WELCOME HOME INFORMATION FOR ADOPTIVE FAMILIES

Congratulations! This is an extremely exciting time for you and your family. A time you have probably dreamed about for quite a while. With all the excitement, it is also a time of adjustment and transition for everyone. During the transition time, it is important that everyone get enough rest and time to acclimate to the new schedules, activities and environment. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact your social worker or myself. Thank you for the opportunity to work with you. We feel very fortunate to have been involved in helping you navigate the international adoption process.

While we know that you have already completed quite a bit of paperwork, there are still some additional documents, which are required by the US government. The following is a list of documents that you will need or may find helpful. Please review and complete each document as required.

Thank you again for allowing IFS to help you in this process. We are available to answer any questions and provide other resources for you and your family. Please do not hesitate to call or email and please keep in touch. We love to receive photos and updates from families. It is always amazing to see how the children change and grow. We wish you the best in this new phase of your life.

Post Adoption Helps

Note: This material is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Parents should carefully consider this information as it applies to their unique situation. Links are provided to obtain information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. IFS does not exercise editorial control over the information on these external websites, and we cannot guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of this external information. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by IFS of the linked websites, the views they express, or the information, products and services that they offer.

Other Relevant Help

IR-3 or IR-4 Visa, what’s the difference? And what’s this IH-3/4 visa?

Your child’s passport will have a stamp placed there by U.S. Immigration. It will indicate either IR- 3 or IR-4 for non-Convention countries (for example, Ethiopia or Ukraine). In the case of a Convention adoption (for example, India and China), the child’s passport will be stamped with an IH-3 or IH-4 visa.

IR-3/IH-3 visas are issued to children whose prospective adoptive parents both saw the child prior to the completion of the adoption overseas. Otherwise, the child will receive an IR-4/IH-4 visa. Parents of children with IR-3/IH-3 visas will receive their child’s Certificate of Citizenship automatically from CIS within 50 days of the child’s arrival in the U.S.

Some children from India will receive an IH-4 visa. Parents with children with IH-4 visas will either have to finalize their child’s adoption in a local court (i.e. for India cases), or re-adopt their child in a local court (i.e. for non-Indian children). For more information on your child(ren)’s visa, see the After Your Child Enters the US page on the U.S. Immigration web site.

For Hague Convention cases, the designation changes to IH-3 and IH-4, but otherwise carry the same finalization and readoption issues as do the IR-3 and IR-4 visas.

Children from India

Many children from India will receive from the U.S. an HR-4 visa stamp in their Indian passport. Their prospective adoptive parents are assigned guardianship by the courts in India. They must complete the post-placement requirements by their state of residence and finalize the adoption of their child in a local court. This often requires the services of an attorney. Once the adoption has been finalized, the parents can obtain proof of their child’s citizenship by filing the N-600 form with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Thereafter, they can apply for the child’s Social Security card and a U.S. passport.

NOTE: During 2012 the U.S. Consulate in New Delhi started issuing an IH-3 visas for many (but not all) adoptive children along with a Hague Certificate of Adoption. As a result, families do not have to finalize their adoption in the U.S.

Post-placement Reports (PPR) and Post-adoption Reports (PAR)

  • Post-placement Reports, or PPRs, are required only in guardianships from India. These must be completed under U.S. and Republic of India law in order to finalize the adoption of the India-born child.
  • Post-adoption Reports, or PARs, are required by the sending country (for example, China, Russia, Ukraine, etc.) and sometimes required by the adoption placing agency. Often confused with post-placement reports, these are not required under U.S. federal or state law. However, all adoptive parents have agreed to provide these in written documents supplied to their placing agency and to the foreign government.
  • PPRs or PARs are required with every program IFS offers. Each family has committed to and must submit a series of post-placement reports to the country where they adopted. IFS recommends that you contact your social worker or home study agency to inform them of the court date and to schedule the first post-placement visit. The reports are critical for the future of other children who remain in foreign orphanages, without the hope of a family.
  • IFS tracks all PPR and PAR through our Texas office. You should be receiving additional information directly from that office regarding specific due dates and other information. Once the report has been completed, a notarized copy of the report and other required documentation should be sent to International Family Services, 700 S. Friendswood Drive, Suite F, Friendswood, TX 77546. If you have any questions about this, please either contact your IFS program director or Kim Cissell at 281-992-4677 or by email at kim@ifservices.org.

Medical Help

General information from MedLine that you may find helpful on a variety of topics related to adoption. Medline Plus is a Service of the US National Library of Medicine.

Explore Adoption

Receive the eBook “A Stormy Night in Bucharest – Angela’s Story” when you sign up to connect with International Family Services and start to Explore Adoption.

We look forward to connecting with you! Please check your email to download your eBook.

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