If you are a couple or single adult that wants to share their life with a child and enjoy the unique experience of parenthood, adoption could be the way to go. Adopting comes with many benefits. For instance, it can give you a chance to provide a loving and stable home to a child who needs it. Every state has its rules, requirements, and laws as far as adoption is concerned. California laws dictate who is eligible to adopt, who can be adopted, and what the adoption process is like. Here is a step-by-step adoption guide for parents in California:
Determine Your Eligibility to Adopt
Adopting a child is a huge responsibility. The law requires adopting parents to take permanent and full commitment to nurture and care for the child. That is why every adopting parent must meet a set of requirements before he/she is allowed to take the child home. The requirements include:
Be of the Right Age
Parents should be of legal age, 21 years, and older to adopt in California. It ensures that only mature adults take the responsibility of caring for a child. However, for independent or private adoptions, birth parents can determine their adoptive family’s age preference.
Be of Sound Medical Health
The law requires anyone wishing to adopt to be of sound medical health. It ensures that the parents have the strength needed to take care of the child. It also ensures they will be present in the child’s life much longer. If one or both parents have suffered a chronic illness in the past, they are required to get a letter from their physician, showing that they are physically able to parent at least until the child turns sixteen. Again, if both or one adoptive parent has a drug problem, they may be required to get rehabilitated first before starting the adoption process.
The Marital Requirements
Some types of adoptions require parents to be legally married, while others do not. In the US, you need to be married to adopt a newborn. However, foster care adoptions are different. If you are a single parent, you may be required to provide a name for a guardian who can step in as the child’s parent if you cannot continue taking care of the child.
The Financial Requirements
The income requirement of the adopting parents is not usually specified, but there is always the need to ensure that you can take care of the child’s physical needs. For that, the law requires you to go through an assessment to ascertain that you have the necessary resources to care for a child. Again, you need to ensure that you have enough money to go through the adoption journey.
Note that the state will also need to determine your eligibility to adopt. A social worker or agency will come to conduct the assessment of your home. It is done to ensure that the parents are well prepared to care for a child.
Choose the Adoption Type You Will Go For
There are three kinds of adoptions available for parents in California: private, public, and intercountry or international.
Private Adoption
This type of adoption can take many forms. Its main characteristic is that parents place their child up for adoption, and sometimes choose a family that will raise their child. For example, a parent that wants to take in a family member or their stepchild. Private adoptions are usually very simple and could be performed with the help of a family attorney. Some parents engage the services of an adoption law center, adoption agency, and other professionals to connect them with a family that wants to place their child for adoption. It could be a pregnant mother that is not able to raise her child.
Many parents who wish to adopt an infant choose private adoptions. However, it might cost them more than public adoptions.
Public Adoption
If you choose public adoption, you will be working with the state’s Foster system to adopt instead of the child’s parents. This type of adoption involves adopting a child within the state’s foster care. Children in foster care are usually those who have been neglected, abandoned, or abused. Thus, they already need love, care, and a home, which you will provide them when you take them in. Foster homes are usually temporary custody for these children, while some wait to be reunited with their parents and others to get a safe home where they can grow.
Most children who get into foster care are reunited with their birth parents. But some are placed for adoption.
International Adoption
California parents can also choose to adopt children from other countries. The good thing is that there are programs available for international adoptions that could provide a lot of information to prospective parents. The adopting parents’ process will be determined mainly by the country from which they wish to adopt. The parents will be guided by the adoption laws of that other country and the Hague Convention, which is in there to help the sale, trafficking, and abduction of minors. The regulations also ensure that the adoptions are done in the children’s best interest.
Three laws bound intercountry adoptions. Each law seeks to ensure that children are legally able to get a family. The laws are:
- California state laws
- The United States federal laws
- The laws of the child’s country of origin
Choose an Organization, Agency, or Professional to Help You with California Adoption
Fortunately, there are many organizations, and avenues parents can engage in adopting in California. They offer help and have sufficient resources to guide you every step of the way. Working with the right adoption agency or professional can increase your chances of enjoying a positive experience. There are several steps you may need to take in finding the right one:
Conduct a Thorough Search
Only a thorough search can get you the kind of help you need with adopting in California. Today, the internet helps people find services near them, and adoption services are no exception. Since you already know the kind of adoption you want, it will be easy to narrow down your options based on what is available online. Again ask around. You will be surprised at how much information people around you have regarding adoption services. Do due diligence and start making phone calls immediately until you get what you are looking for.
Prepare Yourself
Do not wait until you are called in for an interview to start preparing yourself. Once you start your search for a professional or agency, prepare yourself for interviews as well. There is a lot of information the professional or agency will want to know about you, such as your education, career, health, finances, personal history, and lifestyle. Ensure that you have all the right answers ready before making that phone call.
Don’t Shy From Asking Questions
Do not accept everything that the prospective adoption professional or agency is telling you. Get all the details and more. Seek to find out what their eligibility qualifications are, how much their services will cost you, when you are required to pay the fees, how long they might take to get you a match, and so on. It is okay to have all your questions written down. The answers could also help you find the agency or professional offering services that match your needs.
Find Positive Evidence
It’s always important to consider how reputable an agency or professional is before engaging them. Therefore, start digging as soon as you land on their name. Reviews will help you decide whether or not you want to work with them. Most people who use adoption services leave a review to enable others in need of the same benefits to find the most suitable agency or professional. Alternatively, you can join a support group for adoptive parents if there is one in your locality. It will help you find an adoption agency or professional quicker and one that is reputable.
Complete the Right Home Study, Family Checks, and the Profile of Adoptive Parent
In California, any adult can adopt, irrespective of their marital status. The essential requirement is for that adult to be at least ten years older than their adoptee. Also, children above 12 should give their consent before the adoption process begins. Home studies and background checks are conducted to ensure that the potential adoptive parents are well-prepared to care for the child. They also help gather information for the entire family to make a perfect or near-perfect match of the adoptee and the parents-to-be.
California parents who opt for private adoption to adopt a newborn will be required to meet specific requirements to get cleared after the home study. After the adoption, they undergo an after-placement assessment. Both reviews ensure that the parents can provide a stable home for the child they want to adopt.
During the home assessment, the law requires you to do the following:
- To submit your fingerprints and criminal records.
- To go through all interviews with the social worker.
- Go to the training classes for adopting parents.
- Involve all the members of your family in the in-home visits
- Provide all the necessary documents including birth certificates, medical records, and marriage/divorce certificate
- Provide documents to prove your financial and employment situation
Note the following,
You might not qualify for adoption if a home study revealed that one of the people living in that home has a felony conviction record. The conviction could be for offenses such as crimes against minors (could be rape or pornography), child neglect or abuse, spousal battery, or other violent crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, and rape. Again, you may be disqualified if it is established that the adoptive parents or any adult in their family has a felony conviction that happened within the previous five years for offenses like physical assault, battery, and alcohol drug-related offenses.
If that does not apply to you, you may proceed to the next step after home study to build your profile as an adoptive parent. Once it is ready, the agency or your family attorney will send it to the birth parents of the child you wish to adopt. Your adoption professional will guide you on how to do this. You will be providing details about yourself, your family, plus what your hopes are regarding the child you wish to take in. The birth parents will use your profile to learn a little about you and make parents’ right choice for their child.
The Selection Process
After creating your profile, it is time to wait to be selected by birth parents. There are many children out there waiting to be adopted. Therefore, it may not take a long time before you find one. Once you are selected, you can begin the adoption process with your adoption agency or professional’s help.
You will need an adoption plan. You will prepare the plan based on the kind of adoption you chose earlier on and the child’s location. If the child is not in California, consider other states’ legal requirements.
The plan will also include the mode of communication you will use with the birth parents and whether there will be visitation. Suppose you wish to adopt an infant, and the birth mother is probably pregnant. In that case, you may be expected to support the mother throughout her pregnancy, including taking care of her medical expenses.
Adoption professionals are well informed about the legal procedures and requirements you need, and so you will be better off working with one. You will be required to choose whether you will go for an open, semi-open, or closed adoption process.
An open adoption process will allow you to contact the birth parents during their pregnancy and after birth. The process will be open, and so you can share pictures, send and receive text messages, make phone calls, and even visit as often as you wish.
A semi-open adoption process will involve the sharing of only non-identifying information. The birth and adoptive parents will mainly communicate through the adoption professionals working with the adoptive parent.
There is no contact or sharing of information between the birth and adoptive parents in a closed adoption process.
Finalize Your Adoption
When everything is done, and you have the child at home, you can now finalize your adoption plans in court, where a judge will preside over the case and give his/her verdict. If everything is done ethically, legally, and in the child’s best interests, the judge will award you parental rights.
Prepare well for the hearing by filling out all the necessary forms. Ensure that you provide all the required information before filing them. You will also be required to pay the filing fees. California has a filing fee for every child a parent wishes to adopt. You can pay the fee in cash or write a check to the Supreme Court.
You will then receive a copy of a report recommending the adoption. With the document at hand, call the Probate Clerk’s office to get the hearing date. Note that adoption hearings are usually confidential. Your case will be heard privately by a judge in his/her chambers, where your friends, family members, and cameras are welcome.
You should ring the child you wish to adopt and have a camera to take pictures in the hearing. You could also be in the company of friends and family members you need at the hearing. You will be allowed to take pictures, including a picture of you, the child, and the judge. If the child you wish to adopt is a stepchild, its natural parents and stepparents should also be in the hearing.
After the hearing, you will just file your documents with the probate Clerk. Copies of these documents will be available at the clerk’s office for free. Therefore, you can always get a copy of your Order of Adoption.
Note that you may be required to sign a Post Adoption Contact Agreement. The agreement allows for specific contact between adoptive and birth parents. You will be required to sign the deal if the court feels that the connection will serve the child’s best interests.
Find a San Diego Family Law Attorney Near Me
The decision to adopt a child is not always easy. There is the legal process to consider and preparations to make at home for the family’s new member. The process in itself is complicated, and the laws can be confusing. That is why it is advisable to seek the help of a family attorney. At San Diego Family Law Attorney, we have skilled and experienced attorneys that have taken the same journey several times. They have all the resources you need to realize your dream of adopting in California. Call us at 619-610-7425 if you are in San Diego, CA, and let us guide you through the process.
