Adoption Agency Ratings

We were matched with a 5 month old little girl by Villa Hope, with whom we promptly fell in love. Five months later, when we were told we would be traveling soon to pick her up, we learned she was not legally free to be adopted!!! We were told the problem would be fixed "next week". It took a full year for her abandonment papers to be completed. At that point, the new adoption laws that had been passed BEFORE we initiated our adoption, that Villa Hope told us "didn't apply to them", were implemented (and, of course, WERE applied to them). The other cases going at the same time were submitted to the Family Assignment Committee and denied. Those children went to Ecuadorian families after American families had been waiting 2 years for them. Our case was never submitted, because they new ours would also be denied. They kept telling us it would happen, so we kept hanging on. Finally, Villa Hope's contract to work in Ecuador expired and was not renewed. For 6 months they continued to tell us it would be renewed "soon". (To date, 2 years and 8 months later, it still has not been renewed.) We finally walked away after waiting nearly 3 years for our child, because there was no way she could come home.

While we were waiting, I became upset and cried on the phone to their social worker, who was Ann Baldwin at the time, because Pat and Adriana refused to talk to me. I asked her to help Villa Hope support their clients better. Pat promptly called our home study agency and told them I was "suicidal and at risk for hurting myself". The next day our home study agency called to tell me Villa Hope was requiring that I go for a psychological evaluation to make sure I was "fit" to adopt and told me that our adoption was in serious jeopardy! I was stunned! I had no idea my plea for help would be so twisted and used against me! It was the most humiliating experience of my life. I passed the evaluation with flying colors (I was not even close to suicidal), but the experience was unbelievably traumatic.

Perhaps most tragic of all was that our little girl sat in an orphanage for 2 extra years before finally being adopted at the age of 4. If Villa Hope had not promised her to us under false pretenses, she would have been presented to the Family Assignment Committee around her 2nd birthday. But the orphanage and Villa Hope had 1/2 our money already and so they "held onto her" in hopes of completing an adoption that was not legally possible. Thank God she finally got a family, but she spent 2 more years than necessary in an orphanage. A complete travesty.

Our family and our little girl's life were irrevocably changed forever because of Villa Hope's incompetence. The reasons I would not recommend Villa Hope? They didn't know what they were doing, they blamed and attacked us for our reactions to their incompetence, they did nothing to support us through the horror of it all and we never brought our little girl home.

My husband and I suffered a failed adoption through Villa Hope. They took us on as clients knowing I had a medical condition that would disqualify us as adoptive parents. They tried to slide us under the table by, among other things, submitting false medical reports on me. They have our money and we have no child.

I would like to hear from anyone who has had a negative experience with Villa Hope. Please PM me.

Villa Hope was wonderful to work with. We used them to complete our home studies before our domestic adoptions. Great experiences!

good to work with