[Loving Aunt]

I had recieved a phone call @ 3:00 am. My neice infomed me her children were taken away by children services. I called children services and the children had already been placed. 2 of them with their dad's but there was the baby who had went to his legal grandmothers home. My husband and I contacted an attorney and went to court on a prayer. Thank God for GAL's. He recommended paternity testing and the child be placed with us. Paternity testing came back showing legal father wasn't the father so the child was placed with us. (Both mom and legal Dad had lost custody due to neglect) My husband and I really thought if the child was placed with us that she would start complying with her case plan. Nope, it has only gotten worse. She calls me weekly crying and my heart pours for her. She has an addiction. This last time she called, she said she wants to see her son. I told her I have good news. We had set up visitation for her (2nd attempt) and it would start the following week. She said she wasn't going and to consider my husband and I to be raising a 4th child. Well we did take him to children services for the visit as instructed by the SW. She never showed. The SW said 2 more no shows and she's done. It has been 7 months and we have had my great nephew for 2 months. We haven't recieved TC yet not till our court date in July but they are talking Legal then Permenant in 90 days. It's a sad situation but we are tossing the idea around about adopting him. He is a fresh 2 years old, he's very comfortable here as he has always been. Does anyone know how adoption works when your dealing with children services. I know they don't provide assistance for relative adoptions. Any feed back would be great.

[cmcarr]

what state do you live in? I would do some research into kinship care programs. If the parents are addicts then the baby would be considered special needs even if nothing is apparent at this time. There is help for relative adoption you just have to find it. Through the state agencies you are the same as anyone else adopting. The state pays the adoption fees check it out.

[Loving Aunt]

I live in Ohio. I was told the state would not help in relative adoptions.

[cmcarr]

I believe nothing I'm told until I look everywhere. The state took the child from the parents and put the child in your custudy. The state has an interest in the childs permanent custudy. In NJ when you adopt a child in state custudy the cost is paid by the state, of course they have lawyers who do it cheaply. Get in contact with your state representative and they can help you work through the system. I was told many things that where not true, but I had to find out on my own. You should be recieving finacial and medical assistance for the child, you have physical not legal custudy and this is important. You have find out if the child has legal representation. I went through all this and I had to become a foster parent and finally after six years the adoption will happen. Never sign anything unless you understand all the consequences of doing so. My concerns where always financial and medical, I don't make very much and the cost of medical coverage would be prohibative so inorder to adopt I needed these things covered. Its been a long and difficult journey but worth every second of it.

[Loving Aunt]

I recieved financial and medical. My nephew has a guardian ad litem. Six years, huh? So I take it we will not be adopting anytime soon. The social worker keeps saying they are being pushed for a permanency plan. Who is pushing them, I have no idea. He has been in the states custody for 7 months. The father, who they think is the father will not come in for DNA testing and it is also found this guy has 6 other children in state custody, whom he abused and neglected. One question I have is the court papers had stated they want to give us temporary custody and then you flip the page it says legal custody. I am confused.

I signed up for a kinship care class tommorow.

[cmcarr]

In my case legal custudy meant that the state was no longer responsible for daycare. Be very careful with this as it is a simple way to close a case without going through the process of terminating parental rights etc. I could not afford daycare and made that clear from day one. Find someone who has been through the process in your state. I had my sons lawyer put in the court order that the state was to pay for daycare. They would try to work around that but the judge ordered it so they had to do it. Once I became a foster parent, consider this option it can't hurt. You would be a restricted home just for that child. Yours will not take six years, daycare is necessary until the age of five so I was in no hurry. If I had the money it would have been done long ago but thats not the case. The passage of the adoption and safe families act requires a permanancy plan, federal funding is involved.

[Loving Aunt]

Financially we are fine. I feel right now they are trying to just get away with giving us legal custody and then children services will back out. We want permanent. I am wondering if they can terminate a parents rights before the year is up? I called the state before he was placed in our home and out of the legal grandmothers...They said they didn't want us to become fosterparents because if we were then they would want our home to be open to any child. We go to court on the 13th for a modified disposition hearing anything we should push for? My attorney isn't going to be there because of another case out of the county.

[cmcarr]

You are probably right. If you take legal custudy Childrens services is out. I would push for parental rights termination. The parent can give a conditional termination, I will volunteer my rights if you give custudy to my Aunt. My sister voluntarily gave up her rights on the condition that I get him. This saves time for you and saves time and money for the court. It is far eaiser on your niece as well she does not have to go to court and hear how terrible she is. The reason you want the rights terminated now is so that they are not calling the shots. They can come along and say they want to see your child and you have to let them. They can and will interfere with your raising the child. For the sake of the child get this done right away. You can become Foster parents you would just be a resrtricted home, but if the medical is not a problem don't worry. Here they have have something called fost/adopt which just gets you ready to adopt as you are fostering, it allows me to give him the things he needs and wants. Protect the child terminate the rights.

[Loving Aunt]

I don't feel really happy that our attorney isn't going to be there becuase it seems like we are going to be fending for ourselves. Now...Would they give us Temp. or Legal? Now that I think about it we never had a disposition hearing. Only an adjudication hearing because we were going to continue on with the disposition hearing as soon as the paternity tests came back.

[cmcarr]

I suppose they could give you legal custudy. All this does is allow you to make decisions for the child. You don't need a lawyer for this. I believe at this point the lawyers involved are for the child not for you. After they do the paternity get the rights terminated. Again I say to you get together with some of the kinship care folks because this does get tricky. Your best bet is to get your niece to give custudy to you, but this can not be done until the paternity is or is not established. Luckily for me the supposed father was not so no one on that side whoever they may be could fight for custudy. I am leaving work now so good luck and let me know what happens.

[Loving Aunt]

More added stress now. "Grandma" contacted me via-email and wants to see him. I can't allow that because it will only further confuse my nephew. I know she will allow her addict son to be around him and encourage my nephew to call him dad.

I went to the kinship care class and it was good. I learned. Then we had visitation and my neice never showed up...as usual. We the took him to his first doc. appt. since we have had him. We told her of our concerns and she looked him over. She believes he has a mild form of Cerebral Palsy. We had to get all his records transfered and see what type of testing they have done. None that I am aware of. When she gets the records she is going to do the testing on him. That Doc. said if he has it that it may be drug induced. I have never heard of that before but it would make sense.

[cmcarr]

Here is where you get the caseworker and especially the babies lawyer invovlved. Grandma has no rights here for visitation. Considering the childs health issues one should take great care with visitations. I suggest you make freinds with both the caseworker and lawyer because they are the childs advocates and are to look out for his interests. If the grandmother insists perhaps it should be supervised by the caseworker, talk to the lawyer. This is why termination of parental rights is necessary. If they know something is wrong with the child will they still want to see him? Let the grandmother go through the legal process to see the child but I would contact the lawyer for the child first.

[Loving Aunt]

And yet another battle....My neice showed up for visitation because she said she was clean. When the front desk people saw her they asked me if she was on crack or coke. (I don't understand how people can tell) She didn't like his glasses and took them off of him, the supervisor in the room made her put them back on. She gave us nothing but attitude.

I am pretty close to the case worker now but she is out until Wed. The GAL has been no where to be found since Feb. or March. Like I said we go to court tommorow. I will keep you posted.

[Loving Aunt]

To our amazment...My husband and I were the only ones who showed up to court yesterday. The "grandma" didn't show and either did my neice. We were shocked when they gave us full legal custody until 18. Childrens Services is backing out as soon as they close out there end. I figured they would do this. Parental Rights were not severed but we had recieved strict orders from the judge not to let visitation be unsupervised, we were also told by the GAL if we wouldn't let our children around her then don't let him around her. Can we still adopt eventually?

[cmcarr]

As I said previously they often do this simply to close the case. You need to have the parental rights terminated to adopt him. If this does not occur your niece , the father, and the grandmother will be able to continue to bug you. The many people I has talked with in your situation go through hell because the "parents" drive them crazy. Not for the sake of the child but simply because they can, it makes them feel like they are doing something. They have a right to visitation and when they feel like it they will use it. I would talk to your personal attorney to see what you can do. Talk to other grandparents and they will tell you some of the down parts of this. They should have given you the option of adoption and proceeded on that course. C