About Us.
Some quick facts about World Links International Adoption Agency:
- We first opened our doors on October 21, 1996
- We are a 501 (c) (3) charity.
- We are a proud recipient of “Angels in Adoption” congressional award.
- We are licensed to place children in all 50 states.
- We are accredited to work in Russia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Moldova.
- We are registered to work in Kazakhstan, they don't have accreditation.
- We are Hague accredited.
Better, faster, leaner, greener World Links
Better:
There is no limit to perfection, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it. Our families said that we are a great adoption agency, and that we did before, and are doing now, an excellent job of bringing children and parents together, and we appreciate that. We appreciate the praise, but we are working, constantly and continuously, to become better, and our short term goals are:- Improve communications
- Improve IT involvement
- Reduce the number of obstacles and roadblocks
and that leads us to faster:
Faster:
International adoption is a long process, but sometimes it becomes unnecessarily drawn out. There are many uncertainties in intercountry relations and bureaucracies aren't know for lightning-fast responses: every change, however minute, takes time, every decision, however mundane, requires approval, and every event, however plain, requires endorsement, and these time sinks plague the process of international adoption, but it's far worse when your agency is the one putting up roadblocks. In the world of slow one thing that shouldn't be is your adoption agency, and we aren't, but there is room for improvement.Fast maybe as unattainable as perfect, but that isn't going to stop us either.
What we are working on:
- Speed up our turnarounds
- Speed up our communications and information delivery
- Simplify our paperwork
- Streamline our process
- Put more information at your fingertips
Leaner:
Big things lack agility. You can get an eighteen-wheeler truck to go 100 mph, but have it turn on a dime at that speed and the result you get is predictable, yet far from good. That very same concept applies to companies across the globe, and international adoption agencies in particular. Intercountry relations change, laws, rules and regulations governing international adoption change, and we have to change yet faster to stay on top of everything, to make sure you don't get hit with a broadside of a slow-turning agency, don't get left behind in the shadow of a giant.We are working on cutting out the excess and making sure we keep or add what's needed, and right now we have one thing we want to assure we do better than anyone - communication.
One primary goal is to reduce the number of people between you, the adoptive parent, and me, the decision maker in the agency. The ideal number of intermediary people is ZERO.
Why, How and the NEW model:
Why?
If you speak directly to me, then I'll know what your questions are, what your concerns are, and what your opinions are. I'll give you straight answers and to the point, and if i don't know something, i won't be guessing, i'll find out and tell you.
You won't have to guess and wonder, you'll know.
How?
Our goal is to have people in charge speak directly to you, so "How?" is pretty straight forward - we are going to put our top managers on the phone with you. Speaking to our families is our top priority, it trumps virtually everything else, so if a phone call comes in - we'll be looking to answer.
I may not be the fastest and our administrative staff may answer your call before me, but I'll be here to speak to you when they do. We are, however, having an internal competition to see who's faster at answering incoming calls, and our CEO sounded very determined.
Old Model vs the NEW Model
Our old model was somewhat similar to what telecom companies have: you'll call the low guy on the totem poll, get transferred to someone who will take your information, get transferred again to someone who will drone on about things from a piece of paper without really taking time to listen, and if you wanted an answer to something not in the script it had to be run up and down the chain, which took time and really depended on interpretation of a lot of intermediaries. Well, NO MORE!
The NEW model puts you in direct contact with me. I will still have administrative personnel do the paperwork, but now things won't get lost because someone somewhere should have done things; no, now it's my responsibility to make sure your case is taken care of, and you'll be able to talk to me directly about anything and everything regarding your case.
We are implementing this already.
Greener:
International adopting may, one day, become a paperless process, but right now each case is about 2 reams of paper. There are some papers that we must have, and there are parts where we must have your original signature, but overall we are working to reduce waste of paper and energy, and here's what we've done so far:- Our application is now distributed in electronic form and soon will be online completely
- Our master agreement went from 27 pages to 8
- Our country information pages are now PDF files and we are working on making everything available online
- Our computers are now Macs with the highest green rating our there
- Our servers are now one server, energy efficient and with the highest green manufacturer's rating
- our efforts don't stop there.
Conclusion:
We are approaching our 14 years in the field mark, we have knowledge and experience, and we are chaining and evolving to be better, to be faster, leaner and greener, so we can serve you better, serve orphaned children better, and link families together across the world.If you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear from you.