Letter of Good Conduct / Police Statement

Criminal Record Checks for adoptive parents may not be a combined search, nor can you attach the reports together for authentication. They must each be individually issued and individually certified and authenticated separately.

Imprtant: A Criminal Record Check must be conducted for any individual over the age of 18 who lives in the immediate residence of the adoptive family.  Each must be notarized, certified and authenticated.

The police clearance is good for 12 months from the date of examination to the date of registration of the dossier at the CCAA.

If any documentation shows up on an individual's police record, additional documentation will need to be supplied to the CCAA.  In general, if an existing record is indicated in your police record, you will need to supply the following  information:

1. Obtain a complete incident summary from the police station docket

2. The home study must fully address this incident, no matter how trivial or how long ago it occurred.

3. The individual with the record must write a letter to the Center stating that he/she is a "changed person", and that there is no risk for the Center to place a child in their care. This letter should be written in the same format as the application letter, and should be attached beneath the application letter in the dossier, and notarized and authenticated along with that document.

4. Your homestudy agency must also supply a letter of recommendation to the CCAA stating that they feel that you would provide a safe and healthy environment for a child. The homestudy agency needs to add this to your Dossier when it is ready to be submitted to the CCAA.

In many cases, the agency doing you homestudy will provide you with the forms necessary for the letter of good conduct approval. If they do, you're all set. Fill them out, and bring them to the appropriate agency, and they will send you the letter(s) of good conduct. Take them through the rest of the authentication process.

If your homestudy agency does not provide those forms, you can request them yourself. Basically, you need a letter that says the following (more or less). If standard forms do not exist at the police office, have this typed on department letterhead paper.

When requesting your letter of good conduct from the police, add a note to the request, asking for the form to be notarized, if at all possible. Explain that this is necessary for the foreign country, and how appreciative you would be of this extra effort. It just might work, and would save you the trouble of having to put your own cover letter on the report, as done with other documents without a "live signature" if it does arrive without notarization.

(date)

To whom it may concern:

(adoptive parent) has not been arrested for any crime and has no criminal record.

(state or local police representative)

Important: If you have been arrested, no matter how long ago, or how insignificant you feel it may be, you MUST, MUST, MUST discuss this with your agency as early as possible in the adoption process.