[ldurham]

Have any of you been "ordered" to participate in a mediation as a prelude to the TPR? We have one scheduled for Friday and I'm just wondering what to expect. They say the purpose of the mediation is to see if we can forego the trial itself - by this I am assuming they mean to see if the bio's will do a voluntary surrender.

My next question is if the bio's do voluntarily surrender will we still need to complete the bonding evaluations (which are scheduled for Bio M & D on the 27th & 28th of March).

[kikibrando]

Yours sounds very much like what is happening in my state. Mediation is something being done here to avoid court, if possible. I guess the expectation is, when it gets this far, it's pretty much taken for granted TPR is going to happen.

We "did" mediation about four months ago. We were asked to prepare an agreement we would abide by. Basically, we decided all we would be comfortable with was one supervised visit a month until adoption was finalized, then semi-open communication until S is 18. Our communication was basically to be non-indentifying information, with an update and a picture on holiday's and S's birthday.

We were advised that whatever we agreed to do was legally binding should the parents surrender their rights. So, be very careful was social worker's advice.

Bio mother declined mediation flatly. So, we are waiting for a TPR date now.

[ldurham]

At this point in the game I don't know that I would even agree to visitation. Neither Bio M or D has seen the baby since July when my husband and I took her to them 350 miles away. There has been no contact (telephone) or otherwise on their behalf since before July. The baby's birthday was on Dec. 21st and there was no call or card for that or Christmas either for that matter. They were strangers to her even when we saw them once a month - I can't imagine how she would respond to them now.

[bumpkin]

We were required to participate in mediation. Basically Bmom knew she was going to be terminated. It was really a hammering out of what each party was comfortable with. It was stupid actually, and could have been done easier between lawyers without the feel good mediator. Stupid mediator insisted that she was impartial, but couldn't get it through her head why we wanted to use just our first names and leave our identity and location etc.. out of it. Said she had never had that request before..... yeah, right.

[callismom]

I was asked to go to mediation not ordered because the parents attorneys were trying to negotiate that they would sign over their rights if I agreed to have in writing visitation included. I said no, I made a verbal agreement which I would stick to but I did not want to have to go to court to stop visits if parents showed up high, etc. Mediation never happened and parents signed over their rights so it wasn't an issue. Good luck with mediation but don't agree to anything you are not comfortable with.

[ldurham]

Bio Mom did not show up for the first mediation which DYFS flew us in for so it was rescheduled for today and we participated via conference call. I can only keep saying "THANK YOU GOD!" - she agreed to an identified surrender and is probably in front of the judge as I type. Bio Dad was not there, nor has he been there for the last two court dates. I understand that he is currently in default - so my question is what happens now and is there an "I changed my mind" period that we have to wait for before filing the petition for adoption.

Also, the 4 year old sister has been in 4 different homes in the last 19 months, but I found a couple in my state that are interesting in caring for her. The plan right now is to have the 4 yo come and stay with us while the interstate package is completed on the other family and I can only pray that theirs does not take as long as ours did. The 4yo has some serious behavioral problems and receives two different types of therapy currently and I know that is going to present some scheduling issues for us - but I think we can handle it for a few months - at any rate, I've committed to it now - so we'll just have to make whatever needs to happen for her happen. Does anyone have any experience with an "expedited" interstate package and how long was the process?