I just received an e-mail from our adoption agency. Their e-mails all come with a confidentiality notice, but since there's nothing confidential about the information this one contains, I'm going to copy parts of it here.

Effective January 11, 2007, new State Legislation takes effect amending section 378-a of the Social Services Law to require all prospective foster and adoptive parent applicants and household members over the age of eighteen to submit fingerprints for a nationwide criminal history background check processed through the FBI. This is in ADDITION to the requirements for the NYS criminal history check that have been in effect since February, 1999. As such, no foster or adoptive home can be finally certified or approved until both the state and federal reviews have been completed. This new law was created to make the lives of adoptive and foster children safer.

The agency has received a lengthy process we are required to follow for any of our home study clients that do not already have a certified home study BEFORE January 11, 2007. By the way we (along with all NYS Authorized agencies) received directive from the state of this new law in a letter dated January 8, 2007 and received by us on January 11, 2007.)

Who will this affect? Anyone who has not yet met with a home study social worker and who have not yet had ALL their meetings with a home study social worker. Anyone in the process of having a home study update and we have not yet received all their home study update paperwork and they have not yet had a home visit for the home study update.

Who will this NOT affect? Anyone who has already been issued a home study draft or home study document; anyone who has already had all of their meetings with a home study worker that were conducted no later than January 10, 2007. Even if you have not received your final version of the home study as long as you have turned in all your home study paperwork and had all your meetings with your social worker prior to January 11, then it should not affect your study. Your study will be dated prior to January 11, 2007.

If this affects you, what happens now?

* If you have already been assigned a home study worker: Continue meeting with your worker. The agency will contact you when we are ready to fingerprint you following the requirements of the new law. In fact the re-fingerprinting law now requires you to be fingerprinted on a State fingerprint form and an FBI fingerprint form. If you are a distance from the agency and you wish not to return to the agency to be fingerprinted, we can mail you both fingerprint forms (when we receive them) and you may take them to your local police station. Once you are fingerprinted on both forms you will return the forms and the signed releases (also a new part of the new law) to the agency. Though you will have met with the social worker prior to the results being received, a completed home study can NOT be issued until the results of the nationwide criminal history check is received by the agency. The date of your home study will reflect the date of when the results are received.

* If you have not yet been assigned a home study worker: You will not be assigned a home study worker until the results of the nationwide criminal history background check is processed through the FBI and the results are received by Adoption STAR. You will be contacted when we are ready to finger print you.

Can we come in and be fingerprinted immediately? Unfortunately, no. The State does not have an adequate supply of the specialized fingerprint cards that they are now requesting us to utilize. As of a discussion with them today, once they receive a new shipment they will mail us additional cards. We are not permitted to utilize other FBI generated fingerprint cards other than the ones the State provides to us. We currently have fourteen cards and can only select by priority who will be fingerprinted immediately and those will be the clients who are currently matched with a pregnant woman and whose home study has not been finished or has expired or will be expiring prior to the birth of the baby. You will be contacted by us if you fall under that category or if you are next on the priority list, such as longest waiting for a home study or update. In the mean time, we ask for your patience as we await the arrival of additional finger print cards. The State did remind us today that this is a process that will be easier in the next few months as eventually only one fingerprint card will (hopefully) be utilized for both the State and FBI prints, but at this time it will be a slow, manual process. Again, we ask for your patience.

How long will the processing take? The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has informed us that the process WILL be a lengthy process (for at least the next few months) for several reasons: The process conducted as of now is a manual process and may take longer than 10 weeks to receive results. OCFS is currently working to install technology that will make the process smoother and faster (it will eventually not require two sets of fingerprinting cards) but that will take at least another two months. Once this process is in place it should reduce the turn around time to be less than 10 weeks. Secondly, OCFS has informed us, that the FBI rejection rate of finger print cards is much higher than at the State level. It is therefore recommended that additional care be taken when fingerprinting applicants, but nonetheless you must be aware of the very real possibility that the cards may be rejected and new fingerprinting will be required and another 10 weeks may need to pass again waiting for the results. Another important point is that both the FBI cards and State cards must be submitted TOGETHER so any State cards still pending will no longer be processed as the January 11th date has arrived so all those applicants must be re-finger printed along with the FBI cards. Another new process involves all applicants and household members over the age of eighteen to sign a consent form prepared by OCFS that must also accompany the fingerprinting cards.

Can we be profiled while we wait for the nationwide background check results? Just as you can not be profiled currently if your home study is not completed, you can not be profiled until this part of the home study is completed as well.

In short—there's a new fingerprinting requirement that requires our prints to be submitted for a national background check in addition to the state check we already had. Which isn't really an issue, because when you think about it, everyone should have a national background check done before they adopt. In fact, I was unaware that the check we were having done was just for the state of New York; I assumed any criminal record one had anywhere would turn up on it, particularly when combined with the background check forms we had to fill out with every address either of us has had since we turned eighteen. I guess the checks weren't always as thorough.

But here's the shitty part: it takes more than ten weeks for the print results to come back—and that is after they've been sent out, and we will be a low priority to have them taken because we're not currently "waiting"—and since we haven't yet been assigned a social worker, our homestudy won't actually start until after our print results come back.

Which means that instead of being finished by sometime in February, our homestudy won't even begin until sometime in March or April, at the earliest, and we won't be officially "waiting" until May or June. One step forward, two steps back...

Silver lining...silver lining...there's got to be one in here somewhere. Got it—this gives us some more time to get more work done on the house before it is even possible to have a placement. It also gives us more time to get together the money for the placement fees (which we'll have to get together once our homestudy is approved).

The silver lining isn't doing much for me right now, though. This just sucks. :/