Attrition
(If you want to see the babies, here is the link.)
Back in September we had this blog post that talked about attrition, and my conclusion (down in the comments) had us with an unscientific attrition rate of about 15%.
There are rumors that the CCAA is returning large numbers of dossiers to agencies - not because the family was turned down but because the family is withdrawing from the program. I think it’s time to try to see what the attrition rate looks like now.
There are a few agencies who told how many families were logged in back when they were logged in, and who tell how many referrals they receive when they receive them. Some agencies treat this as a state secret, others have no problems sharing it. I have the numbers from a couple of agencies and the numbers appear to be closer to 25% now.
If you happen to have a bunch of numbers from your agency please send them to me via email or PM and don’t list them here. However, if you know how many people started out in your LID group and how many are left now, please share that information with us, along with what your LID is.
If they are doing an interim adoption we don’t need to know that. We only need to know the number of people who have dropped out of the program.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Thanks RQ. AWSOME JOB!!
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
We’re 4/26/06, our LID group was 13 and is down to 11, both switched to SN.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Rumor Queen, how do I email you or PM you. Sorry, I’m a newbie!
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
RQ,
my agency posted 21 referrals this month BUT for the one LID they had matched their number in April 2006 for that day was 28. So thats a 25 % decrease.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
rumorqueen aatt gmail ddoott com
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
We are LID 3/1/06, our Group started with 10 and is now down to 5. Our agency had no referrals for Nov. 1.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Thanks, I think I’m finally getting the hang of this! Your spam word is perfect! We are getting our fingerprints done in the morning.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I meant to say RE-done!
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Our agency doesn’t give that info, but I see more and more people everyday from my LID Yahoo groups that are going SN. There have been 3 in the last 2 days alone.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Wow! I had no idea the numbers would be that high.
But I guess it makes sense.
There have to be a lot of people who have made other plans or who have had life changes, etc. etc.
2-3 years is a long time to wait.
Imagine what would happen if pregnancies took three years????
The world would be a crazier place, I can bet that!
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
LID 12/5/05. Originally started with 4 families and are now 3.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:29 pm
RQ,
I was just wondering - if the number seems to be closer to 25%, do you have any idea what the distribution is? i.e. a lot in 2nd half of 2006, not so much in 1st half of 2006, or anything like that?? I don’t have any info like that from my agency.
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I am LID 9/25/06. Our group had 9, but 2 have switched to SN.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
How are you defining attrition? Withdrawals or withdrawals plus switch to SN?
Thanks.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
In my LID travel group of six families using a medium-sized agency (LID 1/10/06), one changed to SN and one dropped out completely.
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Sorry but what does SN mean?
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
SN means Special Needs vs Non-special Needs :)
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
LID 03/23/06 Small Canadian agency.
Our LID travel group began with 10 families. Now 9 but only because one family was expedited and brought their daughter home 2 weeks ago!
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
How can you get expedited? I want to be! : )
LID 2-14-06
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
How do you find out how many people are in your LID group?
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
My LID date is 2-5-07.
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Will be really interesting to get some sense of the numbers of attrition.
If they were as high as 25% that could have somewhat of an impact on the wait.
Although I think your original estimates of 15% might be more accurate…not that I have any way of knowing …just guessing of course.
Thanks for trying to gather this info.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
My LID was in 5/06 and all of our 5 families are still “in”. I did hear, though, that 2 couples ahead of me dropped out. One because the woman died. That was pretty upsetting to hear!
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:16 pm
RQ~
We are LID 06/06 and according to our agency we had 6 families in our group (including us in that 6) and all 5 switched to SN several months ago. It is only us now.
~Linda
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:51 pm
We are lid Nov 05, and although I’m not sure, there were 4 families when we started, I think one has dropped out.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:08 am
My 12-5-05 Group had 19 families and 1 switched to SN but has not received a referral so the group is 18 now. Large NA agency.
Adomom
May 4th, 2007 at 1:48 am
hi - i’m new to this group. we are in sydney, australia. our LID is 3.8.06. We had 6 in our group, 1 had been expedited and 1 has disappeared - hope they are OK…..
May 4th, 2007 at 4:14 am
we are lid 9 nov 2005, started with 8 families and 8 are still in.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:56 am
sydneysider,
We have the same LID. So far, I only know 2 other people with that date! Welcome to the group!=)
May 4th, 2007 at 6:33 am
BINGO, I think we have an err, winner/answer here.
Wasn’t it talked about, several, several months ago, when CCAA made an announcement that the NSN children were lower in numbers, but the SN was still high and they would continue to get those children out of the orphanages at a higher rate of speed. Something to that effect anyway. If this is the intention of their slowdown, I think we are finally coming to see the results of it. Many of us are switching, getting those SN children out of the orphanages (Chinas wishes), which is a wonderful thing.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:55 am
I am a 10-27-06 log in, although can’t I drop the ‘06 now. Anway, there are three in my group, and we all stay.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Another Australian group….LID 10 Jan’06. There are and always have been 7 families in my batch and we are in for the long haul!
May 4th, 2007 at 8:34 am
There were 12 families in our group, LID 3-28-06. I know that 2, ourselves included, have changed to SN. We got home 2 weeks ago with our son. I have no way of finding out where the other families are in the process.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Thinking about this, I have heard that some agencies (or is it the CCAA?) are not allowing families to change to SN once they are LID NSN. Is this true, and how does that fit into the theory that the slow down is partially to encourage SN adoptions? We did not know enough about the SN process before we were LID, and our agency actually sent us a SN info pack after we were LID. That opened the door and the rest is history.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Our small china only (at the moment) agency is not allowing their clients to switch to the SN program if you have been LID longer than 6 months. It is a shame, because like you, I just did not know enough or understand the program until after we were LID 3/21/06. And at that point it was understood that people switched all the time to SN, so we thought that was always an option until a few months ago (??) when they said they no longer allowed it.
MoonPie
May 4th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Our agency is not allowing us to change to SN. I inquired about it 2 weeks ago. Our LID is 11/06. I’m not quite sure I understand this not changing thing.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Our medium size multi-country (and domestic!) agency had two families in our LID–11/18/05. Our group is now down to one family, us. The other family in our group was denied by CCAA during the review process so it was a ‘forced’ attrition. This was a complete surprise to our agency and the family since they were considered ‘pre-approved’ due to medical issues. Apparentally CCAA didn’t feel the same when it came to the actual review. Our agency does allow a switch to SN at any point without extra costs, etc. I think we would just need an addendum to our home study if we did switch. Ultimately we decided not to since we are so close to a referral (we hope!!).
Kathi
11/18/05
May 4th, 2007 at 9:03 am
I am not sure if I am talking about the right LID group…but my Agency specific LID group (All same agency, all with LID in same month)…there are 40 or so people and we have lost 1 member because they were referred SN and might lose another because they are considering a SN referral. We are LID 2/07…so 1 loss is pretty big considering we are so early in the game.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Our medium size multi-country agency (and domestic!) had two families with our LID. We are now down to one–us. The other family was denied by CCAA due to medical issues. So, this was a ‘forced’ attrition…a complete surprise to our agency and the family since they were considered ‘pre-approved’ prior to submitting their dossier. Looks like CCAA had second thoughts during the actual review process. Our agency does allow a switch to SN at any time but I believe it requires an addendum to the home study. We already had to do it once for the I-660A re-application so we aren’t interested in doing it again. It’s nice to know there is a choice, though.
Kathi
LID 11/18/05
May 4th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Ooops, I meant I-600A form…my bad. :)
kalohr
May 4th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Soooo…. do you think that, since people are pulling out, that the CCAA will speed up? Or are we doomed to eventually get to a 3 year wait??
Also, did y’all see this article http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9766870 ? PATHETICALLY SAD, AWFUL AND HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!
His,
Mrs. U
LID 9-12-05
referral 1-4-07
“Gotcha Day” 2-25-07 for Elizabeth
http://www.makingahouseahome.blogspot.com
May 4th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Laural-
I think you might have something there, but my comment is, re: SN referrals, I don’t think agencies are getting a sizeable quatity more SN referrals per quarter than they usually do — at least my agency hasn’t been.
I would think/HOPE that if that is what CCAA is really trying to do — get more SN referrals out the door, so to speak, that they would be sending larger volumes of SN referrals to the agencies to place. RQ, any stats/data on SN referral batch quantities either increasing in size or being sent more frequently than they have been in the past?
May 4th, 2007 at 9:48 am
- the no-switching for families waiting longer than 6 months (if it *is* a rule), protects kids and prevents disruptions: at that point, the main reason for switching is more likely to be the wait, rather than the desire to bring home a SN child. I can see lots of reasons why that would be discouraged.
RQ or anyone: is the no-switching from NSN to SN an agency or CCASA rule?
May 4th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I believe 3 families with our lid of 11/18/05 and I know
one switched SN.
Sindy
Lid 11/18/05 for Allison
http://www.ost.redthreadkids.org
May 4th, 2007 at 10:13 am
People in our agency can be in both programs simultaneously. I know several people recently who changed over to SN and have been logged in for almost a year.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:13 am
My agency, multi-country, medium, can request a new group of SN files once they have matched a large percentage of the last group they were sent. I do think there is a somewhat larger number of SN files coming in to them, at a somewhat more frequent timing - 20 files every 4 mos in the past to 25+ sometimes every 3 mos. Not a huge increase, but an increase.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I am all for people switching to SN and would have if I could have. But this kind of attrition is not really shortening the wait for the NSN people if there is a quota in place. It is rather getting longer since people switching for SN are getting ahead in the system. Or am I completely wrong here?
May 4th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I guess the question is…Does the cap on the number of referrals per year include SN and NSN referrals? I had been under the impression that it only included NSN, but I could be completely wrong.
LID May 10, 2006
May 4th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Switching from NSN to SN
I think many people switch not to hurry up but because the time has given them a chance to search their hearts and open their mind to a child with a special need.
We were LID 10/05 for NSN and switched to SN completed our adoption in 7/06 and are waiting on PA for another SN child. This go around we knew we were only going to go SN.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Ok before I get flamed…as I didn’t write it well not that we are better for taking a SN just sometimes you might not think about it. Many people start down the path of adoption and don’t even know the SN program is out there. The wait gives some people time to understand all the options.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Guangximom, what du you mean they are in both the SN and NSN program simultaneously? I didn’t think CCAA allowed that??
May 4th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
We are doing the SN, NSN program simultaneoulsy. Howerver there seems to be a slow down in the SN program as well since so many are switching or doing both.