Adoption Agency Ratings

We started an adoption with this agency because we wanted to adopt from Latin American and they had several programs at the time. They providing glowing information about their (now-defunct) Panama and El Salvador programs, so we signed on with them. As we went through our home study, we started asking more specific, informed questions about where the babies came from, what they knew about the lawyers they were dealing with, etc and they had few answers. It turned out that no one from their agency had ever even been to those countries or had actually met the people they were dealing with. They had little information about the backgrounds of the lawyers or how children came into care. The more we talked to them, the more we realized that the information on their information sheets was a guess, at best, and downright deceptive at worst. We asked for our money back and, of course, didn't get it. Even after those two programs started crumbling (although they had never really gotten off the ground to start with), they kept advertising them in the same glowing manner until we wrote a letter and complained.

This agency did not do due diligence to ensure an ethical process. They advertised many things about their programs that didn't end up being true. It may not have been done to purposely mislead, but it was certainly negligent. These are kids' lives! At the very least they should meet the lawyers they work with and see the orphanages BEFORE opening a program. They should have full information before they start advertising.

We are with a different agency now and I can't believe the difference. They have strong ties with the countries they work with and so much information about what goes on on the ground. I am so grateful we left Los Ninos.