Kinship Adoption Questions - Page 2

[Polliwog]

That stinks. What's temporary about it then?

[queenjane]

Originally Posted by Polliwog 

That stinks. What's temporary about it then?

I would assume the "temporary" part has more to do with the bparents rights than the parent with the child. As in, they are temp. giving up rights but have a chance to reclaim them. Whereas i have heard (not certain though) that perm. guardianship is akin to an adoption, the bparent cant come back and challenge. But someone else prob. knows more about that than i do!

[MrsH]

this probably varies by state, but from what my attorney explained, here in MA temporary guardianship means you go back to court every few months to renew.  Permanent means that you don't need to go to court to renew, but a birthparent can petition for guardianship at any time.  At that point, the guardian would have to prove the birthparent unfit in order to continue parenting the child (MA apparently has a presumptive clause that states something along the lines of children always being better off with birthparent unless they are unfit to parent).  In other words, it's not permanent at all. 

Again, I'm certain this varies by state.

[Polliwog]

Originally Posted by MrsH 

t At that point, the guardian would have to prove the birthparent unfit in order to continue parenting the child (MA apparently has a presumptive clause that states something along the lines of children always being better off with birthparent unless they are unfit to parent).  In other words, it's not permanent at all. 

That is actually the opposite of what it means here. Here the birthparent can petition to get their child back but they have to pay the legal costs AND prove that the GUARDIANS are unfit. A friend of mine was granted PLG. But since the birth mother didn't keep to the visitation schedule (that was part of the guardianship agreement) she and her husband filed for adoption privately and the adoption went through. It cost them quite a bit of money, though.

In NC, PLG is permanent unless the guardians are deemed unfit.

[MommyKelly]

For us it is temp until bio Mom gets a lawyer and takes us to court to try to get them back. It was suppose to be a 6 month safety plan. That was 3 years ago June. She has since had another child that went into care at 6 mo (turned a year in June) and that adoption is almost finalized. ( We didnt ask to take that child since ds we got from that bio Mom has RAD and shaken baby. He is the youngest one in our home, and needs to stay that way IMO) We will eventually seek to terminate rights once we can afford a lawyer to do all of it :( I have no fear of her fighting us for them though. Even if she did her rights have been severed on 2 other kids since we have had them.

[mama2myangels07]

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Edited by mama2myangels07 - 10/15/11 at 7:20am

[Smithie]

What a week for you, mama!

[APToddlerMama]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

 You deserve financial support, and you deserve time to experience life with this child and decide if it's what you want permanently.

I really think a foster child *deserves* to be placed in a home (especially as a pre-adoptive foster placement) with a family who is 99.99% certain that they DO want to experience life with this child for as long as that is the appropriate plan for the child.  Trying out foster kids isn't like trying out a new job or a pair of pants.   Changes in placements have a huge, negative, lasting impact on children. 

OP--I am glad you have the information you need to make your decision for your family.  I hope everything turns out well for this child. 

[Smithie]

"I really think a foster child *deserves* to be placed in a home (especially as a pre-adoptive foster placement) with a family who is 99.99% certain that they DO want to experience life with this child for as long as that is the appropriate plan for the child."

And I think that a foster child deserves to be placed with people who respect and value themselves, the foster child, the process, and the children already living in their home. Having a 99.99% certainty that you want to raise an 8-year-old you've never met is pretty inconsistent with all of that. A worker who will place a school-aged child "pre-adoptively" with total strangers and expect a 99.99% success rate is dishonest, manipulative, and cruel. Or maybe just apathetic, and looking to clear her caseload. 

In this case, while the OP and her husband are kin, they do not know this child at all, and giving them guardianship in order to get the kid out of the system would have been a terrible choice. This kid needs to be in the system. He needs somebody (say, his worker) to advocate for him and respect his needs and actively search for a permanent home that is the right fit - not just dump him on out-of-state kin with no resources and no Plan B if things don't work out. 

[APToddlerMama]

Originally Posted by Smithie 

And I think that a foster child deserves to be placed with people who respect and value themselves, the foster child, the process, and the children already living in their home. Having a 99.99% certainty that you want to raise an 8-year-old you've never met is pretty inconsistent with all of that.

Which is precisely why accepting a placement of a child one has never met is a horrible idea. 

[Smithie]

Well, being placed as a foster child with the OP and her husband would have been one way for this kid to possibly be adopted back into his family of origin - which is a wonderful thing, when it can be done. He's going to be placed, either way, with strangers who CAN'T be sure that they want to adopt him until they've gotten to know him. A period of uncertainty is his fate at this point. I hope that he gets a great foster home in the state where his mom currently resides. 

[APToddlerMama]

Nobody can ever be certain until they have lived for months with a child.  And of course there are plenty of emergency situations in which a child has to be placed within hours that leaves even less room for certainty.  However, going into a situation with the mindset of "well, we'll give this a try, see if it works out for us" is not really great for a child.  Families who have the most knowledge of the child and who have been able to spend the most time with that child before making that decision tend to have far fewer disrupted placements.  The attitude that trying out a child in a family is equal to trying out any number of other things really chaps my hide, because the reality is the impact on that child is substantial.  Multiple moves are a terrible thing for kids.  There are enough families who decide a placement doesn't work out even when they're 100% commited in the beginning.  Kids don't really need foster/adoptive placements where the parents are on the fence to start.  Those placements almost always fail.  My mindset and most who have children's best interest at heart are of the opinion that workers find families for kids, not kids for families. 

[Smithie]

So they do. And if they care about finding the right family for the kid, they don't toss a child into a new guardianship or foster/adopt placement with total strangers and cherish the expectation that the placement is 99.99 percent likely to be permanent.

Now, in my neck of the woods, policy dictates that the foster-adopt process is run like a private infant adoption agency. There's a portfolio prepared, potential families are selected, interviews, one family chosen, etc. All without meeting the child. Our foster/adopt disruption rate is way above .01 percent and it always will be, until these folks figure out that they are NOT running a private infant adoption agency and alter their process.