Referral timing – a historical look
I thought I’d take a look at how many referral batches we’ve seen in previous years.
I’m not really sure that this tells us all that much. We’re short so far this year, but I think we knew that. I guess the big question is whether the CCAA is going to play catch up so there are 12 batches this year, or if they’ll keep going slow so there are less than 12.
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On another note, I’ve got a new LID poll up. If you’re still in the NSN program, and if you are not expedited, then please take fifteen seconds to fill it out.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Oh goodie. October gets the prize for having the most LID days between matches.
Let’s see, do you think they can get through the last three days of March in November? Or maybe they will do 1 day in NOv. 1 day in Dec. and Jan do a half day?
I’m much to cynical for this time in the morning….
October 15th, 2009 at 8:39 am
We’ve had longer intervals, just not in the time shown on this chart. During SARS I’m pretty sure we went a lot longer than 57 days. I don’t have the exact figures, maybe someone else out there remembers how long we went with no referrals?
But, during SARS they kept matching, they just couldn’t mail them. Once they were allowed to mail them again they mailed them every couple of weeks. Staggering them enough so that families would be able to get Civil Affair appointments as well as appointments with their own country’s consulate.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am
It was about 6 weeks between referrals during the SARS suspension.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
So, if I understand this right, there has been (every year) two referrals in either November or December. Is it a hope for it to happen this year as well???
October 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
It is pretty depressing to see that in 2009, the largest LID batch was only 6 days…..
Also, the only month being referred has been March 2006.
Hopefully the next group of referrals will either come soon, and/or include some of April 2006.
So much for the rumored ‘speed up’
z
October 15th, 2009 at 11:44 am
chickensoupforchina – are you sure? I remember it being a shorter time (could have been six weeks) during the first SARS scare, but then when it hit again I remembered it being several months.
gotochina – while that is technically accurate, it doesn’t give a good view of what actually happened. In ’06 it was 11/2, 11/30, then 1/3 – all about 30 days apart, and December was only missed by a few days on both sides. It was basically the same as Nov, Dec, Jan. Right? And 2007 was the same thing – referrals arriving 12/5 and 12/31 and then not coming again until 2/1 – it’s the same as Dec, Jan, Feb since Jan missed out by one day on both ends. Right?
October 15th, 2009 at 11:48 am
this is really, really depressing. I have no other words.
wewait
11/20/06
October 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
RQ,
Give me an hour or so, and I will check the archives of my agency group.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Hi All,
According my research, CCAA officially suspended adoptions and posted this on their website on May 15th 2003. The suspension was lifted on June 24th 2003. So, just under 6 weeks.
Rq, I only remember one official suspension. We were caught right in the middle of it. I don’t recall a first and second one. Perhaps you have more insight on this, or anyone else?
October 15th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
You can’t go by the “official” suspension time to get the interval between referrals. Remember that they didn’t send them for a really long time before they made it official? They were cleaning their offices, there was no one to sign them, etc. And then finally when the excuses were getting silly they made it official.
I’m interested in the interval between referrals. I could be wrong, it’s been a long time and it is possible my brain has inflated the time, but I really thought it was months, not weeks. I guess we can dig through the APC archives, but that database is a bear to search through.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
RQ
Your are right – we were given a number of increasingly ‘silly’ reasons for allocations not coming out (eg computer upgrades and then office cleaning) before they officially suspended the program due to SARS (they also weren’t issueing TAs). I was in the batch that was next and waiting for a referral. The batch before ours received their referral on 8 April (but bear in mind at that time this country received these a week or two after the US due to translations etc) – they did not get their TA and were unable to travel until the suspension was lifted and their TA received.
The suspension was lifted on 24 June 2003, the same day as WHO lifted the travel advisory against travel to China and the first calls were received 2 days later – we received our call the Tuesday after the suspension was lifted.
Magnolia’s Friend
October 15th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Magnolia’s Friend and RQ,
Thank you for the clarification. I apologize for the confusion. I will check my agency archives sometime this evening to get an idea of when referrals were sent out prior to SARS. Perhaps others can do the same.
If this is the case, I think we’re seeing a repeated pattern. Since the CCAA has made efforts to get referrals out before a holiday, it seems this might be as Mangolia said a ‘silly’ reason.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I was intrigued by the conversation and around during the SARS delay so I took a look at APC archives in between internet work. Here’s what I found:
- Referrals started arriving on 3/31/03.
- Silly excuses Magnolia’s Friend and RQ mentioned were happening around May 1 CCAA closure.
- 5/12/03 (Mon) someone posted that their agency reported a meeting the previous Fri. and that “issuance of referrals is being temporarily postponed.
- 5/31/03 there were announcements of expedited referrals for people living in China
- 6/26/03 referrals for non-expedites started arriving.
To summarize, referrals were issued on 3/31/09 and not again until 6/26/03 (the day before we were DTC, BTW) a gap of 87 days. Almost 3 months!
October 15th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I’ve been tracking the referrals our agency gets since 2003. I have the following numbers in terms of batches/year:
2003- 12
2004- 12
2005- 11
2006- 12
2007- 12
2008- 13
The days between batches vary alot, but average ~31 days.
-TM
October 15th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
RQ—what has your experience been with wait times when the family doesn’t get matched with their LID. The CCAA said we may receive a referral w/ the next group…is that likely? Thanks! LID 3/28/06
October 15th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
OK. I admit it…I have a hard time understanding all of the data on these charts. But, if my calculations are correct the number of LID days covered each year is slowing down to a frighteningly slow crawl.
2006: 146 LID days (almost 5 months)
2007: 102 LID days (about 3 1/2 months)
2008: 71 LID days (about 2 1/2 months)
2009 28 LID days so far
Gracious sakes! Am I looking at these numbers right?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Thanks Xueshengmama,
That’s far more information than I could come up with. I guess I blocked out that entire mess. Talk about an emotional roller coaster.
One thing I do remember is that the suspension was lifted the day after we lost our best friend to cancer. Then, we got our referral on the day of his funeral. It was a bittersweet time for us.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Thanks xueshengmama – that’s closer to what I was remembering. I wasn’t waiting, but I know people who were, and it was a really bad time for them.
stillwaiting – your agency should be able to tell you which LID group your file was batched with. You should consider that your new LID. It is whichever of your agency’s LID groups that were up next in the Review Room when your questions were answered enough that they could approve your file. The review person would have placed your file with that group.
pittrpattr – that’s kind of the point to most of my analysis, that China adoption has crawled to an almost stop, matching a few days at a time when they used to match a month at a time. I post charts and analysis all of the time, and the stats in this post are always available on the History page…. but sometimes it just takes seeing it in a different way for it to sink in, I guess.
chickensoupforchina – sometimes we get that “one door closes and another opens” a little too close to each other, yes? My mom went to the funeral of her great grandmother a few days before she gave birth to me, when she was supposed to be on total bed rest, because she had to say her goodbyes. My great great grandmother must have been an incredible woman, to this day my birth is still associated with her death by most of my mom’s generation.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Thank you RQ. Yes, it was quite a time for us. We literally got “the call” as we were going out the door. I think Great Grandma and our friend are kindred spirits! :)
Just out of curiosity, as I really seemed to have blocked the whole thing out, what kind of excuses were they giving last time?
October 16th, 2009 at 9:35 am
chickensoupforchina – Definitely a bittersweet time for you. How difficult to lose your friend and then have one of the happiest days of your life.
RQ – I have a cousin who was born the day my grandmother died. Our family often talks about the two events together too.
Finally, I should have proofed my post better. 3/31/09 should read 3/31/03 of course, and the May 1 CCAA closure was for the May 1 holiday. I learned in the APC posts that the closure was extended several days beyond what is usual.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:59 am
The “cleaning the offices” excuse sticks out the silliest in my mind, but I know there were other excuses/reasons that they gave for not sending them. Xueshengmama mentioned something about a new computer system, and also that they extended their vacation time longer than normal. They basically held out as long as they could before making it official, and the excuses/reasons just got more and more bizarre. But by doing that, it makes them less trustworthy now, when we are wondering if they are stretching things out because of H1N1, or if there really wasn’t someone in the office to sign referrals right before they left.
October 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Here comes Miss Skeptic. I think it’s all about H1N1 right now, and that’s why the referrals were so late.
As far as the “cleaning the offices” excuse goes…..Sounds like telling the guy who asked you out, “I’m washing my hair that night.” LOL
October 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Chickensoupforchina
I think I equate it more like someone else telling you to stall someone they don’t want to go out with (and you can’t think of good reasons).
I think for these really big decision (like slowdowns or shutdowns due to epidemic/pandemic) that the CCAA is not master of their own destiny, it is coming from higher up, possibly the Ministry of Civil Affairs who they report to, or higher.
They may be told to do something but the people telling them don’t want it to be an official announcement at that time (eg because then media etc get talking about it). So they are told do this and we don’t care how you explain it (as long as you don’t say the real reason), just do it. I think if this is the case you can come up with a reasonably plausible excuse (eg computer upgrade – hey ours nearly always go wrong at work and we are out of action longer, so I did believe that one for a while in the lead up to SARS shutdown), but the longer you have to ‘not do something’, the excuses get less convincing and more difficult to come up with.
At this point though I don’t see H1N1 in quite the same light as SARS – for a start there are now vaccines available in most developed countries (there was none for SARS at the time of the outbreak) so if there concern is still tourists importing or spreading H1N1 they could I guess require that they be vaccinated against it prior to travel (just as some countries require proof of innoculation for other diseases to enter their country).
There are parallels with the recent delays in sending referrals to the time of SARS but the difference has been (to date) on both occassions that although extremely late they did eventually send the batches – in SARS they delayed, delayed, didn’t send and then formally announced the shutdown.
Magnolia’s Friends