The use of photos of the children on our website is granted with the permission of the legal guardian/parent. Each child in these photos has been placed with a family and is, therefore, not available for placement. In order to protect the privacy of children, Great Wall China Adoption does not post photos of children waiting to be adopted.

The State Department’s website provides a list of agencies who received their full or temporary accreditation and those who were denied.

If you live outside of Texas, Great Wall is happy to assist you with your adoption. Although your home study agency must be licensed to perform home studies in your state, your adoption agency can be located anywhere in the US. This allows you to choose an agency based on experience and reputation, rather than location. If you already know which home study agency you are working with, just let us know. If you do not have a home study agency, we will refer you to a reputable Hague-accredited agency located near you. In Florida, Great Wall is licensed to provide a home study services for you.

Great Wall has a long-standing history as one of the leading adoption agencies in the US. Founded in 1996, GWCA and their sister agency CAN place hundreds of children each year. In 2012, our agency placed 228 children with US families! If you choose Great Wall, you will be working with a well-established, stable organization that will recognize your individual needs throughout your adoption journey.

Great Wall works with all welfare homes authorized by the CCCWA. In the standard referral process, the CCCWA carefully considers each child’s temperament, personality, and special needs before matching them with a family. Neither the parents nor the adoption agencies select the child unless the family is pursuing a Waiting Child. For Waiting Child adoptions, agencies and families are able to partake in the matching process.

Great Wall has developed a curriculum for our adoptive families to ensure that all the Hague required topics are covered. Options include Great Wall Informational Adoption Workshops, Adoption Travel Training Seminars, or our Online Adoption Courses. Our Referral Counselors will work with you to review other training resources offered in your area.

For couples with one spouse under 30, Great Wall recommends starting the adoption process when the younger spouse is six months away from turning 30 years old. By the time the younger spouse turns 30, the couple will most likely have completed the dossier process and can submit the dossier to China the week the younger parent turns 30. The CCCWA will not register a dossier until both spouses have reached 30 years of age.

Currently, CCCWA (the Chinese adoption authority) does not allow 2 or more unrelated children to be adopted at the same time. Please contact your Adoption Consultant to discuss this information if you have any questions.

Yes, Great Wall offers a discount for families who go through our China adoption program a again! To receive the discount, please provide documentation of your child’s adoption. You can ask our Adoption Consultant for details about this discount.

Depending on the services your family requires, families spend between $25K and $33K (total estimated costs). If you are adopting for the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time, Great Wall will discount the agency fees to families who have completed adoptions through Great Wall previously. Great Wall also offers a free Stork Goodies service to families that have already adopted a child with Great Wall. This offer is nontransferable and cannot be redeemed for cash value.

We are happy to provide you with a list of reputable home study agencies in your area. Please call us at 512-323-9595 or contact us for more information about home study agencies near you.

Yes, you may work with a home study agency that is not on our list. China requires that you work with a Hague or COA accredited agency, with a social worker that has a master’s degree. If you are pleased with the service you receive from your home study agency, please let us know so we may refer other families to them in the future.

On average, the dossier process can take anywhere from three to six months. This process includes obtaining all the required paperwork, including notary public signatures, and document certification and authentication procedures. The time frame depends upon the various government agencies (vital statistics, county clerk, secretary of state, Chinese Consulate, and Citizenship and Immigration Services). Certification and authentication procedure time frames vary greatly between states. Certification procedures generally take two to four weeks. Authentication generally takes two to three weeks. The length of this process also depends upon how diligent families are in obtaining their paperwork.

1. Open with a salutation: “To The Officials of the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption:”
2. State your full name, date of birth, place of birth (city/state), and your citizenship status (i.e. “We are both citizens of the United States”)
3. Explain why you chose to adopt and why you specifically chose China
4. Please make sure that the following wording is included in the letter: “We promise that we will not abandon or abuse the adopted child, that our child will enjoy the same rights as a biological child, and that we will raise and educate the adopted child to be a healthy adult.”
5. Don’t forget to include your request, specifically; the health, age range, and gender of the child that you would like the CCCWA to match you with. The CCCWA is interested in fulfilling the request that the family has stated on their application letter, so please make sure to make your request known. The application letter is an important part of the matching process (when you are being matched with a child) and it’s important to give the CCCWA a good impression of your personality and lifestyle. The letter does not have to be more than one page, but it should come from the heart.
6. If you are requesting an expedited referral due to Chinese heritage (either you were born in China or BOTH of your parents were born in China), please make sure to make the request known in your letter as well.
7. Both parents (or if you are single, then you) should sign the letter in front of a notary and the notary must properly sign and notarize the document with the appropriate acknowledgement statement as required by your state, along with their stamp or seal.
8. When discussing the reasons for why you chose to adopt from China, please remember to be respectful, courteous, positive, and, most importantly, humble in your reasons. Do not accentuate the negative aspects of the process, such as the number of abandoned children. And, finally, stay away from any political comments regarding China, as that is a very sensitive subject.

This is a recent request from the CCCWA:

Make the application letter your own! Use your own wording in the letter and make it heartfelt. It does not have to be poetry or a novel, but it should be a sincere statement of who you are, why you want to adopt, and other things that you would personally like China to know. Be concise (try to keep it to a one or two page maximum), but think of it as an essay of who you are; you are trying to promote yourself to the Chinese officials and make them see what wonderful parents you would be. 

Great Wall’s experienced Travel Advisors will reserve the following flights for you in China:

• Beijing to the capital city of your child’s province
• The capital city of your child’s province to Guangzhou
• Guangzhou to Hong Kong

Your Travel Advisor also books all of your hotels in Beijing, your child’s province, and Guangzhou, as well as your Cultural Learning Tours, all transportation to and from the airport, and your expert China guides. 

We understand you know your family best, and we will work with you to arrange travel for additional family members or friends to accompany you to China. Once you receive your referral, you will complete our travel information sheet and provide us with the name, date of birth, and passport number for each additional person traveling with you. You may also list any additional travel requests at that time.

Your Great Wall China guide will pick you up from the airport. Please look for the green GWCA flag once you have collected your luggage. Your China guide will greet you and take you to your hotel where s/he will help you check in.

Based upon current trends, you will travel approximately 8–12 weeks after you receive your referral.