Getting daughter out of foster care

[Jennifer_Coia]

My fiance has a 10 yr daughter with his ex-girlfriend (never married) who 4 years ago when they split up took the children to live with her. He did visit the children and paid some child support but not always. He is now s keeping current on the payments now through his employer. He was in jail from Dec '06 to June '07 for a non-violent crime. Right after he got out of jail, we found out the mother lost custody of all her children (3 with different fathers). He wants his daughter back. The other 2 are not his. She lost custody because she gave birth to a baby this past July that had drug withdrawls and she tested positive for drugs during her pregnancy. They have been in foster care for 4 months now and he is complying with all the rules they set for him including visitation and drug testing and drug classes. The mother has not done what has been asked from her, including not even showing up for court. She has not been drug testing or taking drug classes like she should either. My real question is, how likely does it seem that he will win full physical custody of his daughter. We are worried because she is living in foster care (the mothers friends) along with her 2 siblings. We know they do not like to seperate the kids. Does it look like he should be able to win full custody, if he is doing eveything DCFS and the courts have asked of him. Or do you think they could favor the foster parents because the are willing to keep all the kids together, Yes, they have said they would like to adopt them.

Any thoughts? Thank you!

 

[Duranie]

So I take it your boyfriend has been identified as the legal father of the one child? It sounds like he was given a case plan for re-unification and he is doing everything required of him. It is possible he will get custody of the child. Generally kids only get adopted out when neither parent follows the case plan and the state chooses to terminate rights. Is he in contact with the case worker? Was he appointed an attorney? If I were him I would be contacting the case worker and the GAL and let them know he would like custody of the child. When is the next court hearing?

 

[Jennifer_Coia]

Thank you for replying!

We are both involved with the re-unification plan and currently I am considered the monitor for the weekly visits which are now 3 hours long versus the 1 hour we started with. We have been to court because he had allegations of being a deadbeat dad, but we were able to show the judge the payment history from the child support office so that allegation was dropped.

They have told us that the next court hearing will be in May '08 because they want to see 7 more clean drug tests from him. He has already had 3 or 4 clean tests and is also on probation for his crime. He will also be done with his drug/parenting classes at that time as well as ordered by his probation officer. He will be off of probation soon after that. At that time he plans to file custody for his daughter. My main concern is that the foster parents want all the children so badly and have even moved into a larger home to accomodate them. Again, these foster parents are good friends with the mother so it has been a bit of a struggle dealing with them and I fear they are brainwashing his daughter. He is the biological father of her and his name is on the birth certificate. I just hear horror stories about how hard it can be to get a child back once the state has stepped in and I am trying to gather as much info as I can so we can stay one step ahead of the game.

 

[boblynnj]

Unfortunately Jennifer, the horror stories you've heard about Child Protective Services (CPS) are all too real. Please go to the LIFE (Liberty Independence & Family Equality) website at http://www.life-vs-cps.com/ and see if there's any information there that might help. Each individual CPS agency and their colluding family court act differently but you can be sure few act in accordance with the law and virtually all violate basic Constitutional protections. Complying with all their mostly irrelevant demands (jumping through their hoops) will rarely help. This horrific child stealing business is all about money, not the welfare of children. Be sure to review the Termination of Parental Rights section at http://www.life-vs-cps.com/index_files/Page353.htm because it's critical that your fiance be well prepared for what CPS is driving toward.

 

[Jennifer_Coia]

Thank you so much for the links. I will do my homework on there and make sure we know what our rights are.