Adoptions are very personal and emotional for the prospective placing parent and the potential adoptive parent. Adoptive parents are required to invest much time and financial resources to complete an adoption. Unfortunately there have been times when persons have defrauded or otherwise taken advantage of persons seeking to successfully adopt a child. To reduce the possibility of fraud or improper behavior, the AAAA has created this national clearinghouse to register prospective placing parents. Through the Adoption Information Clearinghouse (AIC), a participant will be able to learn better, through the information contained in its database, whether the individual has sought financial assistance from other participating sources and/or that an individual has not committed to any other adoptive family for the same placement.
The process begins when, after obtaining written permission from the prospective placing parent, identifying information is submitted to the AIC to determine whether there is information in the system about the parent. If there is no information in the database about the prospective placing parent, AIC will issue a Clearinghouse Number (CN) to the prospective placing parent. If there is information in the database about the prospective placing parent, the attorney or agency submitting the request for CN will be notified that there is information in the system about the prospective placing parent. The submitting attorney or agency will also be given the name and telephone number of the person who originally reported that information. The submitting person then contacts the party who originally reported the information to discuss what occurred. It is expected in many cases the sharing of information between the submitting party and the original reporting person will allow them to determine that the prior report was not something of concern for this adoption. Examples of such information could be that the prior information was submitted for the adoption of another child or that the prospective placing parent and the original reporting person could not continue working with each other for reasons other than inappropriate behavior. Once this is determined, the submitting party will report the information back to AIC so a CN can be issued.
If there is information in the database and contact with the original reporting person shows improper behavior, that information will be reported back to AIC and no CN will be issued.
For adoptive parents, the benefit of working with prospective placing parents who have CN’s are significant. Placing parents who participate and have been willing to submit the required information to AIC demonstrate their assurance that they are not working with other potential adoptive parents and have not taken payments from others. This should allow all involved to enter into a more positive and trusting relationship. While no system is foolproof, adoptive parents should be more comfortable going forward knowing the prospective placing parent has voluntarily complied with the AIC process and has
received a CN. This will demonstrate with greater assurance that the prospective placing parent is genuine in her placement plans and should allow adoptive parents to be more comfortable and relaxed with the adoption plan.
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