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Once a foster child is considered legally free..how long does it take to finalize adoption?
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That depends on many things. The most important is the legal waiting period in your state. Most have waiting periods around 6 months long or so. Then is the time peroid the child was in your home before he became legally free, and whether that counts toward that waiting period or not. And finally, how slow your workers are! The waiting period defines the earliest time it could take place, not the actual date it must take place on. The speed of your workers, lawyer, paper pushers, etc will determine the exact date. Hope that helps!
As DianeS stated, there are many different situations. Our "foster to adopt" daughter moved in the end of September last year. TPR was filed in January. At that time her CW started putting together dd's adoption final. After many continuances, TPR was granted on 7/17. DFCS has the paperwork all ready and set to go. We live in Georgia and are signing the adoption comittment on August 25 (would have been sooner, but turnover in the office and vacations delay things). Our court date for adoption will most likely be the end of September.
Just wanted to bump this to say, after the judge granted TPR on July 17, we then signed the committment on Augut 25. The adoption of our dd was final on September 12. Our adoption atty did state we were extremely lucky that there was an opening on the court's calender. But then again, our county just added a second day each week to hear adoption petitions.
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with our first foster to adopt, we had placement june 2004, TPR March 2005, and then sw lost paperwork to file adoption and we went through shuffle after shuffle and finally finalized October 3rd. our next one was placed in June 2005, TPR and relinguishment happened September 30, it will be read into court next week and then we are told we will able to file adoption within 30 days. We are told adoption should be final by the end of the year. That will put us right at the 6 month mark and I'm told it will be okay. We're waiting!
We are waiting for a court date as well. We were placed with Damian on 6-18-04 and the birthmothers rights were terminated on 11-23-04, but she appealed to the Superior Court. The the waiting began!! The Superior court affirmed the decision on July 29, 2005, then we had to wait the 30 days to see if she was going to appeal to the Supreme court and she didn't, thank God. Now we are waiting for all the paperwork to be filed. Our CW is doing the paperwork for the "petition to adopt" today and I think that is the last part before we get a court date. I hope it's soon. Can anyone tell me how much time this should take.
Here in Michigan, the standard (so we are told) time frame for adoption is a year from start to finish (with a few exceptions.) We find ourselves in this situation: The children were placed Nov/03. TPR was done 0ct/05. Our foster caseworker said she will hand over the file to the adoption caseworker in Dec/05 (and although she has no say who it will be, she will try to pull some strings to get a 'fast' one, as the children have waited long enough.) She said to expect first contact with the adoption caseworker in January/06 (after the holidays). We will have to go through another homestudy, bio reports, background checks, and health studies. Because the children have already lived with us almost two years, we will not have to wait the six month waiting period. If everything goes right, we should be able to adopt anywhere from Sept/06 to Nov/06. We are hoping for November, as that would mark 3 years since we got them, our wedding anniversary is in November, and National Adoption month is November! Not to mention Thanksgiving - as we have a lot to be thankful for - but that is a no-brainer!
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I last posted in August - we still don't have a finalization date yet and it's now December!!! The county that has custody of dd is not known to be quick on these things. She was placed with us 4/03, TPR was 6/05, filed paperwork for finalization with clerk of courts just yesterday. Finalization should be by April of 06. :clap: Funny thing is, we have a second placement through same state but different county. Placement was 10/05, TPR 11/05, paperwork already filed with court for finalization. :cheer: Finalization date will be in May 06 due to our state's mandatory 6 month waiting period. Unbelievable how 1 county away can be so much different! Karen
I guess it all depends on the state, county, and the sw. Our little guy was placed with us on 10/03, TPR 10/04, he became legally free (after appeal) 11/05 and we hope to finalize 2/06. Our sw started all the paper work before he was legally free, so it should not be long. I can't wait till he is ours.
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My wife and I are in the process of adopting and are in the transition process. The child (19 months) is in the foster care system. Right now the child gets to stay at our home 4 nights and the foster parents 3 nights. This has been going on since July first. My question is how long should this take before the child is placed permanently in our home? All paperwork on our part is taken care of. The child seems to be transitioning okay. He has become clingier at both homes but no other serious red flags.