DCS Adopt/they didn't TPR & allow us adopt thru them

I agree with PP about your state system is broken. I'm sorry you are going through this but, you may have to get your own attorney. You could try your state ombudsmen for help.

Our niece's original sw wouldn't talk with us at all when I asked about adoption, but then her supervisor took over the case to "free up" the original sw for the state audit, I was told. The supervisor then told us we can adopt our niece and that we needed to get our paper work together, and first and foremost to sign up and go to the required PATH classes. Well we signed up for them, we all went and had physicals and TB skin tests (5 of us) we even had our 8 outdoor cats given their rabies shots (as we were told was required) and had collected all the necessary documents on their list. We were to begin the PATH classes in mid Oct. and in early Oct. we were told of the judge's decision of "severe abuse" and found out that the state wasn't going to TPR, and we were told nonchalantly by the GAL that we can just get our attorney later on and do that ourselves. I think they thought we'd just do it. I have emailed Gov. Bredesen, and he responded by saying he has passed my email along to the DCS Commissioner. I haven't heard anything from her yet, but its only been a few days. THANK YOU ALL, for your advice, words of sympathy, etc.

I'm not in your state but a neighboring one Georgia. That's what they do here. The state typically does not TPR for a relative placement. The way relative placements in my state have gotten around that trick is they allow the child to go to a regular foster home and let the state TPR then they come forward to request the placement. It's sad but true. Certain states really treat relative placements poorly. Since you already have the child in your home you have to take a different angle. Did you complete the PATH classes? You need to go ahead and do the PATH classes because the state is not exactly through with you yet. There's usually a 6-12 month supervised placement that has to be met. They will come out to your home periodically to visit but it's not monthly like a regular foster placement. Once the timeframe is up that's when they close the case and disappear. They will not TPR but at least you will have time to be considered as long term foster parents for your neice. Don't give up yet.

I think it need to explain something in case your CW tries to pull a fast one. Relative placements do require some monitoring for a set time period. The reason why is too often relatives will get a child out of foster care and then turn around and hand the child right back to the abusive parent. So they have to monitor to make sure the parent does not get the child back. Now after the time period is up some relatives still hand to child over to the parent but the state is banking on you keeping the child if you are compliant for the required timeframe. Our last foster child was placed with a Great Aunt. The Aunt started giving the baby to his mom which was in violation of the placement agreement. The state got lucky and happened to catch her. The Aunt had gotten arrested and did not tell the state...the state found out and had to know where the baby stayed while she was in jail. The mom had the baby. So 6 weeks after he went to the Great Aunt he was right back in state care.

i'm glad you used the word "usually," as i am in the state the op is in, and this did not happen for us. our child was not visited for almost a YEAR. our child was not visited until after tpr occurred, the appeal period passed, and the adoption hearing was set. THEN they came out and met our son for the first time since he enterred this state. THEN they were going to start monthly visits AFTER we finalized until i just started refusing to schedule visits and started calling people in charge because that was stupid and backwards. this state, is VERY VERY broken. very.

Was your son a relative? Relative placements are handled differently. Just like families who foster to adopt versus straight adoption. It also depends on how custody was granted... Foster, Relative placement, Adoptive placement or Legal guardianship. Sometimes there's a blend of the various types of placements. The line needs to be drawn more clearly and the courts need to stop flip-flopping so much on the direction of the cases. If your son came from another state that's entirely different ball of wax. The transfer of the case, assigning a CW and scheduling visits is put on the backburner. You were adding another case to their load for child that's not even from their state. So the ball tends to get dropped in those situations. Cases like those typically fall outside their trackable metrics. Since the child was not taken into custody in your state they are probably not required to adhere to the time limits assigned to the average case. Dependant on the state you live in it could be 18 out of 22 months or something similar to that. I can't remember the exact time because we are not fostering anymore. If transfers from another state were trackable you can bet money they would roll that case through as quick as possible because it would improve their metrics. It would make it look like kids are spending less time in state care and they are clearing their case load faster. We had another child who was scheduled for TPR. The father ended up getting custody and thought the state would still TPR the mom since it was scheduled. Nope... no TPR. They told him he would have to get his own lawyer to TPR. It's pretty much that way for most relative placements. That's why relatives hang back as long as possible. Without the TPR they are subject to custody challenges with the bparents. One of my aunts had custody of her grandkids because their parents were long term drug addicts. The mom took her to court and ended up getting the kids back and she hasn't seen them again. The mom had not cleaned up her life. Enough time had passed and the mom was able to fake her way to regain custody. The youngest child didn't even know her because she was removed at birth. My aunt had the kids 7 years and then they were gone. Homesteadma If you run into a dead end and the foster care system will not help you with a TPR. The only thing I can suggest is that you try to get the bparents to voluntarily relinquish. You can hope that since they are family they may be willing to let go without a fight. Look into state legal resources too. One of my former co-workers adopted her grandson for free because of some program for grandparents/family members who are retired. She was still working but her DH was older and already retired so they qualified based on his status.

his placement status was foster, and we were non-related extended family members. he was not an adoptive placement until he has been in the new state 7 months! we received a stipend, and were still bound by all the terms and paperwork as any regular foster care provider. we even had to become certified foster parents in this state while he lived with us. we were assigned a case worker. she talked with us on the phone about our case, i called with questions, she just wasn't interested in visiting. we had a homestudy, they outsourced it to a private agency. no one from social services laid eyes on my son for almost a year. i'm glad they trusted me. once his adoption was nearly finalized, she wanted to make all of these appointments close together for when we returned from finalization. she kept saying she had to have "x amount" of visits before she could close the case. i think she thought she had more time and realized when we were finalizing she blew it by not visiting and was trying to make up for something. it was ridiculous. i ended up speaking with the state office more than once, who was not thrilled to hear from me, to stop the visits to my adopted child when they were never interested in visiting my foster child. THAT is why it is ridiculous here. if it were merely because i was relative, they wouldn't have jumped into action at adoption time and started visits then. when we asked about finalizing his adoption here, we discovered it could take another 12 months, and we would need an attorney that could charge up to 2,000 dollars! and as a matter of fact, our ADOPTION worker wasn't even the one who helped us find this out because she kept saying, "i don't know, i don't finalize many adoptions." wow! you are the adoption worker. you should be able to tell me what to do next. ......OR we could fly back to our old state where baby was from, and finalize in months, for free, we had to do nothing other than show up. they were even willing to pay plane fare for the baby and one parent. done. so now i have a son, no thanks to tn. lol. ;)

to the op- have you considered talking to an attorney to see if you can get dcs to take more responsibilty and actually tpr and provide a stipend?

I would really like to know what the program is called that helps retired people adopt a relative's child. My DH is retired. The state is already "out of it" as they said. There will be NO more home visits, or supervision of any kind according to the head of DCS for that county, and they will not help TPR or anything else. They said they are out of it, and she's in OUR custody now, so in other words, it's not their problem anymore. I have filed for Families First-Child only for her, as that way the state will go after the parents for child support, which I KNOW they aren't going to want to pay. The dad won't even work, and the mom just doesn't want to pay for her baby since she, "doesn't even have her now." She didn't even want to buy diapers, wipes, and food for her visits with the baby. I ususally ended up providing part, if not all, of those things during the mom's supervised visits. I'm thinking this may encourage the parents to voluntarily surrender, rather than pay support for 17 years/or go to jail for not. Still don't know how we'll afford to adopt though. We didn't take the PATH classes, because we were given "custody" right before they began, and didn't think there was any point after what DCS did.

I'd love to know what program it was that helped the grandparent to adopt their grandchild for free. My DH is also retired.

I just got a phone number of an attorney to call from our pediatrician's office staff, it's her sister! She's a GAL in the county where this took place. I'll be calling her Monday A.M. I'm hoping she can give us some advice on what to do now.

good luck!!!!!!

[url=http://www.raisingyourgrandchildren.com/States/Tennessee.htm]Grandparents Raising Grandchildren - Grandparenting - Internet Resources[/url]you may want to click around this website and see if they have any info for you that would be pertinent to your situation.

This is not always the case. C is from WA, we had to be come certified foster parents, and they do visits every month, etc. It depends on the state, but you cannot just make a blanket relative statement like that.

Did you sign anything accepting custody of the child? If you did, you're done, I'm pretty sure. If you haven't signed anything, the judge's order is just a piece of paper...not effective--judges can't just order people to take custody of a child. In that case, you have a lot more leverage and your lawyer can get the foster case re-opened and force DSS to re-take custody. Once DSS sees the case won't close administratively, they will probably TPR on a severe abuse case. There are a handful of states that put relative placement, interpreted as transfer of custody to a relative, ahead of adoption as the second priority after RU. TN may be one of them, may not--read your state law and find out if they are violating it. For those states that do this, their state law actually conflicts with federal law even though elsewhere in state law there will be some sort of statement mandating cooperation or compliance with federal law--that has to be in there for them to get their Title IV-E money. But it is a fake nod to federal authority that gets little or no notice in actual practice. The trick is to stand firm and not sign. They will threaten to move the child to a non-relative, then TPR and go for a closed adoption to whisk the child away from your family forever, but, guess what? They won't...such a plan would have to be approved by a judge who would not countenance moving a bonded family placement. Not to mention, it would cost them that much more money...since the point is to save money, they aren't going to spend more just to spite you. In places where this is standard practice, the GALs and CASAs are useless and complicit in what I view as a crime against the child and violation of federal law. They don't care, it is how it is done. Frankly, we found that most of the people involved in our family's case--CASA, GAL, DSS attorney, cw, etc., even the judge--had not actually read the law, state or federal, or cared what it had to say. They just went by traditional local practice. In courts of no record, then, it is very hard to challenge such decisions once they've been made. But if you've signed, you are probably up the creek for now. As long as the parents visit, there is no abandonment. Also, if the child has been in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months, that is helpful--although, unfortunately, even there, federal law gives states a loophole for relative placements. But, get a lawyer and read the law yourself. Find out what the grounds are for termination and if you can go for it pro se a year or so down the line. BTW, federal law is very clear about what kind of guardianship meets the standard for permanency. Most state definitions of "custody" do NOT meet the standard for an acceptable disposition of a foster case. Even if state law conflicts with federal on that one, it is a point to be brought up. It is too bad you weren't reading these boards sooner, you would have been warned about this trick. It is a good caution to others, though--NEVER accept legal custody of a child unless you are willing to take the case against the aprents over from the state. Most importantly, NEVER sign a legal document making a life commitment without YOUR OWN lawyer representing your best interests. I hope you still have some leverage left on the situation. You can continue the case in family court, but you will need a lawyer. At the least, if you are stuck, you will want to get as many of the parents' rights--visitation, educational and medical decision making, etc., etc.--suspended as possible. Good luck with it all.