Adoption preference to foster parents

Things are changing in the fost-adopt world. More agencies and caseworkers are taking foster parents into consideration when making decisions about the foster children.

Foster parents are now often getting first chance to adopt if you can show you have bonded with the child.

This is a huge shift away from moving children to bio family at any cost.

A good shift I think.

In the past, and still in many places currently, judges allow bio family to appear at the last minute and claim foster children – even if they have lived with the foster family for a year or more. Often the bio family has not had to complete all the same training and home study process that foster parents have had to.

Foster parents were heartbroken and burned out.

Now, in national push to get children placed in permanent homes within a year, a diligent search goes out for bio family pretty quickly, and they are notified that a family member is in foster care. If the bio family does not come forward, and the child isn’t going to be returned to bio parents, then the foster family is first in line to adopt.

If bio family does come forward, but the foster family can prove attachment to the child, the judge will consider those before ruling.

In a few states, the agency got to choose who would adopt the children – foster family – bio- family – distant aunts and uncles – it was up to caseworkers, not judges.

A ruling in Pittsburgh confirms this trend is changing:

A state Supreme Court ruling this week has opened the doors for relatives of children in foster care to request a judge’s permission to adopt the children, even if the local family service agency has refused them that right.

Prior to Tuesday’s ruling, if both a mother and father’s parental rights were terminated, only grandparents had the legal right to apply to adopt them.

Aunts and uncles or family friends who had cared for the children for extended periods typically were told they had no right to try to adopt the children if the child welfare agency didn’t want them to.

Prior to the ruling, child welfare agencies claimed to have total discretion over who was eligible to adopt a foster child. The decision specifies that the discretion lies solely in the hands of a Common Pleas Court judge.

Is this happening everywhere in every case?

Of course not.

But it is a trend – and a good one too.

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