Pros: In regards to the"positive aspects" of this agency. Initially the support and communication were quite good. We came to this agency after a devastating loss of a referral child with another agency and L.H was very sympathetic to the emotional and financial loss of that journey.
Basically we were a paper ready family so we only had to make a few
changes and additions for the L.H. region dossier.
We received a referral child and traveled on trip one within a resonable amount of time.
Cons: We couldn't accept the referral child we had traveled to meet due to health/psy. concern and that is where our problems began.
For our experience~ promises and agreements were broken by L.H. agency staff and their contacts in Moscow and our region.
We did adopt a child that was older than our initial referral child and the age range we had requested from our agency. We had problems with full disclosure on our child's health/soclal records despite many questions from us and our IA physicans.
Reviews: Every adoptive family will hope for the best journey but they should plan for the unexpected in the event something goes wrong.
We believe it is vital for the agency to have a strong link with the in- country staff as they play a tremendous role in the complete adoption process. This was not the case for our experience.
Review by 2russiankids submitted on December, 19, 2007 at 04:56 PM
Adoption Details:
Child's Age: 1y 1m
Start Date: Oct 2006
Status: Finalized
Completion Date: Feb 2007
Time Until Placement: 4 months
Type: Closed, International
Special Needs: No
Child from Moscow, Russian Federation
Pros: This is our second review for Lighthouse since we adopted two kids at once using them this year.
They did a great job in helping us find and bring our kiddos home, working hard day and night!
Cons: The only place we didn't give a 10 to Lighthouse would be on fees (a 9 here), this is due to the difference in the cost to adopt two at once in Moscow than other regions. But, it was worth it, we found our forever family through them!! Had we adopted a single child the fees were no different than any other agency that works in Russia.
Reviews: We completed our adoption this year with Lighthouse to adopt our two kiddos and had an overall great experience with Lighthouse.
To find our youngest child, we did lose our referral that we traveled to meet, and ended up meeting a few kids before we found our baby girl. This is no fault of Lighthouse, but we need to say that this suddenly stressful procedure we were not anticipating went as well as possible without any pressure or problems from our incountry staff who were scrambling to find us our daughter. It all worked out and they did the best they could to match us to her!
Review by 2russiankids submitted on December, 19, 2007 at 04:39 PM
Adoption Details:
Child's Age: 2y 8m
Start Date: Oct 2006
Status: Finalized
Completion Date: Feb 2007
Time Until Placement: 4 months
Type: Closed, International
Special Needs: No
Child from Moscow, Russian Federation
Pros: Our experience was that Lighthouse agency did all that they could to make our adoption process smooth. We got our referral immediately upon submitting our dossier!
Things done well for us:
-contacted us with updates regularly
-handled everything professionally
-quick to respond to questions/problems
-incountry process went well, staff worked hard to make everything work out the way it should
-no surprise fees
-quick process!!!
Cons: Nothing comes to mind.
Reviews: Lighthouse is a small agency, but they never stop working for you!!! They may not place the largest number of children, but we were very happy to have found them and would use them again without hesitation!
