As we shared with you last week, the CCAA announced on Friday, December 8th at their annual information meeting that fees will increase on January 1st, 2007 and new guidelines will go into effect for dossiers submitted to the CCAA on or after May 1st, 2007.  The information shared below is based on the information obtained at the CCAA’s annual information meeting by our staff in Beijing.  Official written guidelines have not been released by the CCAA.

In regards to the fee increase, if you submit your dossier prior to December 20, you will submit $650 ($450 for Special Needs) and the increase will not affect you. If your dossier is received after December 20th, you should submit $860 ($580 for Special Needs), which reflects the increase.

The guidelines have been long awaited and much discussed and most items on the list do not come as a surprise to us. The CCAA has determined a priority system in which families who meet specific criteria will be given priority to adopt. What the criteria means for families who do not meet the criteria, is that they will not be able to adopt from China.

The families who will be given priority for placement must meet the following criteria:

1.  Marriage: You must be married for at least two years. If you have divorced and re-married, you must be married for five years and have no more than two marriages from either parent.

2.  Age: Adoptive parents must be between 30 and 50 to adopt healthy children and 30-55 for special needs children.

3.  Financial: Income must be over $10,000 per person in the household, including the child being adopted. Net worth must exceed $80,000.

4.  Education: Both parents must have graduated from high school.

5.  Children: You must have less than 5 children under the age of 18 in the household. The youngest child must be at least one year old.

6.  Singles: will not be given priority and will, therefore, not be able to adopt.

7.  Criminal History: No history of domestic violence, sexual abuse, child abandonment or abuse (applicable even if there was no arrest).  No history of using drugs including: opium, morphine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or ice, etc. No history of excessive drinking and must not have a history of drinking within last 10 years. This likely means no DUI’s within the last 10 years.

8.  Health: Both parents must be in good health physically and mentally.  Both parents must have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 40.  Medical conditions that are not allowed include the following:

• Aids
• Mental deformity
• Infectious disease in infectious stage
• Schizophrenia
• Blindness or low eyesight in both eyes
• Single eye blindness without artificial eye
• Hearing loss of both ears
• Loss of language ability
• Malfunction or function disorder due to defect, incompleteness, paralysis and deformity of limbs
• Severe facial deformity
• Severe diseases that require permanent medical treatment or effect the normal life span (such as malignant tumors, lupus, liver disease, epilepsy, etc)
• Fatal organ transplanting within 10 years
• Medicine administration for severe mental disorder diseases such as depression, mania, or anxiety within last 2 years.