Education Changes

Privet,

Recently, Russia has changed their education requirements. This is something that would have been managed easily in the past, however, there's a problem we're trying to figure out.

Many adoption education courses (aside from P.R.I.D.E. training) are available online. The ones that have been used by Canadians in the past are American courses. Now that Russia has imposed an adoption ban on the USA, the validity of these courses are being questioned and, quite possibly, halted.

Today, we were advised by our agency that we now require 50 hours of education, covering certain topics. Our previous training with the Province does not meet this need. We can not have our dossier registered in Russia until this requirement has been met. Unfortunately, our agency is unaware of a place of Canadian origin that can meet the requirements.

In order to address this, the agency is working with a Social Worker to create such a course. However, from inception to execution could be a very long wait.

Furthermore, the course would be run in another province. The option of video-conferencing is being investigated.

To add to the confusion, blogger friends of ours that use other agencies (some in the same region) have not yet been advised of this change.

At the moment it seems like a pretty substantial roadblock; one that is leaving us confused and uncertain of the next step. It's hard not to panic or worry when these roadblocks come up.

We know that the adoption process is long and drawn out and has multiple waiting periods over which we have no control. But when the rules keep changing, it's very difficult to have faith in the process.

We'll keep you posted.

Paka