The Bulgaria program at Nightlight has two routes of adoption that families can pursue. The first route is the traditional adoption process where a family will complete their home study, compile their dossier and then wait to be matched by the Ministry of Justice. This route can vary in time based on how open a family can be to age, gender, number of children and the special needs characteristics. The second route is the waiting child program where families can review children’s profiles and apply to receive provisional approval. Once the Ministry of Justice grants a family provisional approval that means no other families can apply for that specific child(ren) and the family has 6 months to complete their home study and dossier for the Ministry of Justice to officially match the family with the child they applied for.
We have many waiting children profiles on our Adoption Bridge website that we advocate for because they are harder to place due to special needs, age or sibling groups. We have had many successful adoptions of families pursuing waiting children. The waiting child program is also significantly faster than the traditional route cutting out any waiting time a family would have to be matched. The waiting child program is commonly advocating for children with severe special needs that are 5 and younger as well as sibling groups up to four children. We have many single children that are over the age of 12 that have clinically healthy waiting for their forever families. Currently, we have a lot of families showing interest in our waiting child program as they look through Adoption Bridge and see all the young faces needing homes. Our program currently has three families pursuing waiting child from ages 5 to 16.
A unique document that is specific to the Bulgaria program is call the special needs checklist and it is something that was constructed by the Ministry of Justice that lists out all common and uncommon special needs that children from Bulgaria could have. Nightlight has a special needs checklist from Bulgaria that is highlighted with specific special needs that have been seen with referrals received over the last several years. This checklist has helped beginning families determine what special needs they would be comfortable caring for as well as any special needs that they would be open to considering. The Bulgaria program also offers a scheduled phone call with our Bulgaria representative to go over the checklist with each family providing suggestions of which special needs to be open to as well as letting them know the likelihood of a timeframe to be matched if they are pursuing the traditional route.
If you are interested in learning more about the Bulgaria program or the waiting child program, please contact our Indiana office’s inquiry specialist, Savana Rowe, at savana@nightlight.org. Your program coordinator for the Bulgaria program is Karson Loscar and she has worked in this program for 3 years.