Note:

*While this website is mostly geared toward Adoptees who were adopted through the Korean Adoption Agency Korea Social Service (KSS), there is also information here which is relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees, regardless of their Korean Adoption Agency. Please read carefully to note what info. is purely relevant to KSS Adoptees and what is generally relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees.

Terminology + Acronyms + Adoption Procedures.

Terminology in the Context of KSS Adoption Procedures.

There are specific terms associated with the Adoption Procedures of Korea Social Service (KSS) that you should know about.

For KSS Adoptees Only, see a complete breakdown of known KSS Adoption Procedure here.

  • Child: We use the term “child” loosely to refer to either a baby or a toddler. When we say for example that “KSS sent a photo of a particular child” to someone, we mean “child” as an overarching term to refer to either a baby or a toddler. KSS sent a mixture of babies and toddlers for adoption to the West, and we refer to these child types collectively as “children”.

  • Relinquishment: We use the term “Relinquishment” to refer to the FIRST day a child was in the care of either The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul or at one of its “feeder orphanages”. For the purposes of simplicity, we do not make a distinction between legal vs. illicit acquisition of a child. Because in so many Adoptees’ cases, it is unknown how a child came to be in the “care” of KSS, we simply use the term “Relinquishment” to refer to the first day that a child was no longer in the care or her or his Korean birth family, and was in the care of either KSS in Seoul or in one of KSS’ “feeder orphanages” elsewhere. We do of course understand and acknowledge the difference between someone who was truly Relinquished by birth family willingly, and someone whose “acquisition” was more suspicious.

  • The K.S.S. Receiving Home: The K.S.S. Receiving Home refers to the main campus which KSS occupied in Seoul. The K.S.S. Receiving Home was made up of several buildings with buildings / rooms for children of different age groups. The nursery was on the second floor of the main administrative building for several years in the 1970s. These buildings no longer exist, as KSS tore down all of their buildings except for one around 2016 and sold off the land for apartments. The one remaining building KSS today uses for its Post Adoption Services building, where KSS Adoptees can still conduct an in-person file review with a KSS social worker.

    • You can see what the old K.S.S. Receiving Home campus looked like on the How To Start A Birth Family Search At KSS page here.

    • Some children were Relinquished directly to the K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul (what some people loosely refer to simply as “KSS” or “KSS in Seoul”). Other children were Relinquished to Feeder Orphanages either inside or outside of Seoul, or from other sources.

    • It should be noted that The K.S.S. Receiving Home could only house up to around 200 children at any one time (and that was considered to be very overcrowded) - thus many children who were eventually adopted through KSS spent some time in a “feeder orphanage” (see definition below) such as Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan, Star of the Sea Orphanage in Incheon, Choon Hyun Babies Home in Gwangju, or other possible feeder orphanages, prior to their eventual transfer to The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul, usually just prior to their departure from Korea to the West.

      • Children could not be sent from Korea for international adoption by an orphanage, at least not after around 1976, when Korea designated 4 “indigenous” Korean adoption agencies as the only ones which could process international adoption: Holt, ESWS, SWS (now KWS) and the smallest of the Korean adoption agencies, KSS. Therefore children had to be processed through the K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul prior to their departure to the US or Europe. However due to the limited capacity of The K.S.S. Receiving Home, children who directly Relinquished to The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul would only be sent there a few weeks prior to their departure to the West. The exception was apparently when a child was sick - in which case, the child was sent to The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul earlier, presumably in order to get better medical care which was available in Seoul.

      • Starting around the 1980s, KSS also utilized Foster Mothers to care for children outside of The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul.

  • KSS or KSS in Seoul: We loosely use the terms “KSS” or “KSS in Seoul” to basically refer to the K.S.S. Receiving Home, or alternately to all of KSS’ old campus buildings in Seoul. Some Adoptees may refer to “KSS” to conceptually include its entire network of sources of children: The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul, KSS feeder orphanages in or outside of Seoul, birth or maternity clinics, unwed mother’s homes, hospitals, churches, police stations, or the streets. To be frank, many Adoptees really don’t know exactly what they mean when the use the term “KSS”.

  • Feeder Orphanage: We use the term “feeder orphanage” to describe an orphanage which housed children, some of which it would eventually “feed” into KSS in Seoul.

  • Partner Western Adoption Agencies: We refer to the Western Adoption Agencies with which KSS formed partnerships and worked over years as KSS’ Partner Western Adoption Agencies.

  • Matching: The process of “Matching” a particular child to a particular set of Western prospective adoptive parents was a process undertaken by a collaboration between KSS in Korea and by its Partner Western Adoption Agencies in the US and Europe. But it’s important to know what role KSS played, and what role the Partner Western Adoption Agencies in the US and Europe played. KSS matched individual children to Partner Western Adoption Agencies in the US and Europe in batches or groups of “case files”. KSS would sent bundles of case files (each case file represented a child) to a specific Partner Western Adoption Agency in the US and Europe, and that respective Partner Western Adoption Agency would then “match” a specific child to a specific set of Western prospective adoptive parents by sending them the “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary (ACSS) along with a photo (or photos) of the child. The specific set of Western prospective adoptive parents would then either approve (or disapprove) of the adoption of the proposed child, and in the cases where they approved, the child was then considered “Matched”.

    • It’s important to understand that a child had to be successfully “Matched” to a specific set of Western prospective adoptive parents before the Korean exit visa and the US or European entry visa processes could begin.

    • It’s also important to understand that only when BOTH the Korean exit visa and the US or European entry visas were approved, was the child then sent from Korea to her or his Western country of adoption by plane.

  • “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary (ACSS): This is a key form for KSS Adoptees adopted through KSS’ Partner Western Adoption Agencies in the US and Europe, as it was a key part of the “Matching” process by KSS and its Partner Western Adoption Agencies. Please note that KSS just called the “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary the “Adoptive Child Study Summary”:

    • It is important to know that the “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary could have been written about a child at The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul either with or without that child being physically present. In other words, this document could have been written about the child while the child was being housed in an off-site “feeder orphanage” either inside or outside of Seoul, or elsewhere. We believe that each child did have to physically pass through The K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul before being sent from Korea to the West for adoption - at least, this was the case from around 1976-2012 when KSS stopped closed.

    • The “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary was a document used in the beginning of the adoption process, and was sent by KSS as part of a bundle or packet of other “case studies” which included each child’s photo/s to the Partner Western Adoption Agency to which KSS had matched the particular child. The child remained in Korea until the adoption procedure was complete, which included the issuance of both the Korean exit visa and the US or European entry visa. The number of “case studies” sent by KSS to its Partner Western Adoption Agencies at any one time probably varied, but may have been between 20-30 at a time in the US in the 1970s.

    • It’s important to know that to start the adoption procedure, KSS usually sent a photo of a particular child along with the “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary (as part of the child’s “case study”) to the specific Partner Western Adoption Agency to which the child had been matched by KSS. This is all part of a process called “Matching” - KSS matched the specific child to the specific Partner Western Adoption Agency and the specific Partner Western Adoption Agency matched the specific child to a specific set of Western prospective adoptive parents. In other words, KSS did not match specific children to specific Western adoptive parents directly - the Partner Western Adoption Agency did that.

    • The “English Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary was a document that was part of each KSS child’s “case study”. It’s helpful to think of a “case study” as being about a specific child. Each “case study” had an associated “Case Number” (or as KSS misspelled it “Caes” Number ) known as a K-Number.

    • KSS encoded its K-Numbers in the first digit per its Partner Western Adoption Agencies.

      • KSS also seemed to have kept siblings who were know to be biologically related who were Relinquished to KSS or a feeder orphanage on the same day sequential to one another in the last 2 digits of the siblings’ respective K-Numbers.

      • Please see this page for more information (Add Link).

    • KSS did not match specific children to specific Western adoptive parents. KSS only matched specific children (by their case studies) to KSS’ Partner Western Adoption Agencies.

    • KSS’ Partner Western Adoption Agencies then matched specific children (by their case studies) to specific prospective Western adoptive parents.

  • “Korean Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary (ACSS): What most Korean Adoptees and their Western adoptive parents do not know (because KSS never told them) was that secretly, KSS had kept a more “truthful” version of the Adoptee’s history in the Adoptee’s adoption file at the K.S.S. Receiving Home in Seoul. While KSS’ old campus and this building no longer exist, KSS still retains all of its adoption files at its Post Adoption Services building in Seoul - this is the last remaining building of the original KSS campus which was torn down around 2015/16, after which KSS sold the land for apartment buildings. Now that KSS is closed (is has not processed adoptions since 2012), you can request your “Korean Facing” Adoptive Child Study Summary (ACSS) from KSS by initiating a Birth Family Search through KSS’ Post Adoption Services in Seoul.

  • In order to leave Korea for international adoption, each child had to have a unique Korean exit visa bearing her or his photo and birthdate. Below is information on the various styles of travel documents used by the Korean government to send children from Korea to the West for adoption:

    • Korean exit visa: Please note that we use the term “Korean exit visa” interchangeably with the terms Travel Certificate, “Deluxe Travel Certificate”, and Passport. We are not visa experts and it’s just simplest to call the travel document which was used to send children from Korea to the West the “Korean exit visa”. Read more about the “Korean exit visa” here.

      • Types of Travel Documents:

        • Travel Certificate: Light green single page document folded into fourths. This document bears the photo of the child, her or his birthdate, a stamped in MB 5 digit, R 6 or 7 digit, or TC 7 or 8 digit number. *See examples below.

          • *Please note that we have done only informal research into the various types of travel documents which the Korean government used over time to send children overseas. Please see this page for more information about the evolving numbering system for Korean travel documents. (Add Link)

        • Deluxe Travel Certificate: This is frankly a term we just made up to describe the type of travel document which looks like a real Passport, as it is in the form of a booklet with a cover, instead of the single page "Travel Certificate”. Unlike a real Passport however, the Deluxe Travel Certificate says “Travel Certifcate” on the cover instead of “Passport”. This document bears the photo of the child, her or his birthdate, a stamped in MB 5 digit, R 6 or 7 digit, or TC 7 or 8 digit number.

        • (Real) Passport: Technically all of the travel documents used by the Korean government to send children overseas for adoption were real, but what we call the "Real Passport” is basically just that - a document that looks like what you would think of as a Passport, which is in the form of a booklet with a cover. The cover says “Passport”. This document bears the photo of the child, her or his birthdate, a stamped in MB 5 digit, R 6 or 7 digit, or TC 7 or 8 digit number.

        • Examples of punched in numbers on Travel Certificates, Deluxe Travel Certificates, and Passports:

          • MB 5 digit number: MB 12345

          • R 6 or 7 digit number: R 123456 or R 1234567

          • TC 7 or 8 digit number: TC 1234567 or TC 12345678

          • Please note that these numbers are punched into the paper of these documents, which you have to hold up to the light in order to see clearly.

      • It’s important to understand that only when both the Korean exit visa and the US or European entry visas were approved, was the child then sent from Korea to her or his Western country of adoption by plane.

  • In some cases (at least for US Adoptees), adoptions were not finalized completely until after a child had arrived to the US. We are not sure if the same was true for Europe.

Acronyms.