Bulgaria
"We are thrilled to share some remarkable news with you – The Madison Adoption Associates staff will be joining the Gladney Center for Adoption family! This integration marks a significant step forward in our collective mission to build and support loving families through adoption. For now, if you are interested in working in the Bulgaria Adoption Program, it will be under Madison Adoption Associates' (MAA) country accreditation."
Once the transition is complete, your adoption and post adoption services will be completed under Gladney’s accreditation.
Bulgaria is party to the Hague convention, and MAA is privileged to offer adoptions from this beautiful country. MAA partners with several accredited organizations in Bulgaria to assist families in completing adoptions of children, both physically healthy and with special needs. In Bulgaria, children ages 18 months to 14 years are available for adoption. The children in need of families have special medical needs, are older children, and/or are part of a sibling group. They reside in orphanages and foster homes in Bulgaria.
MAA works in cooperation with our foreign partner agencies and the Bulgarian Central Authority, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), to identify children who are legally available for international adoption, and to find qualified adoptive families for these children. There are two tracts in MAA’s Bulgaria program:
- Traditional Program –The family submits a dossier, which outlines the child parameters that the family is approved for. The MOJ then reviews the dossier and presents the family with a referral that matches the criteria outlined in the dossier. The children available in this tract tend to not have as significant special needs as the children available in the Waiting Child tract.
- Waiting Child Program – The qualified family may submit commitment paperwork for consideration to MOJ for a specific child on MAA’s Waiting Child list. MOJ will review the commitment paperwork, and if approved, will invite the family to submit a dossier for that specific child. The family then compiles and submits a dossier to MOJ and awaits dossier approval and the formal referral. The family understands that MAA will continue to advocate for the child until the family has a current, valid home study.
Common special needs in both tracts include older child (over the age of 6 years), Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome, hearing loss, vision loss, developmental delay, Spina Bifida, emotional disturbance, blood disorders, Autism, and more. Sibling groups are also available, and while many are medically healthy, all children available for adoption have a history of trauma and have experienced significant grief and loss.
Adoptions are finalized in Bulgaria and children adopted from Bulgaria will enter the U.S. on an IH-3 visa. They will become a U.S. citizen as soon as they arrive in the United States.
If you are interested in this program, we invite you to contact Sarah Hansen to discuss your individual situation or inquire about children currently available.
Couples interested in adopting through Gladney’s Bulgaria Program (under Madison Adoption Associates country accreditation) must meet the following guidelines:
- Married couples and single women are eligible to adopt
- Older parents will be referred older children
- Parents must be at least 15 years older than the child they wish to adopt
- There is no specific requirement regarding length of marriage or prior divorces; however, the strength of the current marriage and relationship history is taken into account.
To read the full list of requirements, please proceed to Exploring Adoption »
Waiting Children
MAA is approved to post redacted referrals of children waiting in Bulgaria. These partial referrals are presented by the country's Central Authority. View Profiles
Superkids
Superkids is a humanitarian aid and child advocacy program at the Gladney Center for Adoption that provides developmental screenings, caregiver trainings and adoption advocacy on behalf of Asian orphans. Learn More