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I know so much can vary from state to state... can anyone that's adopted or in the process of adopting in TX give me some sort of timeline as to how long it takes to finalize an adoption after TPR? Texas moves pretty fast from what I've learned so far. Today our CW said the law in TX says that kids can't be in foster care for more than a year without an extension, so most rights are terminated at 12 months if the kids haven't gone back home by then. So when does adoption take place? If they can't be in foster care for over a year, is the adoption finalized quickly?
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I think, from what I have heard, that it is true that if TPR has not happened by 12 months, it should take place then, of course it might depend upon if the bios are doing anything on their plan.
We were "fast-tracked" - TPR occurred at SIX month, turned over to AW at seven months...she has everything from our agency and lawyer, but this is where everything slowed down...no came to a screeching halt...we are waiting on the redacted files. We have been waiting almost five months now. I am told the average wait is six months.
Now everything goes through Austin, instead of each county being responsible for its own. When files are requested they get in a queue, waiting to be processed/redacted, then sent back to the county that requested it, to be distributed back to the one requesting it...crazy waiting.
I am told that once I read the redacted files, THEN we can file the petition to adopt - and according to the lawyer, it should be within 30 days from petition to finalization.
I hope that yours goes quicker.
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The automatic time for TPR trial is 12 months. Typically, families get extensions though. Anyway, for us: This wasn't the family's first rodeo so CPS wasn't playing. They didn't even want to do a caseplan but the judge overruled that. At 7 months, there was a TPR trial (granted). I had hoped to adopt on day 91 because I was idealistic thinking we could adopt on the soonest possible day. HA! TPR was in November, we adopted in July.
It's true that the law says 12 months but most all families receive an extention. In our case we got one after 11 months due to the mom having prior history. We adopted after 15 months. That part could have been sooner but we had battles over who would adopt. Also there can be appeals from the bio parents after TPR.
Extensions are rare here, so most TPRs happen at 12 months even when parents are MIA. Technically you can adopt 90 days later. With our son, we adopted about 97 days later, so 15 months after he entered care and our home. That is how it is supposed to go.Our sibling pair, however, was TPRed over 90 days ago, and CPS is still having to weed out family that was mentioned at the last moment. So we wait...Oh, and we did luck out in that they did not make us wait for the redacted files. We still do not have them, but I am thankful that we were able to finalize without them.
In our case BM relinquished, so TPR was done less than 5 months after they came into care. According to CPS, they want to finalize between days 91-100 after TPR. Within 2 weeks of TPR, we had redacted files and had been assigned an adoption worker.
(but we have other friends in different counties of our same region who are through with 90 days and still haven't been referred to adoption, so I think it can REALLY vary from county to county)
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