(Fl.) State seeking adoptions for 800 foster children

[ensho]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/fl-state-adoption-push-20111102,0,1785623.story?track=rss


-snip-

The Department of Children and Families Secretary David Wilkins kicked off the movement Tuesday in Tallahassee. He said the majority of foster children waiting for loving parents are teenagers.

-snip-

Wilkins stressed that foster children who are available for adoption have had the legal rights of their biological parents terminated. That means these children will never be returned to their birth parents.

-snip-
-----------------

wishing the kids well but not holding my breath

[LonePirate]

1. I bet the state could find 800 gay or lesbian couples who would gladly adopt these kids.

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. Gay Floridians have been able to legally adopt for a year now:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/florida-gay-adoption-ban-unconstitutional_n_735751.html

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. I'm afraid I think that's very unlikely.

19 million people in Florida; probably about a million gay people; probably at least a hundred thousand stable gay couples, and certainly tens of thousands. At least a few hundred of those must want to adopt, surely? Well, yes, but the problem is that nearly all of them - like nearly all couples who want to adopt - will want babies or young children, not teenagers. Plus, if post 4 is right, a lot of those who want to adopt will already have done so.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I am deeply ambivalent about terminating the rights of parents.

I represent a mother whose five children were removed from her. She was a battered wife and lived in squalor. Since she began to fight to have her children returned more than 2-1/2 years ago,, she's made a miraculous transformation. She left her abusing husband and filed for divorce, fled him to live in hiding many states away but travels more than 9-1/2 hours each way by bus just to visit her children for only 2 hours every other week. She's about to complete a medical certification program and has a job lined up that will pay more than what I'm getting now.

My colleague and I are representing her for free.

Child Protection refuses to recognize her progress and her ability to raise her children with the help of her mother and family. And the judge has made it clear he wants those children adopted.

I can't accept that a victim of domestic violence deserves to permanently lose her kids. They should have been returned years ago. To Child Protection and the court, the kids are a commodity and refuse to see them and their mother as a bona fide family.

[ensho]

3. kick

nt

[Sal Minella]

5. On the other hand, I had an in-law (long-since ex-in-law) who began

raping his daughter regularly when she was nine years old. Nine.

Some parents deserve having all rights terminated, imo.
Some parents deserve being terminated themselves, imo.

Good for you for representing this woman. I hope she succeeds in regaining her parental status role with them -- sounds like she is more than capable of being a good mother to them.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. And I can equally see your situation as valid.

Thank you for your support.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. I don't think what the parents deserve should come in to it, sadly.

Without knowing the facts of your case, I have no opinion on whether the children should be returned to their mother, but I find your "she deserves them back" argument both unpersuasive and worrying. The line of argument that, if you can make it, would or at least ought to be convincing is "they would be better off with her than waiting for adoption" - which, given the queue for adoption, does not seem unlikely.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. My client does deserve to have her children returned to her and for them not to be adopted.

Let me emphasize that once her rights are terminated, the children are literally lost to her. They can't open a file when they're 18 years old and try to find her. Their names are changed. My client will be forbidden from contacting her children.

She has changed from a woman who acted as though she were sleepwalking, who allowed a man to terrorize her for more than a decade and wouldn't even let her go food shopping alone, who is now an independent and self-empowered person, who took years of therapy and counseling as well as re-training in order to support her children. In short, she was charged with passively allowing her children to be neglected. She isn't that woman anymore in any way and something sort of miraculous.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Lots of couples want to adopt, but they nearly all want babies or young children, I believe.

Very few couples want to take on a teenager, especially one who's been through traumatic experiences.

I don't think there's much we can do about that beyond ensuring that we make the best provision possible for children who remain in state care.