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What is a legal risk child? This is a child who is in foster care currently and the goal is adoption, but the parental rights have not been terminated yet.
In some states all children available for adoption are considered legal risk. They do not terminate the parental rights on a child until an adoptive home has been found. In other states the parental rights are terminated whether there is a pre-adoptive placement available or not.
What does this mean to adoptive parents? It means that there is a chance, or a risk, that the parental rights will not be terminated and the child could return to the parents. Usually a caseworker will not search for a pre-adoptive placement until they are certain that parental rights will be terminated. It is too emotionally damaging to a child to be moved to a home and told that the pre-adoptive parents are going to be their new parents and then have the child returned to the birth parents.
In other cases there is a chance that the child could be placed with a biological family member. This happens more frequently than the child being returned to the birth parents. Just because a biological family member is found or comes forward does not mean that they will be allowed to have placement of the child. They must be screened, pass background checks and the other steps that a foster parent would have to go through. There are times when the family members do not pass the screening. I have seen it happen with a couple of my kids.
Before you accept a legal risk child into your home, you need to prepare yourself for the potential of losing the child. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. This does not mean that you do not allow yourself to attach to the child. Every child deserves complete love.
Knowing that you could potentially lose your child may have you feeling like this is not an avenue you want to pursue. You are perfectly right to have that feeling. Losing Kory and Mackenzie broke my heart in ways I never thought possible. However, if I had it to do over again, I’d still take them. I wouldn’t miss a day with them because they were wonderful children. I don’t know that I’d do legal risk again because I don’t know that I could stand the loss of another child, but many people can and are willing to make that sacrifice. Be certain you think long and hard about this and discuss it with your partner as well.
If you want to find out if a child you are interested in is a legal risk child, be sure to ask your social worker about their policy on terminating parental rights, and read your child’s profile closely. It should be listed in the profile if the child is a legal risk child.
Here is Wisconsin, the Adoption Resources of Wisconsin publishes a quarterly “magazine” that shows some of the waiting children. Legal risk children are listed in a separate section than those that are legally free. This eliminates any uncertainty on the part of the potential parents.
A legal risk child can bless you for a short time, or for life.
my wife and i currently are fostering 3 kids. our original goal through the adoption agency was to straight adopt. we have had pregnancy loss and could not fathom losing children after we have become attached to them. we now are being told that they are likely to go back to the mother that abandended them in the first place. we will be devestated if this happens and warn anyone that losing kids is a very real posibility that you can never be ready for.