Sunday, March 4, 2012

EP - It is Really Happening!

EP is really happening in Korea, starting from March 5th.
I got this email from a friend of mine who works at an adoption agency in Korea.

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Dear Steve,

Hope this finds you and your family quite well as always.
As of today, March 5 (Mon), the Ministry began to accept our paperworks for EPs.
It's a great news though delayed.

Hope you another great day!
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I wish all the waiting families have a great day as well at this great news!

Steve Morrison

45 comments:

  1. Thanks Steve !
    Nothing more powerful than a bunch of people with positive energy. All for the most important cause of mankind; the children.
    I am eager to see how things progress and when our number comes up.

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  2. WOOHOOO!!!!!!! Steve, I can't thank you enough for all you have done on behalf of all of the waiting kids! Can't wait to kiss my sweet boy in a few weeks. A long 15+ months of waiting are finally coming to an end!

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  3. This is incredible!!!!!!! Thank you Steve...we are so thankful for you.

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  4. Great news for all the waiting families! Thank you Steve for advocating on behalf of all the families and children.

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  5. Thank you Steve for all your efforts in advocacy! So appreciated! So thankful to hear this good news!

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  6. Thanks, Steve. This is excellent news. Do we know from what agency(ies) they are accepting paperwork or is this across the board?

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  7. It's such a kindness to us that you post these updates. Thank you. A million times, thank you.

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  8. Praise the Lord!!!

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  9. Wow, I got the chills and shivers after just reading the title!!! CAN'T WAIT TO CHECK EMAIL TOMORROW!

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  10. Finally!!! God is good!!! Hopefuy other batches will follow after that first batch...

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  11. Thank you for your updates and advocacy. You are a true blessing. I cannot wait to see my little girl in person!

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  12. Praise the Lord!!!

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  13. This is fantastic news!!! Hoping for great news this week for all the waiting families!!

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  14. Has anyone heard how long the Ministry has said they will take to process the EP's?

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    1. Only 1-2 weeks :-)

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    2. Thank you Steve! What a long awaited phone call to receive this morning!

      I'm hopeful that the 1-2 week approval info people have received is correct, but just to share other information my agency quoted me 3-8 weeks for approval. I should hope it doesn't take that long, but with this info I'm trying to not get my hopes up for 2 week turnaround.

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  15. Steve - I heard speculation from my agency that the government might slow down subsequent EP submissions in order to get as many people to finalize in Korea in August. Have you heard anything about that or have thoughts. We have been waiting since our referral in April of 2011.

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    1. No, I have not. But regardless, I believe the Ministry will send out all the children within the quota goals they have set up for this year, which should be slightly less than last year as they try to curve the adoption each year by around 10%. But I believe they will send out all the number of children that will be within the quota number.

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    2. Thanks, Steve. I agree that they will allow all of these children to come home. My concern is will we have to wait another six months before that happens.

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    3. I am aware the quotas, but they confuse and sadden me.
      Does anyone know how many kids are assigned and how many EPs will be issued?? Sounds as though there will be kids waiting with no EP .
      How many kids will be pushed into 2013?? We accepted our referral almost a year ago 4/2011. If we end up in 2013 I am not sure what we are going to do. It would be 2yrs latter than we had planned for. It sounds terrifying for all involved. I hope they release all the children to the waiting families this year.

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    4. We are in the same predicament in that we got our referral in April of 2011 and we heard from our agency that their is a slight fear that EPs will slow down after this intitial batch to get as many kids adopted through the new policy taking place in August.

      We are an emotional wreck because of all of these delays.

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    5. That's not at all what we are hearing. the ministry has indicated that they will expidite this batch and then take another batch as soon as this one is through.

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  16. Thank you Steve for your Positive Thinking. I am wondering in regards what is the current update on EP Processes for Korean-American now with the long delay of the EP Read Below:

    Thursday, August 25, 2011
    NEWS FLASH - Priority EP Processes for Korean-Americans Announced
    The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) has just sent out an official notice to the three intercountry adoption (ICA) agencies in Korea (Holt, Eastern, and SWS) that MOHW will now provide priority Exit Permit (or Emmigration Permit) service to Korean-American couples. MOHW has determined that the definition for Korean-American couple to include couples where one is a Korean descent. This also includes adoptee as well. It is MOHW's belief that children being adopted to Korean-American couples will experience less identify and cultural adjustment issues, thus priority service should be given to expedite Korean-American adoption.

    The agencies are to notify the cooperating agencies in the US on this new policy and provide a feedback to MOHW by September 30, 2011. This new priority service will go into effect immediately.

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    1. As of now the heritage families are not given priority.
      This is mainly due to the inputs or objections from the agencies, both in Korea as well as in the US, that it would not be fair to cut ahead of the other waiting families. This ojection was raised by all three agencies, and the MOHW seems to be listening to them and agreeing with the agencies. That is why there has not been a clear mandate from the ministry to the agencies.

      So it appears that MOHW has made a statement without fully engaging with the agencies, and they are pushed back by the agencies on this.
      I would like to find out more on this later, and I do plan to travel to Korea in May, and will meet with the ministry officials and visit the agencies.

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    2. I was under the impression that heritage families were now being given priority. Last year my agency identified which of their waiting families were heritage families and they were given priority on referrals. Then from what I can tell those heritage families also received EP's at the end of last year ahead of other longer waiting families. I could be wrong. I have never asked about the EP's. I am just going by the dates of referrals and EP's. (I do know the referrals were expedited. Our agency told us that, but EP's were not addressed at that point last year)

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    3. all the heritage families i know with ANY 2011 referral dates were given EP submits last week. This was with at least two of the three agencies. I wonder if all the heritage families from all three Korean agencies were in the first batch. That would be great!

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  17. All heritage families with my agency were given EPs in the first batch.

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    1. Do you mind sharing which agency?

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    2. hmm...ESWS didn't seem to do this.

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    3. Our agency reported that only ESWS families with referrals from December 2010 and January 2011 were submitted. We were told there would be no expediting Heritage Families, so I am curious as to which agencies are expediting and why there is a different approach.

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    4. The ESWS EP submissions were for ATKs from December 2010 and early January 2011 - which include referrals that were made in NOVEMBER 2010. This is to clarify how long some of the Eastern families have been waiting for their children - since November 2010. Some Eastern families are going on 16 months of waiting now since referral.

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  18. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't ESWS the Korean agency that has the biggest backlog at this time? I think that in their case there is probably an exception being made for this first group. They are probably doing the longest waiters first and then at some point they will probably also expedite their heritage families.

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    1. Is there any sense that the EPs are being doled out so that Eastern receives more so that it can decrease the wait. What is 16 months now will be 24 months by the end of the year, I'd assume, if the ratio of EPs among the agencies remains the same. Does anyone understand how this works?

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    2. The varying size of the backlog is based on the agencies' actions, not the Ministry. The agencies with a smaller backlog have regulated or delayed giving referrals. Agencies with bigger and growing backlogs is due to the fact that they continue to give referrals without EP planning. If the Ministry changes the ratio / allocations based on backlog, then it rewards those who try to create a bigger backlog. To reduce the time to travel, agencies need to put referrals on hold until EPs are available.

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    3. Many of us families who went into this knew nothing about the quotas or back log until we were essentially into the refferal stage. We had no idea we would be adopting a 2 yr old (assuming things still march forward as hoped)
      I am not placing any blame. There were likely a lot of unknowns a the time.
      I hope now all agencies are up front with their new families.
      As everyone said and everyone knows , the wrong people are being punished. The children and their potential families. Let's bring the children home.

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    4. Well said. Thanks for understanding. Let's hope all the politics subside and let children come home quikly. If everyone could look at from the view points of children, it would make our world much better.

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  19. Hi Steve, :) Thank you for all you do to advocate for the children of S. Korea. :)

    I was wondering if you have heard any talk of the Ministry considering releasing EP's for all the children already matched to families to "clean the slate" and then matching the number of EP's to the number of referrals for each year?

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    1. Sorry, I haven't heard anything on that one. I hope this is not another rumor spreading around. My guess is that they will issue the EPs and schedule in such way that they will all be granted this year to fulfill the quota set this year.

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  20. Has there been any indication from The Ministry as to whether more EP batches will follow quickly on the heels of this first batch of EP we have just seen go in? Do you see any reason to believe there will be another long pause before they accept the next batch?

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    1. No, there is no reason to believe there will be another long pause, and people shouldn't worry about this. I was told that the new batches of EPs are released each month.

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    2. Dear Steve.
      We shouldn´t expect more batches to be released this month like it happened the first month of 2011?

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  21. Any idea on how long the EP approval process will take? Our paperwork was submitted in the first batch on March 5.

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    1. Several agencies have reported that the Ministry is trying to expedite the first batch. They were hopeful for some approvals this week but the March 5th batch was estimated to take 1-2 weeks for approval. Hopefully something soon! Congrats on your EP news!

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