by Federal, State and foreign government agencies
Assistance in locating a foreign-born child, eligible for adoption, through reliable foreign sources
Post-placement visits as required by the State of California for all international adoptions
Assistance with finalizing an adoption in California, obtaining a California registration of birth for your child, and U.S. citizenship procedures
On-going educational seminars, agency social events, links to other adoptive parents.
Educational Resources

We are proud to offer a video to parents and adoption professionals which was produced by Ann Humphrey and Steve Calou, birth and adoptive parents of two children."Visible Differences: Transracial Parenting Through Adoption", is a thoughtful, provocative, passionate and tender exploration of the issues of transracial parenting through adoption. Single parents, two parent households, families with children adopted from different cultures, families with both birth and adopted children, and adult transracial adoptees share their personal stories in this video. To order a copy, please send a check in the amount of $20 (for families) or $30 (for agencies and professionals) to North Bay Adoptions, 862 Third Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Price includes shipping.

North Bay Adoptions publishes a quarterly newsletter -Reaching Out - which offers articles of current interest to adoptive families, links to support groups, and other websites, pictures of children who have recently come home to their new families, and information on our current foreign programs.

Another excellent source of information on international adoption is International Concerns for Children. ICC publishes an annual Report on Intercountry Adoption which contains articles on all aspects of foreign adoption, as well as an extensive list of licensed agencies in the United States and the programs they offer. Highly recommended!

Affiliations

North Bay Adoptions is affiliated with the Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS), the largest national organization of licensed, non-profit international adoption agencies in the United States. Their website offers information on pending legislation that will affect adoptive parents, both internationally and domestically, as well as a listing of agencies who are active members of JCICS and who believe in the Standards of Practice that have been established by JCICS.

Our agency is also a member of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC), an organization that was founded in 1974 to serve as a strong, consistent voice for children in foster care. NACAC has now expanded its scope of interest to include concerns of children from all parts of the world, and provides outstanding annual conferences for adoption professionals and adoptive parents.

Financial Assistance

Financial assistance is available to local, qualified families in the form of low interest loans. North Bay Adoptions has established a special lending program with a local bank to help our prospective families meet the costs of adoption. We can also give you information about national adoption loan programs.

Foreign Programs

Families who complete their homestudies through North Bay Adoptions, or through another licensed international adoption agency in the U.S., may work in any of our foreign programs for which they are eligible.