[daisydog137]

Hello- I spoke to another foster parent the other night while attending CPR training and she asked if I had been attending the court hearings or getting the court papers from the case worker.

I have had J&A for 2 months now and mom hasn't had one drug screen done and has therefore been unable to visit with the kids. She had a pretrial hearing in January and then another hearing in April where they set the requirements that she's got to meet in order to get the kids back. Every 4 months there will be another hearing.

Should I be attending these hearings? Should I wait until next fall when it's looking more bleak for mom?

I'm just wondering what everybody else typically does. Do you get the court papers? Is the case worker pretty willing to hand those over? I know I can get copies at the court house if I wanted to - not sure what would be in them and if it'd be worth while.

I read on another post that the judge asked if they'd be willing to adopt - I would be willing to adopt one of them but not the other - would hate to have to share that information in front of mom!

[hesabanana]

I go to every hearing. It demonstrates your commitment to the kids, and definitely keeps you in the loop. Once you attend once, you will be included in court notification letters.

[momofmykids]

Here's a response I posted on another thread that I feel might be helpful here:

I've been a foster parent for 13 years and either my husband or I (or sometimes both) have been at every court hearing...some of them requiring a two hour drive one way. As I've stated before, in the county where most of my children are from, the judge knows who we are when he sees us (like in the hall or the parking lot)...there's no doubt in his mind what case we are there for. One of our children had been horribly, HORRIBLY neglected and we were there trying to get him (he's a sib to some of my other kids). Our homestudy had lapsed, but because HE knew us, he ordered DCS to place that child with us THAT day and to expedite the process for updating our homestudy. The state also stated that day that the goal for the child would not be reunification, but straight termination with us to adopt. The judge looked dh and I squarely in the eye and said, "I'll do whatever I have to to make that happen."

[Bug-n-Bears-Mommy]

I stick my neck out here again...

I would just go with your gut feeling. If you feel you are getting the information you need without attending the court hearings, I would not attend. I think it is a matter of personal feeling and you should not feel obligated to be there. If there is something you are afraid to say in fromt of the mother then I would not go. You certainly don't want to purger yourself or put yourself in an uncomfortable situation.

A side note...I know in our state (WA) they will do anything they can to keep sib groups together. If adopting both of them is not what you are willing to do, they might seek a home that will be willing to take both children.

Personally, I do not attend court hearings...but again, that is MY choice and I have not had any negative results having made that choice.

[Schnider1]

I have not attended any court hearings either. I have two girls right now age 4 and 12. The 12 yr old has parents that are a pain and I don't want to be near them. The 4 year old (depending on what happens soon) I may start attending the hearings but I certainly do not feel obligated. I have no intentions of adopting the 12 yo but I also don't think that she will be available for adoption either. I would probably consider adopting the 4 yr old but I really think she will go home some day. It's your decision. My main goal is to just take care of the kids...not attend all the court hearings. Marsha

[Singlemom619]

I don't think you get to see the court papers unless you're in the room... and I think represented. I went to every court hearing for my son. They didn't give me any court papers even when I was there BUT his bio mom was there once or twice and SHE gave me hers to read.

Later down the road I got defacto parent status and had a private attorney - THEN I got court papers.

My judge looked highly upon me being there (She told my attorney and one of the social workers) and then even after that I had to be there because I was fighting for adoption. (after TRP).

Anyway - I went to EVERY court date for about 2 years - there were maybe 7 or 8? I don't remember now.

Bmom was there for maybe 2 or 3 of them. She and I got along for the most part so usually we would talk and I'd fill her in on how he was doing. I even met my son's paternal Gma at one of the hearings in the begining and from that got more history on my son.

(Side note - my son went to most of these with me. He did not go to TPR hearing or the contesting of TPR because we didn't think it would be fair to him to hear all that or for mom to have her son hear it. I think he missed one other one because I didn't want him to miss school that day. The judge also liked him being there and she would usually talk to him with a hi or thanks for being here, wink at him, and then give him a book or something.)

[japit823]

We go to every court hearing. The judge asks how we feel about different things and when they are changing visitation we were able to tell them days that weren't good for us. The judge said ok well this day is good for you how about noon til 4 and we were able to say that isn't that good can we do 2 to 6, the judge did it without a problem. By having input we can make sure our lives and family unit are disrupted as little as possible.

[PAmomof1]

I've had my foster daughter for over a year. I try my best to make it to every court hearing. There was one that I got the wrong time on.. so I missed that one.

A few months ago, one of the hearings was cancelled and no one notified me... I was there!

I go because my foster daughter's caseworker does not always do her job, I hardly every hear from her and she doesn't come out on a regular basis to see her. There's not any other way for me to really find out what's going on with the case.

I don't usually get the court papers... I don't know why, but I don't. I got one set before and that was it. I don't even get papers for the ones that I attend :?

I think it's important to attend the hearings, ESPECIALLY if you have an interest in adoption or if you have information that is pertinent to the case.

[rindava]

I got to hear the entire story and things DSS always seemed to leave out.....

Even for my kids that were going to reunif...it was good for me....I could hear that they had actually followed their plan, etc....

I did spend one very long day waiting for one b-mom to take a drug test, she just couldn't urinate in front of the person who was giving the test, a female sherrif (this b-mom was a lady who given birth to 9 kids from at least 4 different dads, so I am sure urinating is hard for her lol)(they had an on site urine screen place at the court house...which i never knew) and when I say all day, here we had to be at court at 8:00 am and they decided who they want to hear first, and we wait and wait (usually it is almost always done by 1:00 pm ) but that day we got to wait until 5:45 and b-mom never could manage to urinate.... (judge said, bummer, because kids would have gone home with you today.....or we could have gotten you into treatment, now we just get to wait another 3 months )

anway, I'd of never got the true story about that out of the CW....

We do get child part of case plans here sent to us by summons to appear (but we don't have to, we can just send a letter)

If it is no hardship on you, going at least one time is a good idea...

[brl]

for the first few years, I didn't, and then I decided to. I was so much better informed I started doing it. It was also good to meet the bio's and inform them about the kids etc.. (Some not so good, anger at us etc....)

Once you get "good at going" you learn which ones are important and which ones are procedure and bacically paperwork etc...

It is also a good time to corner a overworked caseworker for some needed info and get out of voicemail runaround!

[Chancey]

I try to go to all the court dates. I agree with previous poster's that I find out information there that has been left out of the story given to me by the caseworkers. Additionally, I try REALLY hard to get along well with the caseworkers and typically it has helped me with return phone calls and emails.

We have one judge that will never even acknowledge me, but then another judge that always makes a point of asking me how the kids are and thanking me for taking my time to come.

[Trinasmom]

DH and I always attended dd court hearings. CW doesn't always let you in on the whole story. This way we hear first hand what is happening. We have never been asked anything by a judge but they see us and know why we are there. In our county it depends on the judge but one judge in our district wants the child(ren) there. We were dragging a 2 1/2 year old to court every few months and trying to keep her quiet for several hours while waiting on our turn. We began brining dh parents with us and they entertained while we were in court. The judges knew about this and even though adoption hearings are closed they knew grandparents had attended every court hearing with us and they were allowed in the court room grandma cried when it was final. She took the picture of us with the judge for our scrapbook. When we receive our next placement we will attend all those hearing also. I feel it shows our commitment to the child.

[kaylasmom]

I went to all 3 court hearings for the little girl I had, in doing so we got her placed with us judge ordered. She is a distant family member we did not know. We had to get licensed to get her, but because we went to court the judge placed her with us while we got licensed.

After that we went to all her hearing. Since then I have had a few foster kids, I never went to court for any of them being we were not wanting to adopt.

know we have a boy we do want to adopt, court was 4-24-06 we did not go and neither did the sw, court didn't go like she thought and we had to wait for days to find out why, anyways another court date was set for 30 days later and you better bet i'll be there, so will sw since judge said she had to come.

As for court papers, we get a notice of when, and where and stating sw opion..(to stay go tpr ect) but not what went on in court. So i'm not sure who and why ppl get them.

My opion is, if you want to adopt you maybe should go, but i agree with what another person said if you on;y want one of the two maybe I wouldn't go, and don't be surprised if they place the children together to be adopt. They usually want to keep sibs together, but I know of 4 kids placed in two homes (2each) the younger ones were adopted by the family and the oldest one never got adopted and the other one is long term. so you never know.

Good luck

[tpakra]

Wow, so many of you go! We were told in training that we should go to the hearings, but with our current fson, the cw suggested that we not go because we want to adopt (and because bfather kept trying to scope us out when transferring child after visits). CPS and DFC have been trying to get TPR since he was born, and at the end of May, we have a depositional hearing. I've been going back and forth about going, but I keep thinking back to how she said that since we wanted to adopt him after TPR that it may not be in our best interest to go. We've sent different things for the judge to review at each hearing...little stories about him, progress reports, and picture books showing him from birth to current age, but we've never been to a hearing. Now hearing that so many of you go, I'm really doubting what the case worker said. Yikes, any advice?

[hubbyswife]

We don't go to the first hearings. We started going for baby D when her plan was changed to adoption. We plan on going from now on for her.

With other FD, she just had a court hearing and we didn't go. It was the first court hearing. If her plan changes to adoption then we will go.