Updates

This week we received 5 LOA’s and 1 PA!  We have 4 families leaving for China next week.    We have one family that is currently making plans for travel in April. 

The Trade Fair in Guangzhou will only affect the prices at the White Swan for the nights of April 22-27, so travel isn’t turning out to be too difficult for April.  Also in April is Tomb Sweeping Day, which will be an official holiday for April 4-5. 

We are moving next week!  

We will be relocating to

401 SE 6th Street, Suite 202, Evansville, Indiana 47713

. Our physical address will change, but our phone numbers, emails, etc. will remain the same.  We will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16th for the move and reopen on Monday, March 21st. During the move, on Thursday, March 17 & Friday, March 18, we will have our main phone line forwarded to a cell phone for emergency calls. During our move, we will have limited email access, but regular email access will resume by Monday, March 21. In addition, you may be unable to access MyFTIA during the move, but it will likely be available by the end of the work day, Friday, March 18. 

Effective March 18, our mailing address will be

401 SE 6th Street, Suite 202, Evansville, Indiana 47713

.  Please be sure to take note of this if you are planning on sending any packages to us during this time frame.  The courier services will not forward packages to the new address without an additional fee.

We are Moving!

Referrals came out the end of February for families up to LID of 6/9/2006.  Although FTIA didn’t have any families in this group, the good news is that they covered a whole week of LID dates!

A new shared list also came out, but it was a very small list and we had no successful matches.  We have been able to match another one of our Jing Yi children this week!  No word yet on when we will be receiving more files for this program.

This week we received 4 TAs and 1 PA!  We have 4 families preparing to travel to China to meet their new children on March 16^th. 

Best wishes for these families! 

WE ARE MOVING!  

We will be relocating to

401 SE 6th Street, Suite 202, Evansville, Indiana 47713

. Our physical address will change, but our phone numbers, emails, etc. will remain the same.  We will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16th for the move and reopen on Monday, March 21st. During the move, on Thursday, March 17 & Friday, March 18, we will have our main phone line forwarded to a cell phone for emergency calls. During our move, we will have limited email access, but regular email access will resume by Monday, March 21. In addition, you may be unable to access MyFTIA during the move, but it will likely be available by the end of the work day, Friday, March 18. 

Effective March 18, our mailing address will be

401 SE 6th Street, Suite 202, Evansville, Indiana 47713

.  Please be sure to take note of this if you are planning on sending any packages to us during this time frame.  The courier services will not forward packages to the new address without an additional fee.

Connecting Your Family Inside and Out – A Webinar

Secure parent-child attachments are essential to healthy child development, but often adoption can present challenges to the process. Join world renowned attachment expert Dr. Dan Hughes as he shares family centered strategies on how parents can connect to their child as a toddler, tween and teen.Dr. Hughes will be joined by Lynn Wetterberg, Executive Director of ATTACh. Lynn will discuss finding attachment related resources and provide information on finding adoption competent professional support.

• Advice on connecting with your child throughout their development
• Expert insights into attachment and attunement
• Information on finding professional support and resources
• Question and Answer session

Registrants will be contacted and asked to submit questions prior to the event. We will address as many questions as time will allow.

Speakers:
 

Dr. Dan Hughes, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of children who have experienced attachment disorganization, abuse, neglect and childhood trauma. Dr. Hughes developed Attachment-Focused Family Therapy (AFFT), a treatment model used frequently in attachment therapy. He is the author of Facilitating Developmental Attachment (1997), Building the Bonds of Attachment (2006) and Attachment-Focused Family Therapy (2007).


  Lynn Wetterberg, M.S., C.P.A. is the Executive Director of the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children (ATTACh), a national organization of clinicians, advocates and parents of attachment disordered children.
 

Tuesday, March 8, 2011
 
7:00-8:00 PM Central Time

Q&A: 8:00 - 8:30 PM Central Time
 
Cost $15

Register Now: click here

Red Couch Photo

These children will be heading home tomorrow.  The boy in the middle was happy until his parents sat him down with the girls!  (If you are reading this from the yahoo group, please go to our blog at ftiachina.blogspot.com to see the picture.)

Changes from the US Consulate in Guangzhou

The Consulate has announced changes that will be beneficial for families!

The changes below will take effect February 28, 2011.

Consulate Appointments

The family interview appointments will now be available on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.  The document intake process will be combined with the oath swearing ceremony during those mornings, which will allow a faster turn-around time for the child’s visa.  The visa will be issued late afternoon of the day following the consulate appointment, which means that families will now be able to leave Guangzhou one day earlier (the 2nd day after Consulate appointment instead of the 3^rd)!

There will be approximately 12 appointments allowed for every time slot during these mornings.  Families are asked to limit the people attending their appointment to just the adoptive parents and the newly adopted child as there will be limited space.  The coordinator will be able to assist families prior to their interview, but will not be allowed to accompany them during the interview.

DS230 Submissions and Pick Ups

The above changes to the Consulate appointments will allow the Consulate to expand their times for the drop-off of DS230 packages and subsequent pick-up of the LSC/Article 5 letters.   Couriers will now be able to drop off and pick up these items on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons.   It will still take the Consulate 10 business days for this process.   For our families, this will mean that your DS230 can now be delivered to the Consulate on  Tuesday or Wednesday (instead of having to wait for Thursday) after it is sent from our US office.  Your Article 5 will then typically be available for pick up by our courier the same week day 2 weeks later (or 10 business days if holidays are involved).

Referrals and new program information

Referrals came earlier this month for two of our families both with a LID of 5/30/06.  Their new children were both girls from the Gansu province, born in December of 2009.  Congratulations to the new families!  The last group of referrals went through June 2, 2006 LIDs, which means those families waited 56 months from the time their dossiers were logged in until the time they received their referrals. 

We currently have 3 regular China and 2 Waiting Children families in China that are scheduled to return the end of next week.

Information on our new waiting child program, called Jing Yi Program, is up on our website now.  To find out more about this program and to see information on the children currently available in this program, please go to our website at:  http://www.ftia.org/waitingchildren/JingYiProgram.asp

The Chinese Consulate will be using a new form for families to obtain their visas, effective June 1st.  The new form is now 4 pages long, however it’s not yet up on their website.  For now, you can find the new form here:  http://big5.fmprc.gov.cn/gate/big5/www.chinaconsulatechicago.org/chn/qzhz/qz/P020110127196754166806.pdf

"Oil and Water: The Attachment Disordered Child in School" by Lawrence B Smith L.C.S.W. - C., L.I.C.S.W., is a great resource full of strategies and ideas for you and your child's teachers.  You can find this article, courtesy of EMK Press here:
http://www.emkpress.com/oilandwater.html

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Today is the official New Years Day in China.  All businesses are shut down as families return to their homes to celebrate the start of a new year.  Before shutting down for the holiday, the CCAA sent out referrals and they arrived in our office on Wednesday.  FTIA’s referrals went to families with a log-in date of May 30, 2006.  Congratulations to those happy families that waited so long for their new children!!

This New Year, according to the Chinese zodiac, will be the year of the Rabbit.   The year of the Rabbit is thought to be a calming year, since it follows the aggressive Tiger year.  The Rabbit is traditionally associated with home and family, artistic pursuits, diplomacy and keeping the peace.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!!!  Happy New Year to You!

Red Couch Photo and Chinese New Years

We have four families coming home this week from China with their newest family members.  Here they are on the infamous red couch!  (Note: if you are reading this from the yahoo group, please go to the blog at   ftiachina.blogspot.com to view this photo.)  We will have 4 families leaving for China right after Chinese New Year.

This week a new shared list of waiting children came out and we had 3 successful matched and they’ve all received their PAs!  We also received another PA this week, making a total of 4.  Congratulations to these families on being one step closer to their new children!

For those of you that adopted in 2010, here is an informative video explaining the Adoption Tax Credit:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQryETwRziA&feature=youtu.be&a

Next week will be the start of the Chinese New Year holiday in China.  Most offices in China will be closed from February 2nd through the 9^th.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!!!!!  (Happy Chinese New Year!!!!!)