Province takes up adoption fight

Sunday, July 19, 2009

News Calgary & Alberta

Province takes up adoption fight

By KATIE SCHNEIDER, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 18th July 2009, 5:47pm

The province is teaming up with the feds to help speed up the international adoption process for Alberta families after the agency they were counting on went bankrupt.

Ontario-based Kids Link, which operates Imagine Adoption, announced Monday it had gone belly-up, leaving 64 families, including six whose adoptions have been approved, in the dark.

Alberta Children and Youth Services has been working with the feds’ international adoption desk in Ottawa and the Canadian embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, responsible for Ethiopia adoption cases, to try to facilitate the visa and passport part of the process for those approved families, said spokesman Trevor Coulombe.

“We’re trying to expedite things … to make sure there’s a strong line of communication between the province and Canadian government,” Coulombe said.

“We’re trying to make sure the families come to the forefront, so the T’s can be crossed and I’s can be dotted.”

Some families, including Joel Thurmeier and wife Jodi, whose three-month-old son’s adoption has been approved through the Ethiopian court system, are just awaiting paperwork to go through to be able to pick up their children.

Thurmeier said it’s encouraging the province is helping in some way and is hopeful the wait time for the new addition to their family will be shortened.

“I’m sure there’s a process to follow—I don’t know how long it will take,” Thurmeier said.

“It’ll be nice to see if that wait time will actually be cut down.”

The Thurmeiers have received help from a consulting group that is checking the status of their paperwork and assessing the living conditions of the transitional care centre where their son is staying.

The International Adoptive Families Association is also working on a plan to rescue the adoptions, possibly by purchasing the Imagine Adoption operation.

katie.schneider@sunmedia.ca

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