I don't know what to think anymore. Praying this is a step in the right direction but I've become impatient. Lets get this thing up and running! I know of a two yr old little girl that needs some medical assistance (which I am sending donations) but she needs to be a part of our family. So say your prayers that this works in her favor.

With that being said -still pulling and praying for the Guat 900 - you are not forgotten!

Chrissy

I was at a meeting last week with the CNA and they mentioned they were taking a census so they can get an accurate count of the number of children in children's homes. Children in process are being accounted for as well as children that are not currently being adopted. I posted last week regarding a meeting the CNA had with children's homes last week regarding standards of care, etc. but it was never posted. It was a very long post, I thought it would be interesting to readers. Is it our there somewhere Kevin? I posted it under US FILES LETTER OF INTENT and I noticed there were not responses at all to that post which seems odd.

Anyway, nothing sinister about the CNA, they really are trying to get an accurate number of kids in care, their ages and their photos. Hopefully this will be helpful when the pilot program opens up again.

Hi! I would love to hear about the standards of care meeting and also to know if these standards are documented anywhere. Could you help? Thank you.

Delays, delays and more delays. This is the most outrageous thing - I mean they don't know how many kids are in process and now they have to be registered again by the CNA. It's more and more of the same political, corrupt and illegal moves by the Guatemalan government. I thank God every day that I have my son for almost 2 years now and I feel so bad for the waiting families. My husband and I would love to adopt another child from there but will all the delays it is not possible.

I hope Nancy's post is not lost in cyberspace! I'd like to see this information, too. Any chance it is around, Kevin?
Thank you.

I e-mailed Nancy that I don't have any posts under that thread. There certainly wasn't anything we didn't post intentionally. Admittedly, sometimes I miss posts that aren't on the most current threads. But unforutnately, this one of Nancy's seems to have fallen into the e-abyss....

And folks, let's try not to demonize anyone. Everyone I know who has dealt directly with CNA has spoken highly of their intent and ethics. The bureaucratic legal mess that has been created from a poor law with horrendous implementation is inexcusable. The fact that widepsread corruption caused things to be worse than need be in that mess is the same.

At this point it is more productive to figure out how the US, CNA, and Guatemalan courts can come together to give children resolution.

Just my dos quetzales,

Kevin
Guatadopt.com

We just brought home our son after 33 months in process. We have had our share of obstacles. We have been in the CNA since the opening. The people were very kind and I felt they always wanted the best for my son and the children of Guatemala. They are working very hard to get a strong system in place and I am very confident they are doing so. My prayer is the U.S. would see the improvement and adoptions would continue.
www.wiggsworld.net/juanpablo

I agree that CNA is trying to do the right thing. Lets not forget what they had to start with - a system that was operating under circumstances that are hard to come back from. At the end of the day its the children and the future for them that is important.

Chrissy

Emily,
I didn't know you brought JP home. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!

Another thing to know/remember is that the entire government system in Guate just doesn't seem to work very efficiently. Our son has been home for over 2 years and we are having his name changed on his Guate birth certificate (we added a first and last name and kept his birth name in the middle). We have been in the process of doing this change for 10 months and it is still not done. This process has nothing to do with adoption, yet takes much longer than would be considered reasonable by many people.
And we in the US can't brag much either--it took nearly a year for us to get our son's file back from the federal government here.
It's easy to read ill intent or anti-adoption feelings into the outrageous delays. But a big part of it is just government inefficiency, rather than ill-intent or anti-adoption.

Since my first, very long, post has been lost in cyberspace I thought I would try and send the post again regarding the CNA and my experience with our children's home during our second Hague experience in Guatemala.

A few weeks ago I attended a focus group set up by the CNA. The CNA brought together all of the children's homes who are still standing and want to be certified. The problem is these homes cannot be certified because there are no standards of care put into place, which means no international adoptions. The CNA brought in groups of homes based by departments of Guatemala. We fall under the Chimaltenago, Sacatepequez departments. There were 20 children's homes, two of those homes were Bienstar Social children's homes, government homes and the rest private. Almost 100% of the other children's home are religious based homes. Sadly, the Bienstar Social is building a large facility to house all of the children in their spread out, smaller facilities. The new facility is in San José Pinula, outside of Guatemala City. I am not sure who advised the Bienstar Social that this was in the best interests of the children but clearly it is not.

The groups in attendance at the focus group ranged from homes with as few as 5 children and as many as 350. The age ranges were infants up to 19 years. Our group was run a consultant hired by the CNA and a CNA social worker was in attendance. I was very impressed by the consultant. Since the CNA has come into being they have NEVER asked the people who have been caring for orphaned and abandoned children for years how we do it. I think the CNA has finally come to the conclusion that not only do they need the children's homes that have stayed open but need our experience as well. Guatemala is typically not a very collaborative society. There is lots of mistrust and with good reason. So the focus group was a good first start. Rather than looking at the children's homes as enemies, the hope is we can work together for the good of the children. Supposedly, that is why we are all doing this work.

I have met many times with CNA officials and found everyone I have met to be bright and dedicated. However, they do have a mandate and they do work for the Guatemalan government and they will carry out their jobs. I do believe that the CNA has been caught in the middle of the mess with the 900+ kids under the grandfather clause. I think people will generally try to get the CNA to help because the PGN is basically a rats nest of corruption and incompetence. My biggest fear is that the CNA will not be able to keep up high standards because they will be dragged down by the rest of the government agencies. So, it is in the kids' best interests for us to work alongside the CNA and give them as much support as possible so that other groups, like the PGN don't drag them down.

In order to get a certificate of adoptability on a child we still must deal with the children's court and and the PGN minors section. Fortunately for all of us in Chimaltenango and Sacatepequez areas, the judge in the children's court that oversaw our cases has resigned as of January 15th. We have dealt with the incompetence of this judge for 12 years. Our focus group was thrilled that the judge is leaving and gives us some hope that we can really advocate for kids. This judge has done tremendous damage to many children over the last 12 years.

At Semillas de Amor we have worked with the CNA on one national adoption. I had actually located a family for this child, in Guatemala, and worked with the CNA during the adoption. The interesting thing about this adoption case is that the chid adopted was the same child that brought the PGN down on Semillas de Amor twice and twice they tried to take all of our children because I would not give up this little girl. Now had I done what the PGN had asked, which was to turn the child over to the Guatemalan government without a fight, this little girl would most likely be stuck in one of the Bienstar Social institutions and would not have been adopted. But I fought back and now not only is this little girl with her loving family but this same family is the poster child of the CNA. The REAL poster child. The CNA has a huge poster of this family supporting national adoptions but the reality is that this child, had I not advocated for her, would not have had a family. I actually brought this up during a meeting at the CNA with Jaime Tecú a few months ago which was a very interesting conversation.

My biggest concern is not the CNA but the children's court and the PGN. I have to say in the 15 years I have worked with kids in Guatemala and have dealt far more than I have ever wanted to with the PGN and children's court I have found only a very few judges that truly cared about children and their futures and one person in the PGN. I have, however, found many people who are only interested in keeping their jobs and at whatever cost to the children. So dealing in a situation where people are more concerned about their jobs than the kids really makes our jobs as children's advocates next to impossible. Recently I was in a meeting where it was made clear that the children of Guatemala are protected by the PGN. That the job of the minors section of the PGN is to protect the rights of the children. I have NEVER seen anything farther from the truth and at all levels of the PGN. My hope is that the CNA will act as a buffer for the children's home against the courts and PGN.

A last note to a very long post. We are focused on the kids and making sure they are safe and have families but there is so much more going on in Guatemala. I recently was watching CNN and a Fellow from the Brookings Institute was being interviewed about Guatemala. The gentleman referred to Guatemala as a failing State, not a failed State yet but very close to it. This all has to do with drug trafficking. As the US government fights the war on drugs in Mexico the trafficking just moves south to Guatemala. Guatemala is a tiny country with few financial resources, a country trying to recover from a 30+ year civil war and now is greatly impacted by drug trafficking. Violence, murder, high unemployment, poverty, corruption permeates the lives of Guatemalans and it just gets worse. So the fact that CNA has been slow at getting going really does not mean much in a society that is on the brink of disaster. A little under half of Guatemala's population is under the age of 18. This is very scary when thinking of children growing up surrounded by violence.