Children

Latvian referral process is more open, but at the same time more generalized than that of other popular adoption programs. It stems from the fact that Latvia maintains a very good database of records for prospective adoptive children, and from the way referral process itself is structured.
So, let’s go over common categories.

Age?

Latvian program is generally geared towards adoption of older children. How old is “older”? To date the youngest child to come from Latvia through our program was 3 years of age. That’s the youngest, and a part of a sibling group.

Generally, though, children are older. Latvia first tries to place children with the Latvian families, and only then refers children for adoption by foreign families. That is how they structured their process.

Gender?

Boys and girls are waiting for families. It seems that through our program more boys are adopted from Latvia than girls, but as time goes on we expect that ratio to become about 50:50.

Health?

Children from Latvia generally come with better health records than from other programs. Probably because children are older and diagnoses were either confirmed and the child received the necessary medical care, or early diagnoses were disproved and the child simply doesn’t have what was listed on the earlier medical evaluations.

Anything else?

Children that come from Latvia, depending on their age of course, seem to be familiar with computers and do speak some English. They also have better developed social skills, and are confident by themselves and in a group. You can see that caregivers do spend a lot of time with the children.