Love those shoes III

This is orientation information we received from our agency-China Adoption With Love.

CAWLI TRAVEL OVERVIEW
Personal Responsibilities/Code of Conduct

When traveling in China please remember that you represent all families who have made the journey before you. Also remember that inappropriate behavior could negatively impact families in waiting.

Group Conduct
The journey to China is a personal one. However, you will be traveling with a group and will be finalizing your adoption and paperwork as a group. Be prepared to act on group consensus.

Key Points
Although you are focused on your new family, you must demonstrate appropriate group behavior. For example, be on time for your transportation, meals, and hotel check out. There are many appointments that all group members must attend and being prompt is essential.

Be knowledgeable and organize your documents. You have the ultimate responsibility for your documents. Know what they are and which ones are for the Chinese Officials and which ones are for the U.S. Officials.

Guides
Your guides have been selected for their knowledge of the local area and their sensitivity toward adoptive families. Trust your guides, respect their opinions and decisions.

Key Points
Your guide will facilitate the Chinese Government document process. However, you are responsible for the accuracy of the documents. The sooner you check for potential problems the sooner they can be corrected.

Be Prepared
Prepare yourself prior to travel by attending waiting family meetings, talking to parents who have returned, etc. They have the personal experience.

Key Points
Learn what you need to know before you get your child. Times of stress are not a good time to be absorbing new information. It is a time to draw on what you already know.

Political/Culture/Government Systems
We are in China to get our children not to tell the Chinese how to govern themselves or how much better a job of governing we do in the United States.

Key Points
Be responsible to prepare yourself for the cultural differences.
Commit not to pass judgment.

Absorb what you hear, see, smell and feel. Do not respond to it, let it sink in, enjoy it and learn.
So you can share your time in China with your child.

Your adoption trip will be one of the most important and memorable trips you will ever make! As you embark upon this last significant stage of the adoption process, with its overwhelming emotions and stresses, we ask that you always remember that the principal purpose of the trip is to bring your child home. The purpose of this flyer is to provide information about the process, procedures, and guidelines that the CAWLI staff adheres to during the travel arrangement process.

INITIAL TRAVEL PLANNING STEPS

Referral Day Information. At the long awaited referral meeting, you will receive photos of your child, a medical report, a development report, and the very important Acceptance Letter for you to sign. You will be asked to sign the Acceptance Letter for your child at the referral meeting. CAWLI will need to receive ALL of the referral group’s signed Acceptance Letters in order to send them together back to China. When the China Center for Adoptive Affairs (CCAA) receives the signed Acceptance Letters, the process begins to establish the travel date for the referral group.

There are two additional time-sensitive papers you will receive by email in the Travel Package CAWLI emails about four weeks before your referral is expected: – explanation of the Chinese visa application process, with a sample and a blank application included, and a Flight and Name Request Form. Both forms should be filled out as soon as possible after referral. Each person traveling to China will need a Chinese visa; obtaining one may take one-two weeks.

Brief Overview of The Trip. The “typical” CAWLI adoption trip will include visits to Beijing, the orphanage city or provincial capital city, and Guangzhou. CAWLI attempts to schedule a Thursday departure to China, typically connecting to direct flights from Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, or Minneapolis to Beijing direct-we typically go directly to Beijing. You will arrive in Beijing on a Friday evening. All day Saturday and Sunday morning are spent visiting such cultural sights as the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden Palace and a jade or pearl factory, and enjoying an evening of Chinese Acrobats or the Beijing Opera.

After lunch on Sunday, families typically fly to the provinces where their soon to-be-adopted children are located. The adoptive families will be united with their children either Sunday night or Monday morning at either the hotel where they are staying or at another location designated by the local Chinese officials. You will be given specific details at your travel meeting, if not before.

The focus during the next five days is to meet with the local/provincial registrar, notary and Chinese passport officials to process the Chinese adoption papers and to meet with the ”CAWLI” physician traveling with the group. CAWLI’s local and national guides are experienced, and they will walk you through the Chinese paperwork process and will handle any problems that may arise. All the paperwork may be processed in one or more locations in the adoption city or the provincial capital. As time allows, several local cultural events may be arranged and sights visited. If the orphanage director grants permission and the distance to travel is short, a visit to your child’s orphanage or foster home may be possible.

On Friday night or Saturday morning, the families will travel from the provincial city to Guangzhou, and will most likely stay at the White Swan Hotel. On Saturday or Sunday, the child will visit the nearby Chinese health clinic for the U.S. visa health check-up and then the child will sit for the U.S. visa photo. At some point, the CAWLI guides will walk the families through the process of filling in the paperwork for the U.S. visa (these documents are located in that big brown envelope you have had in your possession since shortly after DTC!).

The families are then free to do whatever they wish until Monday when they visit the U.S. Consulate as a group for the U.S. visa process. Each family is then free until they gather as a group on Tuesday afternoon to receive their child’s U.S. visa. Those families traveling internationally through CAWLI will then fly to Hong Kong for a brief stop over before you fly back to the US. While this is a typical travel scenario, your actual trip itinerary may vary depending on circumstances.

Four and five star hotels in China. CAWLI believes that it is important for families to stay in good hotels during the adoption process. The trip includes many stresses, such as time zone changes, fatigue, different food, a new language, possible illness of a parent or child, or a child having a difficult transition to his or her new family. CAWLI has found that hotels rated less than four or five stars may not provide standards acceptable to its families. CAWLI can provide excellent value for its families at the four and five star hotels, as a result of its long-standing relationships with these hotels and/or the benefit of group rates.

Beijing travel. CAWLI encourages prospective adoptive families to spend a few days in Beijing. This provides families with a first-hand appreciation of Chinese history and culture (e.g., the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, etc.) and allows families to adjust to the different time zone prior to receiving their children. Note that families may request that this part of the trip be excluded from their itinerary.

While in China, please remember that families should be sensitive to the cultural and other differences that exist between China and the United States. Families must not give the Chinese adoption officials any reason to doubt that they will parent their Chinese children with the utmost love and respect. At the interview with the provincial Notary Official, each family will likely be asked the following question – “Why do you wish to adopt a child from China?” Please prepare your answer in advance, as the Notary Official will view it quite seriously. Unacceptable responses include: “I do not know” and “Because you do not want them”.

What is the role of the “CAWLI” physician on the adoption trip? Does he/she stay with the adoptive families throughout the entire trip, including accompanying the adoptive families to the health clinic in Guangzhou?

First of all, CAWLI will endeavor to obtain the services of a pediatrician for each adoptive family travel group. However, if and when necessary, CAWLI reserves the right to utilize the services of a recommended pediatric resident or a family physician. Second, while the physician may choose to accompany the families beginning in Beijing through to departure from Guangzhou, he/she is only required to be with the families in the local provinces where the adopted children are received. In instances where the referral group is large and more than one province is represented, CAWLI will arrange the services of a physician for each provincial travel group. If only one physician is available in such an instance, CAWLI will stagger the U.S. departure date for each provincial travel group (or individual family if traveling to another province) such that the one physician will be available for each provincial travel group during its respective 5+ day provincial stay.

As the “CAWLI” physician is not licensed to practice medicine in China, his/her role will be limited to performing a basic exam of each child (e.g. no blood work will be done) and dispensing medication when necessary. The physician will bring with him/her to China a limited supply of the most often needed pediatric medication. However, each family should bring their own supply of recommended medications (speak with the adopted child’s pediatrician or review the Families With Children From China website: www.fwcc.org). Appointments to meet with the physician will be made beginning as soon as reasonably possible after the children are delivered (i.e. if the children are delivered late at night, the exams will begin the next morning). Depending on the number of adopted children to be examined and their arrival time, physician appointments may need to be scheduled over one or two days. During this period in the local province, the “CAWLI” physician will be in communication with Lillian Zhang to report any issues or concerns he/she or any family may have with respect to a particular child. If any child demonstrates a more critical need for medical or other attention, the “CAWLI” physician and Lillian, together with the family, will determine a course of action. During the families’ stay in the province, the physician will be available to answer questions or to provide additional medical attention to the adopted child or, if necessary, to any other family members/friends participating in the adoption trip.

As mentioned, the “CAWLI” physician may choose not to accompany the families to Guangzhou. It is the national and local guides’ combined responsibility to coordinate and oversee the adopted child’s visit to the local health clinic for the required U.S. visa health exam. If any medical concerns arise during the Guangzhou part of the adoption trip, the guides can help facilitate another visit to the local health clinic or the family can visit the well-respected health clinic located within the White Swan Hotel. Of course, if the “CAWLI” physician should choose to remain in Guangzhou with the families, he/she can be consulted as well.