In Michigan, a couple who is looking for a baby for adoption, put up a billboard advertising their attempt to adopt. Rather than waiting to locate a baby through an agency, they decided to become proactive to find a prospective birth mother on their own.

Although the couple was also networking by asking family, friends and relatives to help, they decided to expand their efforts and target a much larger audience by buying a billboard ad and putting it up on Interstate 75 in Grand Blanc, Michigan. The billboard message was simple. It read “LOVING COUPLE LOOKING TO ADOPT” and listed the couple’s names and phone number. The couple stated that since posting the billboard they have received numerous calls.

Under Ohio law, such advertising is considered illegal. Although many of us lawyers consider the Ohio law that prohibits advertising to be a violation of first amendment rights, to my knowledge this has yet to be challenged.

Ohio law does recognize networking efforts to locate a child. Some couples even decide to advertise out of state. Aggressive networking does work in locating prospective birth mothers interested in placing their baby for adoption.

When choosing an attorney to assist with an adoption matter, prospective clients should do so carefully. Not every attorney is experienced in the adoption area. Just because an attorney has done a step-parent adoption does not mean he is familiar with the intricacies of a private/independent adoption.

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Procedures and information available differ for pre January 1, 1964, adoptions; January 1, 1964, to September 18, 1996; and September 18, 1996, and thereafter adoptions.

R.C. 3107.38 provides that for adoptions prior to January 1, 1964, the adopted person may submit a request to the ODJFS for a non-identifying copy of the adoption file or file a petition with the Probate Court pursuant to R.C. 3107.41.

R.C. 3107.41 provides that for adoptions between January 1, 1964, and September 18, 1996, an adopted person twenty-one years or older may file a petition with the Probate Court for the release of certain information.

R.C. 3107.45 to R.C. 3107.53, and R.C. 3107.66 liberalize access to post September 18, 1996, adoption records. An adopted person age twenty-one years or more, an adoptive parent of an adopted person eighteen to twenty-one years, a birth parent or sibling age twenty-one years or older, may obtain from the ODJFS information authorized by other parties.

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Ohio House Bill 411 would amend Ohio adoption law to allow an adult to be adopted if the adult is the child of the spouse of the adoption petitioner and the adult consents to the adoption.

Currently, Ohio adoption law says that an adult can be adopted if the adult is disabled, mentally retarded, had a foster child care giver or child step-parent relationship with the adopters as a minor, of if he or she were in the permanent custody of a children services agency at the time he or she turned 18 and consents to the adoption.

In some situations after a couple marries they may want to combine their families. Under current Ohio adoption law, the other spouse’s adult child cannot be adopted if they were 18 at the time of the marriage. If, for example, a husband and wife get married and one spouse wants to adopt the children of the other and the other spouse might have some children that are minors and some that are adults, only the minor children could be adopted and not the adult children. Or, if a spouse remarries and changes her name, she may wish to have her minor children adopted and their names and birth certificates would be changed. However, if there was an adult child in this scenario, the adult child would be excluded and left out.

This pending legislation would cure this defect in Ohio’s adoption laws.

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AJC investigation: Weak oversight on private adoption agencies

By Alan Judd, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

She was 24, a fair-skinned, curly haired brunette from California’s San Joaquin Valley. She quit school after the 11th grade but wanted to go back to become a teacher or maybe a corrections officer. She said she liked “shopping, swimming, going out.” Her favorite food: Mexican. Her favorite places: the mountains and the beach. She smoked while she was pregnant.

For Krista and Luis Arduz, she represented their best hope for a baby.

Early last year, the Kentucky couple agreed to adopt the California woman’s infant through a Georgia adoption agency. Like many modern private adoptions, this was to be a complex multi-state transaction, conducted mostly through e-mails and cellphones, Web sites and text messages — not to mention wire transfers involving thousands of dollars.

And the way it unraveled sheds light on the state’s weak oversight of the 336 private agencies that arrange adoptions and foster care and operate group homes in Georgia, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows.

Just three times since 2008, the Journal-Constitution found, has the state imposed penalties against agencies that exclusively handle adoptions: two fines and one license revocation.

The newspaper’s review of more than 1,500 reports of inspections and investigations found that regulators repeatedly forgave violations of rules fundamental to safe adoptions: failing to check parents’ criminal records, for instance, or not documenting safe environments in adoptive homes.

Several agencies received citations for failing to show that payments to birth mothers covered only legitimate medical or living expenses. At least one agency — Valley of Hope Adoption Inc. of Woodstock, with which the Arduzes worked — was cited for having money for a birth mother’s expenses deposited into its executive director’s personal bank account.

None of those violations resulted in penalties.

State law allows fines as high as $25,000. But officials say they prefer to persuade agencies to comply with the rules than impose harsh penalties.

“We try to work with as many agencies as possible so there are viable options for Georgia’s children,” said Keith Bostick, director of the Office of Residential Child Care, which regulates adoption and foster care agencies.

“It is a balancing act,” Bostick said. “Often it’s not black, it’s not white — it’s gray.”

Valley of Hope is one of many agencies that existed in the gray area.

The agency eluded punishment for almost two years, even though state officials knew it was violating adoption rules. But the state didn’t share information about the agency with the public until late 2009.

Erin Chaffee, Valley of Hope’s founder and executive director, declined repeated requests for an interview. In an e-mail to a reporter late Friday, she said, “Adoption is a highly personal and confidential business and for those reasons it is not appropriate for me to engage in a discussion with you.” In another e-mail Saturday, she added, “We have helped over 100 clients adopt successfully and only a handful of clients have had failed adoptions.”

The Arduzes knew nothing about Valley of Hope’s regulatory history when they made the first of several payments that were to total more than $31,000. Neither did Brea and Jonathan Freeman, a Nashville-area couple whose own attempt to adopt through Valley of Hope overlapped the Arduzes’.

In late 2008, the Freemans decided to expand their family of three biological children and one adopted child. They considered several adoption agencies before settling on one that had only recently gone into business: Valley of Hope.

“We found them on the Internet,” Brea Freeman said recently. “I could find nothing bad about them, at the time.”

‘Free gift’

Valley of Hope broke the rules even before it completed its first adoption.

Chaffee, a licensed social worker who had worked for another adoption agency, established Valley of Hope in January 2008 as a for-profit business. State law requires adoption agencies to operate as not-for-profit organizations to guard against the appearance of baby selling.

Chaffee accepted the agency’s first adoption application fee from prospective parents in June 2008 — two months before Valley of Hope received a state license allowing it to do so, records show. In her e-mail Saturday, Chaffee said regulators “had trouble understanding” that she was working with those parents through a separate consulting company.

As at other agencies, an adoption handled by Valley of Hope could be expensive — $40,000 or more — and lacking guarantees. Birth mothers may change their minds at any time, leaving adoptive parents with little to show for their financial and emotional investments.

But on Valley of Hope’s Web site, Chaffee reassures both prospective parents and birth mothers. She describes Valley of Hope as a Christian mission offering the “free gift” of “everlasting life.” All children, the Web site states, are “wonderfully made by the Creator.”

Elsewhere Chaffee takes a more secular tone:

“So many couples come to us after spending a lot of money on their adoption without success, or they tell us they have been waiting forever to adopt and nothing has panned out,” Chaffee writes. By working with birth mothers in “states that have favorable adoption laws,” she says, prospective parents could expect a “match” in four to six months — half as long as at many other agencies.

On the Web site, several clients praise Chaffee and her agency.

“We were so happy with the level of personal service and support we were given at Valley of Hope,” a couple identified as Paul and Miriam of New Jersey say. “Erin was always available to talk to us, and seemed almost as excited as we were about the whole process. We could not believe that she found us a match after TWO WEEKS!!”

Another couple, identified as Pamela and Jason from Canada, wrote to Chaffee: “When we contacted you, we had come close to losing the dream of becoming parents. Now the pain is almost forgotten.”

‘My baby’

Krista and Luis Arduz also dreamed of becoming parents once more.

But Krista, a physician’s assistant in a dermatology practice, was in her 40s, and her last pregnancy and delivery had been difficult. She feared she would not be able to conceive again. Adoption, she said recently, seemed the best alternative.

In early 2009, the Arduzes hired an adoption facilitator to help sort through the Internet’s hundreds of posted “situations” — pregnant women offering their babies for adoption. The couple settled on what seemed to be a good match: a baby due April 17 to a 24-year-old California woman offering her child for adoption through Valley of Hope.

Chaffee faxed the Arduzes a contract, which they signed Feb. 13, 2009, the same day they wired $12,500 to Valley of Hope for the adoption fee. A few hours later, Krista Arduz said, Chaffee wanted another $2,000 sent immediately for the birth mother’s expenses. It was Friday afternoon, too late to send the money from the Arduzes’ credit union. Chaffee wouldn’t wait, Krista said. So the Arduzes wired the money from a Western Union outlet.

The birth mother, by then seven months pregnant and living on food stamps and Medicaid, remained in her small, remote hometown. She was married and had two boys, a 3-year-old and a 10-month-old. Her husband, who was not the father of her sons or the unborn child, did not know she planned to give up the baby, she wrote in a birth-mother questionnaire that Valley of Hope shared with the Arduzes. The biological father, whom she knew only as “Joe,” wasn’t aware of her pregnancy.

The birth-mother form posed a question: “If you could, what would you tell the baby about yourself and your decision?”

She answered: “I love you and I think I did what was best for the future of child.”

The next question: “Why are you placing this child for adoption?”

Her response: “I am not in any way financially stable or in the position to bring a baby into this world to suffer because I can’t provide.”

Still, she wrote that although she would allow the adoptive parents into the delivery room, she wanted to hold the baby first and to spend time alone with the child. She said she would let the adoptive parents name the child, so long as they told her what they planned to call “my baby.”

From the start, Krista Arduz said, everything was complicated and confusing. The Arduzes had so many questions: When should they buy airline tickets to pick up the baby in California? How long should they expect to stay there? What kind of relationship might they have with the mother?

“No guidance,” Arduz said of Valley of Hope’s responses to their inquiries.

“It would be nothing to call them two or three times and never hear back from them,” she said. “We were very frustrated.”

Cautionary tale

In Nashville, Brea and Jonathan Freeman were frustrated, too. When they began working with Valley of Hope in late 2008, they had been impressed. Brea Freeman had imagined Chaffee as someone who could be a close friend if they lived in the same city. And Chaffee had called frequently with possible adoption matches, exuding what Freeman called “a sense of urgency.”

But, she said, Chaffee began asking whether the Freemans might exceed their self-imposed $20,000 cap on adoption expenses. After they said no, Brea Freeman said, they heard from Chaffee less often, a criticism made by others in complaints to state regulators. “If there was a chance you might be willing to spend money,” Freeman said, “she would call you back in 30 seconds.”

Freeman took copious notes of her conversations with Chaffee and saved dozens of e-mails. Her documentation, which she shared with a reporter, depicts an increasingly muddled and contentious adoption.

The Freemans thought they had been “matched” with a birth mother in Atlanta. Valley of Hope later told the couple the match had been only preliminary.

By early April, the Freemans were worried. The birth mother’s due date came and went. Chaffee was supposed to arrange a telephone conference call between the birth mother and the Freemans, but that fell through. Communication from Chaffee became less frequent.

“When you get matched with somebody, it’s like being pregnant and waiting to give birth,” Brea Freeman said. “To pull the rug out from under us, it was devastating.”

On April 5, Chaffee e-mailed the Freemans to say the birth mother was waffling. But she said she hoped to keep the adoption on track by acting “more like a friend” to her, and reminding her that by keeping the baby, she would forfeit the money for her expenses.

“She made comments like, ‘I have to do the plan,’ meaning the adoption plan, and then later said, ‘I really don’t want to give up my baby,’” Chaffee wrote in an e-mail to Freeman. “I explained to her in great detail about the benefits of an open adoption.”

Freeman felt uncomfortable with Chaffee’s strategy. The next day, she and her husband backed out of the adoption.

The woman kept her baby. After Freeman complained about the outcome, a Valley of Hope caseworker sent her an e-mail describing the woman as “not stable,” adding that her erratic nature was why the agency had not asked the couple to pay fees in advance.

By e-mail on Saturday, Chaffee said: “I have never pressured a birth parent to place a child.”

Freeman discussed the episode at length on her blog. She sees it as a cautionary tale.

“I couldn’t imagine,” she said, “looking my child in the eye one day and saying, ‘You know, the agency pressured your mom to give you up.’”

‘Everything was fine’

The Arduzes’ birth mother was due April 17. Krista Arduz booked a flight for April 15, reserved a room in the town’s new Holiday Inn Express, and waited for word about the woman’s latest visit with her doctor.

With five days to go, Luis Arduz e-mailed Chaffee: “I wanted to inquire if you have had contact … after her doctor appointment.”

Chaffee replied from her BlackBerry: “Her mom told me everything was fine at the appt, but no details.”

That weekend, the Arduzes got a call from a California lawyer who was handling legal work on the adoption. He had just heard that the baby had arrived at least a week earlier — and the birth mother had backed out of the adoption.

The child was born, the lawyer told the Arduzes, before Chaffee purportedly spoke with the woman’s mother.

The news enraged the Arduzes. Why, they wondered, had Chaffee not told them about the birth? Did she even know about the baby? If so, why had she misled them about the birth mother’s appointment with the doctor?

Chaffee says that when birth mothers change their minds, “the adoptive parents are notified as soon as the agency has confirmation of the decision.”

Regardless, last April 13, a Monday, Krista Arduz sent Chaffee a seemingly innocuous e-mail: “Wondering if you talked with [the birth mother] to find out about her visit to the hospital this past week. We’re anxiously waiting to know how she’s doing and would appreciate any info you have (even if you haven’t spoken with her).”

Chaffee wrote back: “I spoke with her Tuesday and everything was good. … Her doctor’s office said there was no new information since her last visit.”

On the telephone that evening, Luis Arduz confronted Chaffee about the mother’s decision. Chaffee, the Arduzes say, repeatedly said she didn’t know what she could have done differently.

Luis Arduz was incredulous.

“You,” he asked Chaffee, “are the last one to know?”

No evidence of fraud

Later in the month, Krista Arduz filed a complaint against Valley of Hope with Georgia regulators. Already, they were looking into a similar case that had been reported in March.

It wasn’t until July 7, though, that an inspector visited the adoption agency’s offices in Cherokee County.

Generally corroborating the Arduzes’ allegations, the inspector found numerous rules violations: a failure to document why money was wired to birth mothers, the depositing of mothers’ expense money into Chaffee’s bank account, a variable fee schedule that suggested different prices for different babies.

Other citations alleged that Valley of Hope had not adequately screened adoptive families. For instance, the agency didn’t check whether at least one prospective parent had a criminal record, didn’t document another’s mental health evaluation and could not show it had confirmed the character references for a third.

And, the inspector said, Valley of Hope still was operating illegally as a for-profit adoption agency. (It changed its corporate registration to non-profit in December 2009, records show.)

But the inspector recommended no punishment; she found no evidence of fraud, and concluded the agency had not intentionally broken rules.

Chaffee now denies violating the rules, although she never contested state citations.

By this February, officials determined Valley of Hope had neither corrected deficiencies nor submitted a plan to do so. “All of it added up to something that didn’t look right,” said Bostick, the chief state regulator.

On Feb. 15, the state revoked Valley of Hope’s license.

As far as Bostick is concerned, the agency is out of business. But its Web site is still active. It is advertising three “situations” to prospective parents on adoption sites, although Chaffee says her company is accepting no new clients. Regardless, she continues to operate her separate adoption consulting firm.

A closed chapter

The failed adoptions left the Freemans and the Arduzes in different places.

The Freemans worked with another agency, in Houston, and adopted a child later last year.

The Arduzes hired a lawyer to request a refund from Valley of Hope. Finally, they got back $3,000, half the money they had paid for the birth mother’s expenses. But they still are out $15,500.

With that, the Arduzes gave up on adoption.

“We lost so much money that I’m still paying for,” Krista Arduz said. “We sort of closed that chapter.”

Shortly after the adoption fell through, Arduz’s appendix ruptured. In bed for weeks with plenty of time to think, she wrote a letter to Chaffee — “woman to woman, mother to mother,” she said. She asked for a full refund, or at least an apology.

She never heard back.

For more information about Adoption or Contact Us.

Budget cuts to Ohio’s adoption services will make it more difficult for the 3,000 children who need an adoptive home.

The state budget signed by Gov. Ted Strickland cut $43 million (or 40%) from adoption services, decreasing financial assistance and training available to prospective adoptive parents.

The most damaging cut removed the state Website that displayed photos of foster children and stories about them. The Website is one of the most effective tools. Because we live in a technological society, most prospective parents use the Website to find out about potential children available for adoption or foster care. The State Website has been replaced by a directory of county agencies.

Many adopted children have special needs and go to families of modest incomes. The cuts will decrease adoption as an alternative to foster care, which costs taxpayers significantly more. Cuts in subsidies to parents who adopt are also likely to decrease adoptions.

Thomas Taneff was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1988 and has been practicing law for 22 years. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University and Capital University Law School. Mr. Taneff was a Judicial Law Clerk and Franklin County Probate Court Magistrate. He practices in the areas of estates, probate, estate planning, guardianships, adoption and surrogacy throughout the State of Ohio, including interstate and international adoptions. He has handled more than 2,000 adoption cases and was awarded the United States Congressional Adoption Award in 2005. He is also the Macedonian Honorary Consul to the United States.

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In 1999, the Texas legislature enacted the first law addressing infant abandonment. Nicknamed “Baby Moses laws” after the biblical story of Baby Moses whose mother placed him in a wicker basket to save him from death, infant safe haven laws have been enacted in roughly 47 states and Puerto Rico. The purpose of safe haven laws is to encourage parents who abandon their child to leave the infant with persons who can provide the care needed for their safety and well being.

Ohio’s Safe Haven Law

No two state safe haven laws are exactly the same. Safe haven laws vary in the maximum age at which an infant can be surrendered, who may surrender an infant, and to whom the infant can be surrendered. Most states exempt parents who safely surrender their infant from criminal liability by either declining to prosecute a parent for child abandonment or providing that the surrender of a child under these circumstances is an affirmative defense in any prosecution of the parent or his/her agent for any crime such as abandonment or neglect against the child.

In Ohio, an infant who is thirty days old or younger may be voluntarily surrendered by that child’s parent to a peace officer, hospital employee, or an emergency medical service worker. Prior to the enactment of Amended Senate Bill 304 of the 127th General Assembly, Ohio would only permit an infant seventy-two hours or younger to be voluntarily surrendered without the threat of criminal penalties. The intent of the bill, which became effective on March 24, 2009, was to allow a parent more time to safely surrender the infant rather than abandon the infant under unsafe conditions or subject the infant to potential abuse or neglect.

 Unless the infant has been surrendered in a condition that reasonably indicates abuse or neglect, the parent who delivers the child is not guilty of a criminal offense, is not subject to criminal prosecution, and has the right to remain anonymous. Once the child is delivered, a rebuttable presumption is established that it is not in the child’s best interest to return to the child’s natural parents.

The safe haven provider (i.e., peace officer, hospital employee, or emergency medical services worker) to whom the child is delivered is required to perform any act necessary to protect the child’s health or safety and must notify the local public children services agency that a surrendered infant is in their possession. The provider cannot coerce the parent to reveal the identity of both parents or pursue or follow the parent after the child has been delivered. If possible, the provider can make available to the parent forms that are intended to collect medical information, as well as provide written materials that describe services that are available to assist parents and newborns, but cannot force the parent to complete the forms or take the written materials.

The public children services agency takes emergency temporary custody of the infant and must prepare case plans, conduct investigations, conduct periodic administrative reviews of case plans, and provide services for the surrendered child as if the child were adjudicated a neglected child. The infant may then be eligible for placement in foster care and ultimately for adoption.

Criticism of Safe Haven Laws

While safe haven laws appear to be a safe and humane response to the problem of child abandonment, they are not without their critics. Safe haven laws have been seen as a “band-aid approach” to a much larger problem. Many child welfare experts, for instance, cite the lack of a comprehensive strategy for the prevention of infant abandonment and the need to integrate these laws into a much larger effort to improve services for those women most at risk of abandoning their child.

Others question the effect on fathers’ rights. The abeyance of criminal prosecution and the anonymity enjoyed by the abandoning parent or their agent can often conflict with the rights of the other parent. The father may not even know that he is a parent or that the mother is abandoning the child. Critics believe that safe haven laws should provide the unwed father his due process rights to notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Some adoption advocates have their reservations about safe haven laws as well. Safe haven providers cannot compel an abandoning parent to disclose family and medical history information and the lack of this information can affect the child’s adoption prospects later on.

Others believe that these laws encourage abandonment by women who would not do so otherwise because it seems easier or less invasive than receiving counseling, help with parenting skills, or making an adoption plan. Safe haven laws have been said to propagate “baby dumps” by making it convenient for mothers to abandon their infants and shirk their responsibility. It is thought that these laws send a signal that there is no need to assume responsibility for actions taken and that discarding one’s child is acceptable behavior.

The most damning indictment of safe have laws is that they simply don’t work. In spite of the number of states who have enacted safe haven laws, abandoned infants continue to be found on porches, doorsteps and near trash piles.

Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater?

The abandonment of children is certainly not a new phenomenon; reports from the mid 1800s indicate the occurrence of over 900 abandonments over a period of ten years in New York State alone. Safe haven laws, then, may be seen as a new(er) approach to an age old problem. They may not be able to completely prevent the unsafe abandonment of children, but can serve as a valuable part of a comprehensive strategy addressing the issue of abandonment. Admittedly, safe haven laws do have their disadvantages, but when the lives of children hang in the balance, their value cannot be disputed.

In spite of its critics, safe haven laws do work. In Ohio alone, the Department of Job and Family Services found that 63 babies have been safely surrendered since enactment of Ohio’s safe haven law in 2001. While Ohio’s safe haven law didn’t prevent the recent abandonment of a newborn by the side of a road, it has resulted in the safe surrender of children who could have been left in a much more vulnerable location or under dangerous conditions. Ohio has been pleased with the success of its safe haven law and has recently extended the time in which a parent may safely abandon an infant to an authorized safe haven provider from 72 hours to 30 days to encourage more parents to pursue this option.

For additional information about Adoption or Contact Us.

On several different fronts the battle for and against gay adoption is once again being fought across the country. From the polls in Arkansas, to a Florida courtroom to the floor of the Tennessee legislature, people on both sides of the issue are fighting it out. Each battlefield however is producing very different results.

On November 4, the country’s primary focus was understandably the historic election of Barack Obama. But in the state of Arkansas the electorate wasn’t only casting votes for its elected officials. Voters there also passed a measure banning unmarried couples living together from serving as adoptive or foster parents. The measure, which was aimed primarily at keeping gays from becoming foster or adoptive parents, surprisingly received nearly 57-percent support.

The measure’s sponsor, the Arkansas Family Council, positioned the measure as a battle against a “gay agenda” and the strategy appeared to have worked. Exit polls taken on Election Day showed the measure was supported by residents identifying themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians. Rural voters by and large also supported the measure.

Those who opposed the ban included Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe. Opponents like Beebe pointed to a current lack in foster homes as reason enough to vote against the measure. With its passage they now fear children in need of homes will be the ones who suffer the fall out. According to state officials, 1000 children in Arkansas are presently waiting to be adopted. The ban will in effect reduce the number of homes available. Children in need of parents and guardians will now likely have to wait even longer.

With those concerns in mind, opponents of the new Arkansas law filed a lawsuit at the end of December, asking a judge to strike the measure down. The lawsuit contends the new law violates federal and state constitutional rights to equal treatment and due process. The suit also argues the measure disregards the best interests of children while keeping children in state custody at additional and unnecessary costs to taxpayers.

Very similar arguments are what compelled a Florida judge to overturn her state’s long standing gay adoption ban. Ironically, the Florida ruling was handed down just three weeks after the Arkansas vote. A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge found a Florida law that has banned adoptions by gay men and lesbians for over three decades unconstitutional. The judge said prohibiting homosexual adoption was not in the best interest of children and that the law violated equal protection rights for both children and prospective parents. Advocates for gay adoption say the Florida ruling also makes very clear that the evidence points to the fact that children raised by gay parents fare just as well as those raised by straight parents.

And now, the Tennessee legislature is weighing in on the issue. On January 30, a bill was introduced that would prohibit Tennessee couples-both gay and straight- who aren’t married from adopting. Unless a couple is actually married, they would be prohibited from adopting. The bill does not affect singles who adopt.

In fact across the country gay individuals have a far easier time adopting than couples. However in more than 20 states, it’s ambiguous as to whether the second person in a couple can also adopt their partner’s adopted or biological child if the person is gay. States like Utah, Michigan, Mississippi, and New Hampshire all have laws that do ban joint adoption.

It has been two years since the Ohio legislature took up the gay adoption issue. A bill introduced then would have fallen in line with the measures Florida recently overturned. Its intent was to bar all adoptions and foster care by gays and lesbians. The bill didn’t go far though, never even making it to the hearing stage. Presently Ohio permits single adoptions by gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender individuals. Ohio law does not clearly prohibit joint gay adoption either. However, second-parent adoption, where one parent already has legal rights of the child and a second parent is petitioning for joint rights, is not allowed.

Ironically adoption advocates on both sides of this issue often cite the same concern when arguing their position on the subject of gay adoption: The quality of a child’s life. Advocates of gay adoptions claim that thousands of children need loving homes and to forbid gay adoption is to reduce the overall number of homes available. However, groups against gay adoptions contend that gay adoption is an affront to conventional family values and that it’s in every child’s best interest to have both a mother and a father. Some of those same anti-gay adoption groups insist children raised in homosexual homes, especially females, act out sexually and that self-identity issues are prevalent. But The American Academy of Pediatrics and other gay adoption advocates point to the fact that there is no credible evidence that shows having gay parents harms children. Proponents also argue that for the children who never get placed in an adoptive home the future is often bleak and many of these children who leave the foster care system without ever finding a permanent family end up on the streets, or in jail, without a job or family to support them.

In the meantime, statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicate there are approximately 129,000 foster care kids across the country. It is these children who hang in the balance, all in need of a stable home. For each of them, these continuing battles may very well make the difference as to when they finally find it.

For more information about Adoption or Contact Us.

Changes in Adoption Laws

House Bill 7 provides additional financial support to the birth mother consenting to the adoption of her child. In addition to the payments of allowable expenses related to the adoption or placement of a child such as medical or legal expenses, prospective adoptive parents may now pay up to $3,000 of the living expenses incurred by the birth mother for the duration of her pregnancy and for 60 days after the child is born. The payment of these living expenses must flow through the attorney or agency arranging the adoption, but will ultimately provide much needed financial support for birth mother.

The bill also contains a requirement that the Director of Job and Family Services must promulgate rules that will ensure that adoption and foster care home study procedures and content are in alignment. This will help promote efficiency and consistency for the adoption and foster care systems, which should help make the adoption process go more smoothly.

The length of time in which a child must live with a foster parent before the foster parent may submit an adoption application has been decreased from 12 months to 6 months. Also, a juvenile court no longer needs to consent to adoptions before a probate court can grant adoption petitions that include legal guardians or custodians. As a result of these changes, children will have the opportunity to be adopted at a much faster rate and the number of children awaiting permanent homes will likely decrease.

Where a parent has not been in contact with the child for one year and failed to provide for the child, consent by the parent is no longer forfeited; rather, under the new law, the court must find by clear and convincing evidence that the parent did not try to establish contact with the child or provide any support. In addition, the clerk of courts must send a notice to the parent stating the legal ramifications of the adoption and informing the parent of his or her right to contest the child’s adoption. While the use of the “clear and convincing” standard as opposed to the automatic forfeiture of rights may be seen as a means to impede rather than expedite the adoption process, its usage will provide the birth parent(s) with the ability to contest the adoption before their parental rights are terminated and in doing so may reduce the possibility of lengthy appeals.

Another change provides for the finalization of an interlocutory order not less than six months and not over one year from the date the adoptee is placed in the adoptive home instead of anywhere between six months and one year from the date the order is issued. This provision will decrease the time the court has available for observation, investigation, and review of home study reports while also decreasing the amount of time that the adoptive parents must wait before the adoption is final. Current law which allows the court to vacate an interlocutory order sooner for good cause relating to adoptions involving foster parents or relatives remains unchanged in the bill.

A juvenile court must now consider the ability of the adoptive parents to meet the needs of the other children living in their home.

The bill also adopts a new definition of “non-identifying information” by listing types of information that may be requested in relation to the adoptive parent. Prior to the passage of House Bill 7, Ohio law only addressed the type of information considered as “non-identifying” as that which pertained to the birth parent. Under the bill, the adoptive parent’s age at the time of adoption, an adoptive sibling’s age at the time of adoption, the heritage, ethnic background, religion, educational level, and occupation of the adoptive parent, and general information known about the well-being of the adoptee both prior and after adoption is considered to be information that does not identify the parties involved and therefore subject to inquiry. The bill does authorize an agency, attorney, person, or other governmental authority to reclassify any non-identifying information related to an adoptive family as identifying information on a case-by-case basis and to deny the request made for that information. In addition, House Bill 7 preserves the ability of a birth parent of an adopted person, a birth sibling over 18 years, or a birth family member of a deceased birth parent to submit a written request for non-identifying information as well as retains the definition of what constitutes such information, but stipulates that the birth parent must wait until the adopted child is 18 years of age before the information can be requested.

Changes in Child Welfare Laws

Under House Bill 7, a juvenile court may extend a temporary custody order for an additional time beyond that by which a PCSA or a PCPA may extend a temporary custody order by motion. The bill permits a juvenile court to extend a temporary custody order in increments of six months each, but under no circumstance may it extend the order for more than one year. In addition, the bill prohibits the court from extending the temporary custody order beyond two years from either the date when the complaint was filed or when the child was put in shelter care, whichever comes first and irrespective of any previous extensions. This provision allows a juvenile court more latitude in its disposition of the child, while safeguarding against the placement of a child in temporary custody for an inordinate period of time.

The new law mandates that a juvenile court must, under specific circumstances, place a child in a PSCA’s or PCPA’s custody. The child is required to be placed with a PCSA or PCPA if all of the following apply: 1) the court determines by clear and convincing evidence that the child cannot be placed with one of the child’s parents within a reasonable time or should not be placed with either parent; 2) the child has been in an agency’s custody for two years or longer, and no longer qualifies for temporary custody; 3) the child does not meet the requirements for a planned permanent living arrangement pursuant to current law; and 4) prior to the dispositional hearing, no relative or other interested person has filed, or has been identified in, a motion for legal custody of the child.

The law provides specifications concerning when it is necessary for the child to stay in residential or institutional care. If the child is unable to function in a family-like setting due to physical or mental disability and must therefore remain in residential or institutional care, the law specifies that the child must remain in such care for “now and the foreseeable future” beyond the date of the child’s dispositional hearing.

Finally, the new law provides an additional standard for the involuntary termination of the parental rights of a parent who has already had his or her parental rights terminated in regards to a sibling of the child in question. Under House Bill 7, the parent must prove by clear and convincing evidence that in spite of the previous termination, the parent can provide a secure, permanent placement and adequate care for the health, welfare, and safety of the child. While this provision allows the parent the ability to preserve his parental rights for the child regardless of the loss of parental rights in respect to another child, it also protects the child who is the current subject of a TPR proceeding by requiring the parent to meet a stricter burden of proof.

The passage of House Bill 7 effectuates many positive changes in Ohio adoption laws and will encourage adoptions in Ohio of children in need of permanent homes. With approximately 2,800 children waiting for adoptive families out of the more than 22,000 children in Ohio living in either foster care or some type of out-of-home placement, it is necessary to make the adoption process more accessible.

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Written By Rose M. Garland and posted on NewsBlaze.com

Americans for Open Adoption Records posts about reasons why any adopted person should have access to their own adoption records. Adoption records can be illuminating for an adoptee. They may show information that most non-adoptees take for granted, such as race, single or twin birth, other siblings, mother and father’s names (if available), and also some potentially important medical history.

I knew my birth-family for the almost 11 years I spent in foster care until my official adoption at 14. Therefore, I have had access to medical information and medical history that may not be accessible to many American’s who were adopted at much younger ages, or who were a part of closed adoption proceedings. However, my younger birth sister was adopted young and part of closed adoption proceedings. She already had 3 children before I met her in her 20’s, and was able to tell her to screen for Epilepsy. Her oldest child had already had a severe seizure and because of this knowledge, she was armed with the knowledge to screen her other children for Epilepsy and for other genetic diseases.

An adoptee has the same right to know their medical history as anyone else does. If the adoptee is aware of heart disease or diabetes in their immediate birth family, they can be forewarned to be screened for these illnesses. A woman might want to know if there are genetic triggers that may complicate a pregnancy. Open adoption records would be helpful for doctors who would have a basis to go on when treating patients who were adopted.

Even something as simple as knowing your race or races can be a huge advantage. There are different illnesses that certain races are more susceptible to than others. I cannot imagine any person not wanting to be forewarned about potential health risk factors.

Sometimes records contain information that is not health-related, but gives the adoptee information they may not have expected. For example, I was able to view my own adoption records, and was touched by some of the information in them that I had never known.

Social workers have chronicled my life almost as long as I have been alive. One excerpt from my own record was, “Rose is almost 3 years old. She is a quiet child who tries to take care of everyone. She follows her mom around and mimics her actions, including trying to vacuum. She tries to get her mother to sit down while she takes care of her.” This is interesting to me, because I was put into foster care just after that. The information from this record, not only gave me a childhood story that I’d never had, but taught me more about the reasons that the removal into foster care was a necessity for my own well-being.

AMFOR and organizations like this, have a worthy purpose. Knowing what is in your adoption records is one more step into knowing important information about who you really are.

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