Legal Risk

I realized that I used the term "Legal Risk" in my last post but didn't give a definition. So here it is to the best of my understanding.

When a child is removed from a home the state of Texas gives the parents and extended family 18 months to clean up their act and do what is needed to get their children back. Some cities move faster than 18 months. Some probably move slower. But here the judge has to make the decision in 18 months. During that time the children are in foster care. Many people in foster care are hoping to adopt the children in their homes but you really have no idea what the chances of that will be. People that go this route are considered Foster-to-Adopt.

The other end of that spectrum is matched adoption. These are children whose parents have had their parental rights terminated. When Texas terminates parental rights it terminates on the whole family. This means that after termination Aunt Mary from Missouri can't come back and claim a niece or nephew. So these children are living in a foster home who don't intend to adopt them. A family will find out about these children and start taking the steps to adopting them. After they are placed in your home they stay there for about 6 months until you go to court and they are 100% yours. (read: the state quits coming into your house every month!)

The middle ground is called "Legal Risk". Technically there is no license for legal risk. It's just in the mind of your caseworker. An example of legal risk would be an abandoned infant. If a parent abandons their infant then they have 3 months to come back and claim them. During that time the baby is in a home that is licensed for foster care. If the mother does not reclaim her child then parental rights are terminated on and the child can be adopted. In the time that our city has had the "Baby Moses" law in effect only one child has been reclaimed. Another example would be if our caseworker knew of some children who had been in foster care for 12 months and the parents were not trying to get their children back. It looks pretty good that there will be termination in 6 months but they can't guarantee that. Another good example would be if a mother had had more than one termination in the past with previous children and now she has another baby in foster care. The chances are pretty good that she won't get this baby back either.

So there you have it. Clear as mud, right?

Next Step

We finished the PRIDE class and have submitted all of the paperwork. The next thing we will be waiting for is the referral forms to come back, the background checks from Colorado and Maryland to come back, and the appointments next week to get the TB tests done. In the meantime we might fill our time with some chicken pox. You never know...

After all of the above things have cleared then we'll have the homestudy, fire & health inspections, and the FBI fingerprinting and then we'll be licensed! As of right now we have decided to go ahead and do the dual licensing for foster care and adoption. While we plan on doing a matched adoption we found out that there are times that a legal risk may make sense. We have to be licensed for foster care in order to do a legal risk adoption.

Try as I might, I can't seem to stay off of the TARE website! I was a little sad today when I discovered that a sibling group that I had been planning to ask about is no longer listed. They were there last week, but they are gone now. I am sad for me, but I am happy that this means that they have a forever family :-)

In other news we found out that we can't post pictures of the kids until they are 100% legally ours. I was completely disappointed about that since I would have wanted to put pictures up here as soon as I found out who the kids are! But if you know me personally then I can email the pictures to you. I just can't post them here or on FB. Politics....

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations to my friends! I have two friends that are both with their children right now in their birth countries. The Tossells have adopted a little boy from Russia and will be bringing him home in about a week and a half!

The Cambrons have adopted a brother and sister in Ethiopia. Their dad is with them right now and will be bringing them home soon, although I'm not sure exactly when.

Books

As with most things in my life I tend to do a lot of research. Adoption is no different. I have spent countless hours talking with people whose lives have been touched by adoption. I've read books, online articles, blogs, etc. The most recent book I have purchased is Brothers and Sisters in Adoption. Ryan and I will read it together starting next week. I've glanced at it a bit and it does look really good.

What are your favorite books about adoption? What was the most helpful?

Another Adoption Song

This one is more about a birth mom who gave up her son at birth. I dare you not to cry. (OK, I dare the mothers out there not to cry)



Here's the story behind the song.

All I Really Want

Ever have those moments where you realize that not everyone knows about your favorite song? Recently I learned that not everyone has heard of this song. Enjoy!

Scrapbooking

Some of you may know that I am an avid scrapbooker. It's a little crazy sometimes...but I try to catch important moments on camera and then put those into books. Part of it is just for the fun of being able to look back through pictures, but I also like to think that I am keeping a journal of God's faithfulness to us in good times and bad times. All of my children have a 0-12 month album in which I have written a Bible verse on each page in hopes that those will encourage, challenge, and strengthen them in days to come. After that they have a birthday album where I have pictures of their birthdays, along with stats from that year. Other than that I do family albums where I keep track of all of the other pictures.

Right now I am trying to figure out the best way to record our adoption journey. I can do some pictures, but should I just do one adoption album? I could play with some digital scrapbooks so I could assemble the book once and have one printed for each child. I'm just looking for ideas. Would a "first year with us" album be appropriate? I know that the kids will have some type of scrapbook that the foster families keep for them. Maybe I'll figure out how to integrate those into scrapbooks.

Thank you all for your feedback from my last post :-)