[jerseygray]

My husband and I want to adopt my thee year old cousin. We live in a different state than where the child's immediate family and she resides. She is actually in foster care already. The mother's parental rights will be terminated unless she starts doing what the courts have required her to do in order to get the child back. She has no interest in doing so though she does have almost two months to change her behaviour. The mother and her child are my cousins. All family members are in favor of my husband and I adopting the child (the mother's opinion I do not know yet). Has anyone attempted adopting a young relative from a different state? This is dependent on what the child's mother does in the next two months. I am attempting to contact the social worker now so if it is possible for us to adopt her, they will have our information already. Thank you for any advice or insight.

[Kat-L]

You should contact your local social services. They will need to do a homestudy so you can be approved to adopt. They can also handle the paperwork to move the child from one state to another for foster/adopt.

[jerseygray]

The mother wants us to adopt the child. She still has parental rights even though the child is in foster care. Any chance this could still be done as a private adoption? I already contacted the local foster services. They said they would not be involved until several steps farther into this process and (hopefully) the foster care process could be skipped entirely. The child's state of residence is the only one that matters right now.

[jerseygray]

I talk to the social worker. What does a home study involve?

[feelingreyt]

We are also doing a relative adoption. The baby is a cousin to my husband. The mother has asked us to adopt the baby and is signing over her rights to us. We are not going through DCS, we have hired a private attorney. In TN if it's a family adoption the Att. can request that the homestudy be waived. That is what we are doing. I have no clue about any other States Laws. Baby H was placed in our care when his mom went to jail. DCS got involved, but only to supervise, so to speak. They never actually took custody of him. Instead we were given POA over him. His mom is now out of jail and reunited with his sisters. She is so young and has 3 other children, she just can't take care of this precious baby. We love him so much and believe he is our gift from God. Anyway, I got alittle of track, lol! My advice is to contact a lawyer, find out your rights and the easiest, fastest way to get custody of this child. With the mother requesting you as Aparents, it should go very smoothly.

[Barksum]

While the child's mother may retain parental rights, she does not have custody. If the child is in foster care, the bio mom does NOT have a say over where the child resides even temporarily and it is too late (from my understanding) to do a private adoption. You would do well to contact an attorney who specializes in adoptions. You might want to do this sooner rather than later.

A homestudy involves having a caseworker from an adoption agency, or your state dept. of child welfare, interview you and your spouse, along with the members of your family living in your home. You will have to have a criminal history check, including an FBI check, along with some sort of home safety inspection (they're looking for fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, etc.), and tons of paperwork regarding why you want to adopt, what your philosophy of parenting is, etc.

Hope you find the info you need with the lawyer. Hopefully it will be straightforward with few hoops to jump through.