As an adopting parent, you’ve dreamed of the moment you’ll finally be able to bring your child home. You know it’s a moment you’ll treasure for the rest of your life, a story you’ll tell your child each night before bedtime.
But before you’re able to pick your child up across state lines and show him or her what unyielding love is, there’s one more requirement you have to satisfy. The adoption must comply with the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC).
Don’t worry! Adoption Choices of Colorado knows your road to adoption has been long. We know you’re ready to wake your child up every morning and tuck them into bed each night. Complying with the ICPC seems strenuous, but we’re here to explain what it is and why it’s so important.
UNDERSTANDING ICPC
Because adoption laws vary by state, the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children was first drafted to establish orderly procedures for the interstate placement of children and fix responsibilities for those involved in child placement.
The Compact is now a law enacted by all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It ensures that children placed across state lines for foster care or adoption are placed with individuals who are suitable, safe, and capable of providing proper care. It also dictates that the individual or entity placing the child remains legally and financially responsible for the child following placement.
The current ICPC was drafted in 1960 and is legally mandatory in every interstate adoption. It provides a defined and transparent process for both the sending and receiving states to follow, and it ensures the adoptive placement of a child complies with the laws of both states. You can jeopardize the adoption process by not complying with ICPC.
Need-to-know facts and helpful hints
- Avoid delays. Make sure your home study is current and meets requirements for both the sending and receiving states. This will help to ensure a smooth process!
- Plan ahead. ICPC paperwork must be approved in the placing state and your home state before leaving the adopted child’s birth state. This means you should plan to stay in your baby’s birth state for up to two weeks while you wait to be approved to return home with your child.
- Do not try to contact the ICPC office. Most offices prohibit adoptive parents calling to check the status of their paperwork. Leave it to your adoption professional!
- Be patient. Stay put, try to explore the area, and enjoy the moments of bonding before getting back to the hustle and bustle of everyday life. As soon as notification is received by both the placing state and your home state you will be notified.
WHY ICPC IS IMPORTANT
Although lengthy, the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children should be viewed in a positive light. Before its existence, there was no safeguard for adopted children.
Each U.S. state handles adoption differently. When leaving a state, its adoption laws are left behind as well. Because of the Compact, if a Colorado family adopted a child born in Texas, Texas can legally apply its own adoption laws. If something were to go wrong with the placement, the state of Texas can intervene to protect the child, removing him or her from the original placement in Colorado.
The ICPC Purpose
ICPC ensures that children placed out-of-state are placed with caregivers who are safe, suitable and able to meet the child’s needs. It requires an assessment of these factors before a child is placed out-of-state. Individual state statutes are not enough to ensure that such an assessment takes place prior to placement because the authority of an individual state and its statutes ends at the state’s border. As a legally binding agreement between all states, the ICPC ensures that children enjoy a uniform set of protections and benefits regardless of which state they are moving to or from.
Another critical function of the ICPC is to ensure that the person or entity that places a child out-of-state retains legal and financial responsibility for the child after the placement occurs. This directly benefits children by eliminating any question of who is ultimately responsible for the child’s well-being and for meeting the child’s needs following placement. The ICPC also protects the interests of states by ensuring that individual states are not put in the position of having to take on the legal and financial burden of caring for children placed within their borders from other states
Colorado Interstate Adoptions
The ICPC is the best means the U.S. has to ensure protection and services to children who are placed across state lines for adoption. It ensures all states remain in agreement.
The process may be overwhelming, and even inconvenient, as you wait to return home as a family, but remember this: it’s all done in the best interest of the child you’re adopting. Soon enough, you’ll be home watching smiles take over your child’s face.
Let Adoption Choices of Colorado help you focus on the highlights of interstate adoptions! We’ll handle the rest.
Adoption Choices of Colorado
For more information on adoption please contact Adoption Choices of Colorado. We can reached via our website or phone 303-670-4401.
Support Adoption Choices
Adoption Choices, Inc. is partnering with Crowdrise, a fundraising website for nonprofits, to help our adoptive parents and birth parents with much needed financial assistance. We understand that expenses keep clients from fulfilling their dreams. Both with birth parents making a plan for adoption, and with adoptive parents growing their family. It is our mission to provide financial assistance through grants and scholarships, awarded annually in November, in honor of National Adoption Month. Funds assist adoptive parents with matching and placements, adoption finalization and helping birth mothers improve their lives through higher education — and much more.
However, we can’t do it alone. Please read up on our programs and donate money where you are able. Your donation will make a huge impact.
About the Author
Patience Bramlett, a University of Southern Mississippi news editorial graduate, is a seasoned and award-winning freelance writer. She is also a passionate reader, whose only wish is to live life without fear of the unknown. Her motivation and inspiration to live her best life stems from the words of John Lennon:
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
This year, she’s joining Adoption Choices Inc. as an Editorial Intern. Fueled by her love of family, she hopes to educate those looking to grow their families through adoption.
When Patience is not exploring Colorado with her husband, she’s drinking coffee, forever figuring out how to tame her hair, growing her library, and trying to break into the publishing career.
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Bibliography
Halverson, Kathleen Kelly. “What Is the ICPC, And Why Do I Need to Know About It?” AdoptionTravel.com, 27 Jan. 2018, adoptiontravel.com/icpc-need-know/.
“ICPC FAQ’s.” American Public Human Services Association, Strategic Industry Partners, aphsa.org/AAICPC/AAICPC/icpc_faq_2.aspx#question1.
“Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children.” Colorado Department of Human Services, 5 July 2018, www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdhs/interstate-compact-placement-children.
“Understanding Interstate Adoption.” AdoptUSKids, www.adoptuskids.org/for-professionals/interstate-adoptions.
Wiernicki, Peter J. “The ICPC: An Updated Overview.” Adoptive Families, 10 May 2017, www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-process/the-icpc-updated-overview-neice-electronic-file-transfer/.
Stephanie joined the Adoption Choices family in 2014 as the Child Placement Supervisor. Her love for adoption began in first grade when she made friends with twins adopted from Vietnam. Her heart grew strong over the years for adopted children and ultimately led her to graduate school where she continued her focus to her dream of working in the adoption field. Stephanie earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 2001. Over the past 15 years, Stephanie has worked as a pregnancy counselor and as an adoptive parent counselor for foster care, international adoption and domestic adoption, writing hundreds of home studies for families, and helping build their forever families. Stephanie is married and has three boys ages 12, 9, and 5. Together with her family she enjoys riding bike, playing games, watching her three sons compete in their various sporting and musical activities and go on vacations.
Christy Ikeler, is our Executive Director and Birth Parent Director. Christy has been with Adoption Choices Team for 18 years, since opening the doors in 2002! Christy has a true passion for what she does and her true love is working with and helping each birth parent. Whether she is up all night on the phone talking with them, taking them to doctors appointments, out for their favorite treat, providing counseling or at the hospital during labor and delivery, Christy is very involved every step of the way. She has a contagious laugh and a spunky personality that our birth moms all can bond with and relate to. As an adoptive parent herself, adoption holds a very special place in her heart and she can relate on every level with both birth parents and adoptive parents. In her free time Christy loves spending time with her daughter, gardening, baking and taking vacations with her family. Christy is an excellent leader for our team at Adoption Choices and is truly one of a kind!! As Executive Director, Christy spends time with the staff, birth parents and adoptive families in order to ensure that the agency is running smoothly. She has placed a huge emphasis on community outreach and programs for birth parents. Christy loves the opportunity to lead the agency into a brighter future.
Ms. Mackenzie has built a successful counseling career over the past 20 years, supporting mothers and families, people of all ages and genders, students, community professionals and fellow clinicians. Liv values a diverse professional focus, including the entrepreneurial life of a sole proprietor, the evaluative process of certifying foster/adoptive homes, the insightful and mindful one-on-one one work with enthusiastic clients, and serving as an advocate for underserved populations. Liv is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a BA in Pre-Law and Economics from American University, an MA in Counseling from Adams University and a certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University. Away from work you will find Liv spending time in nature, biking to the farmer’s market and adventuring with her family.
Catherine A. Madsen, joined the Adoption Choices family as legal counsel in 2013. Catherine is responsible for providing legal guidance to the Agency, training and updating staff on developments in adoption law and legislation, and program development. Catherine
Virginia Frank is an adoption attorney accredited since 1991 with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Ms. Frank is a leader in the field of private adoption and has completed over 4,000 adoptions in her career. Ms. Frank has a law degree from Oklahoma City University and a BA in both Political Science and Communications from the University of Oklahoma.
Cassidie has been with Adoption Choices since 2015, she has her bachelors in Interdisciplinary Affairs with concentrations in both Sociology and Business Management. Cassidie has additional training in Victim Advocacy, foster care and has been working in women’s services for over 10 years. Cassidie has always had a heart for adoption and it was her career dream to work in adoption. She started off doing volunteer work for advocacy programs, adoption organizations and worked in High Risk Maternal Fetal Medicine through the University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Cassidie is also blessed to have personally experienced an adoption of her own in 2012, completing her family of five! Cassidie loves what she does as a case worker from initial phone calls, meetings, doctor appointments, interaction with the adoptive families to delivery and counseling. Cassidie has a passion for those in need and strives to help make a difference in the lives of the people she meets. She is a firm believer in being kind, compassionate and open minded in all situations. “Unless you’ve walked in their shoes, there’s no place for judgment. A kind word or compliment can go a long way!” The bittersweet moments in adoption reminds Cassidie each and every time, why she loves what she does!