Our Case Manager, Alina Radoslav = My Favorite

“Adopting one child won’t change the world; but for that child, the world will change.” This is the way Alina closes each of her e-mails. I love the quote, and it certainly seems to depict her perspective. It’s wonderful having a case manager with such a perspective.

Taken from Adoption ARK’s website, “Alina Radoslav was born in Romania. She graduated from a prestigious University in Timisoara with a diploma in Psychology and Pedagogy. She also received a Master of Arts Degree in Educational Management. Alina decided to learn and work in this field because she loves children. Alina began her career as a high school teacher and then moved into a psychologist position at a private counseling center in Romania. These experiences helped Alina better understand children's minds and hearts. For her, helping children is not work; it is a life style. Alina feels best when doing work that changes lives forever and brings happiness to so many families. Having the opportunity to work in the adoption field is the most rewarding and noble mission ever!” If you’d like, you can see Alina’s picture by going here: http://adoptionark.org/public/pag8.aspx. Scroll down about halfway. She is beautiful, and has a beautiful daughter!

I’ve talked to Alina several times over e-mail. We officially got to meet on the phone last Thursday, 4/30. She is wonderful! She talked through the process with me and shared more about Nepal. Nepal was on hold for adoptions for 18 months as they (Nepal) fine-tuned their processes. Things are back up and running and there are 10 families at Adoption ARK that have completed their paperwork for 2009 and are waiting to receive their referral. (Oh Jesus, bless them!) Alina said that Adoption ARK is VERY familiar with all of the details that Nepal requires, and she will walk through each one of them with me in this next year. She also said that as the 10, 2009 families, complete their adoptions this year, she will send us their names/e-mail addresses (with their permission) so we can talk with them about their experiences.

Alina gave us our marching orders. She said there is a lot to work on, but she wants me just to focus on the things she assigns to us. The reason is because we are on the 2010 list for adoption (the Nepal quota for 2009 has been met—they only allow 10 adoptions per year, per agency), and she doesn’t want things done too quickly to ensure they don’t expire before we receive our referral in 2010. In most cases, things expire after 1 year. So, right now, we are to:
1. Determine a home study agency, and get it approved by Alina.
2. Upon approval, start our home study.
3. Get our psychological exams done. We are required to be interviewed by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, and to take two psych tests: the MMPI-2 and the Rorschach Ink Blot Test.
4. Start our 10 hours of required adoption education.
5. Get our FedEx account set-up and send Alina the information. (This is done; just need to send it to Alina.)

All-in-all, Alina said she wants everything done by October/November. This means everything: the home study, psych exams, FBI fingerprints, adoption education, USCIS I600A stuff. All of this stuff will be put into our full dossier, except the psych exams. (The psych exams are not a requirement for adoption; they are a requirement of our agency.) Alina will send our dossier for translation in December, and than in January 2010, she will send our translated dossier to the orphanages in Nepal. Then we wait for our referral! All of this stuff takes about 6 months to accomplish, and we have just that, which means we don’t have to rush anything! That’s a great feeling.