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This is also posted on the Social Worker and Therapist threads. We just received a message last night on our answering machine that our Children's Services received PC for our foster son. He was scheduled to have a visit today and we assumed that we would go and it would be the last one. His social worker of course was unavailable but was to call us later today. Talking to the social worker over the phone she stated that visits will continue until the birthmothers time to appeal has passed without an appeal or her appeal has been heard and not granted. She also said that the appeal is supposed to be made within 30 days, but the birthmother's attorney can take months to file the appeal and ask for an extension (which she said is always granted). So the question is: When do visits ever end? We were taught in our trainings that once PC is granted that visits, etc. end immediately. Any feedback would be grealty appreciated.
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Can you call the county attorney (or whoever handled the case in court) and ask these legal questions? Sometimes the cw's don't always have all the legal answers I've found.Regular visits for "G" ended the day that the judge ruled for termination. He did have one "good-bye" visit after that.
In our area after the TPR hearing the birthparent has one last visit...the goodbye visit. Unless the adoptive parents are interested in continuing that relationship, but usally DHS doesn't have any part of that. Our sons birthmom decided to appeal. But still she was only given one goodbye visit after the TPR. They don't allow visits or any contact during the appeal process in our area.
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JPW
This is also posted on the Social Worker and Therapist threads. We just received a message last night on our answering machine that our Children's Services received PC for our foster son. He was scheduled to have a visit today and we assumed that we would go and it would be the last one. His social worker of course was unavailable but was to call us later today. Talking to the social worker over the phone she stated that visits will continue until the birthmothers time to appeal has passed without an appeal or her appeal has been heard and not granted. She also said that the appeal is supposed to be made within 30 days, but the birthmother's attorney can take months to file the appeal and ask for an extension (which she said is always granted). So the question is: When do visits ever end? We were taught in our trainings that once PC is granted that visits, etc. end immediately. Any feedback would be grealty appreciated.
talking about appeals. Our youngest sons birthmom appealed. We had court in the middle of March 2006 Where TPR happened. We were told the birthparents only had 30 days from the court hearing to appeal. Once those 30 days had passed even the social worker told us he was now legally free for adoption. Yet...2 weeks before we were set to adopt him we find out (middle of May) that the birthmother had just appealed on the very last day possible...30 days past the time the court order was FILLED. So they accepted her appeal. The appeal continued all the way until October 2006. When she cancelled the appeal seeing that she had no grounds for it and she was about to give birth to another child and wanted DHS out of the picture....(but baby was born drug addicted so it was taken anyways). So he was finally legally free for adoption in October 2006. Yet...even though we had had him in our home for almost 2 1/2 years we still weren't able to finalize until July 2007. Talk about rediculous....his case NEVER should have taken that long...when it was clear from the begining and all the way through that there was no way he was every going to be returned to his birthfamily.
For us, visitation ceased before TPR, once the goal changed from Reunification to Adoption the visitation ceased because it was being handled by a third party. The birthparents could have requested to keep visitation going. They would have had to come to the county offices though instead of it being provided in their home as was part of the program with the third party. Once TPR happens here there is a final good-bye visit and that would be the end of all visitation. If there is an appeal, again the birthparents could request visitation during the process. Usually appeals are heard quickly here (within 3 months) so unless the birthparent requested continuing visitation at the TPR hearing itself then they would probably not have visitation because they judge would be hearing the appeal before they could get a court date to hear a petition for visitation. If there was a continuation of the appeal for some reason, visitation could then be approved. I only know of one case where a birthparent requested continued visitation at TPR. The visitation was granted, but once the appeal was heard and the decision upheld the visits stopped. This birthparent then continued to appeal to the state court level but there were no visitations during that time. The reason I was told that visits could be continued by request during the first appeal process and not the second was that while our county was in control of the decision they would allow visitation. Once they had made their decision (to the highest level) then they focused on the permancy for the child ONLY because they feel that they had given the birthparents' rights as much consideration as they could have by that point. Our county is very good about keeping visitation going (depending on your perspective of course). As long as the birthparents are requesting visitation and showing up, then they do all they can to ensure that it happens regardless of the goal until TPR.
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stevenstwin
That does seem odd. I really wish that they'd do it like they now do where I live - once TPR is granted, there is only 30 days to have an appeal COMPLETED - that means, filed, heard and ruled on. 30 days and that is IT - done forever. It's a big improvement over the old days where things could drag on for months and months.