I just heard that a new director, Mr. Shick, was finally appointed to the SDAPRC. If you know anything about him please post a comment or email me at adoptukraineblog@adoptionmail.com. Has he worked for the Ukrainian government before?
The SDAPRC (Ukrainian government adoption authority) has been leaderless for 58 days. The former director, Ms Volynets resigned March 20, 2007.
The SDAPRC briefly stopped accepting dossiers in late March. And this was due to under staffing. There just weren’t enough folks to push the paper.
Once the SDAPRC started accepting new dossiers again on April 16, they took fewer then before. Prior to Ms Volynets leaving, 8 to 10 dossiers were accepted from American families every week. Now 5 to 6 are being accepted on Mondays.
I said the SDAPRC was leaderless because of stories like this Canadian family. But Mr. Gritsenko (old deputy director to Mrs Volynets) has been acting as interim SDAPRC director.
Mr. Gritsenko was keeping the lights on and making sure the adoptions processed forward. Any complex policy decisions were over his head. And he wasn’t sticking his neck out. I actually think this was a very healthy attitude to have.
So what does this new appointment mean?
- Hope that the SDAPRC can now be fully staffed per their budget.
- Hope that more dossiers will be accepted per week.
- Fear that things won’t change. An example would be the Canadian quota won’t be increased. Right now Canadians cannot file dossiers because they have filed their quota of 24 dossiers
- Fear that new regulations or restrictions will be placed on adoptive parents.
There are quotas on the number of dossiers that can be submitted. Americans are allowed to submit 558 dossiers during 2007. And they have already turned in 44% (244 dossiers).
Americans turn in dossiers on Mondays. There are only 34 Mondays left in the year. If the SDAPRC just continues to accept 5 dossiers on Mondays, Americans will never hit the quota; (34 x 5) + 244 = 414
But if Americans are allowed to submit 10 dossiers per week, they will hit the quota in December.