Adoption STAR Ohio has our recommendations! We are not a family who is new to International adoption, but we are, however, new clients of Adoption STAR. We were beginning our 4th international adoption only to find out that due to new Hague guidelines we were going to have to find a new home study agency. This seemed a little daunting to us as we have had the same agency do all of our previous home studies. One gets very comfortable with what you know and are familiar with so the change of agencies for us was disconcerting.

I began calling around to homestudy agencies that met the requirements and was not overly impressed with the service or information I was receiving. Then I happened upon Adoption STAR. They were polite and informative – who could ask for more in an initial contact. We were put in touch with Angela Laman who understood our situation and was able to give us some direction. We were adopting an older child and felt the need to get things moving quickly, as each day doing paperwork is another day your child is not in their forever family.

From the beginning Angela began the process for us in a way that met our specific needs. The process was started quickly and Adoption STAR, and more specifically Angela, will always get our recommendations because her promptness and communication with us as clients was better than we have ever experienced. She literally responds most times within minutes of being contacted.

Once the homestudy requirements were met we were put in contact with our social worker who very quickly scheduled our visits and efficiently got our homestudy written up – all this over the holidays. Then, in an exciting turn of events for us, we were given the opportunity to simultaneously pursue the adoption of a second child. This changed quite a bit of information already written into our homestudy. The day our homestudy was being printed and finalized we had changes to make to accommodate our new adoption status. I contacted Angela and she graciously and, once again, efficiently made those changes for us – when in actuality her work on our homestudy had already been completed.

We are so thankful that we found Adoption STAR and happened to live in an area where Angela would be the one overseeing our home study. They made the change in agency and process bearable and smooth. They are quick, efficient, professional and above all else just nice to work with. If you are on the fence choosing between home study agencies, we recommend Adoption STAR.

Cameron and Kelly Bernadsky

(Adoptive Parents)

Read More on Adoption STAR Ohio: What is an ICPC?, Ohio Adoption, Meet Our Ohio Staff Angela Laman, Meet Our Ohio Staff Tara Schamel, Adoption STAR as a Home Study Agency, Getting Started with an International Adoption 12 Steps

Adopting From Haiti

After the devastating earthquake in Haiti two years ago, the US and Haitian governments allowed approximately 1,100 children who were on the verge of being adopted from Haiti, to be flown to the United States, where their adoptive parents were allowed to finish the adoption at a later date. This, according to an NBC News feature, was “an extraordinary humanitarian gesture that’s been compared to rescue airlifts of children during times of war.”

The two video reports below follow the Wilson family from Nashville, TN. According to the report the Wilson’s were in the process of adopting two girls from Haiti, Naika and Tia, when the earthquake in Haiti happened. After the earthquake Mike Wilson spent weeks in Haiti trying to bring home the two girls. While there he met Brian Williams and the NBC News team, who have since followed up on the Wilson family once a year. These two video reports look at the family as well as their returns to Haiti and adopting from Haiti.

The Wilson’s have not forgotten about Haiti. In fact they have been back there several times, visiting their daughter’s old orphanage and helping build new homes for families that lost theirs in the earthquake. They said in the feature that they plan to move the whole family to Haiti in the upcoming years to run a new orphanage that they are currently building.

At the end of the second video, the reporter Allen Wilson, speaks about adopting internationally. Wilson adopted a child from Ethiopia, and said that “(adopting internationally) is a very complicated thing to do.” If you are looking into adopting internationally, make sure you are working with a HAGUE Accredited agency, such as Adoption STAR.

To read the full report, please click here.

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