WACAP (World Association for Children and Parents) is a leading adoption agency. WACAP delivers reliable, personal adoption services to bring a child into your family.

Since 1976, we’ve placed over 9,600 children with loving adoptive parents and provided food, medical care and education to over 200,000 children in 10 countries. WACAP is one of the largest and most experienced international nonprofit adoption and child assistance agencies in the United States.

To learn more about how WACAP is helping children, download our current Annual Report.

WACAP (pronounced WAY-cap) provides life-changing aid and adoption services to orphans and other children who need families.

We believe that all children are born with the right to a loving family. Each child deserves adequate nutrition, medical care and education. Adoption is a life-changing opportunity for children who cannot remain with their birth families.

For every child adopted, however, many more are left behind. To benefit these children, our mission goes beyond traditional adoption services to include child assistance and sponsorship.

WACAP strives for the highest standard of ethics in all of our endeavors. We work strenuously to earn and maintain all applicable licenses and accreditations, and stand by our reputation for fairness, safety, honesty and compliance with legal and professional standards. Our ethics FAQ has answers to many common questions about adoption ethics.

Each WACAP staff member is committed to providing love and care to needy children, one child at a time. Our work is supported solely by funding from adoption fees, donations, grants and corporate support. We collaborate with agencies and governments to meet children’s specific needs.

From our grassroots beginnings as a support group for parents who had adopted internationally, we've seen tremendous expansion in the scope of our services and the number of children we're privileged to help. In our early years, we placed children from just two countries: the United States and Korea. Later we developed adoption and/or child assistance programs in Thailand, India, Romania, Colombia, Ecuador, Hong Kong and the Philippines. In the 1990s, WACAP pioneered the first U.S. adoptions from China, Far East Russia and Romania.

WACAP owes much of its success to three of its early leaders, each of whom has devoted more than 27 years to the organization. Janice Neilson, who joined us as a volunteer in 1976, became director of communication in 1981, and was promoted to executive director in 1983. She served in that capacity for 20 years, and as president for one year, before stepping down. Neilson launched WACAP's Peony Project in China, funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to provide rehabilitation and educational services for children with disabilities. She also has served as an advisor to governments and organizations on behalf of children's issues. Barbara Knowles, assistant executive director for programs, retired at the end of 2003 after 27 years of service. Lillian Thogersen, chief executive officer, joined WACAP in 1976 and continues to provide distinguished leadership.

When children can’t live with their biological families, WACAP helps to place them with adoptive parents. We place children from eight countries with families in the United States. Our Family Finders program actively seeks adoptive families for older children or children with special needs.

If you choose to adopt a child through WACAP, we’ll guide you through the complexities of the adoption process, from start to finish. We provide guidance to prospective adoptive families through information meetings at our offices in Seattle and New York, and online via our Webinar series.