Good news Alabamians!
On Wednesday, April 24th, 2013, Gov. Bentley is scheduled to sign into law a bill that could revolutionize foster care and adoption in Alabama.
In a recent post, Improving Foster Care and Adoption, we chronicled the efforts of Speaker 
Hubbard’s Office to diagnose and treat Alabama’s ailing foster care and adoption system.
We found that in the years between 2006 and 2012, Alabama’s foster care system dropped from 6th in the nation to 33rd. In addition, we found that 1,770 children a year die from abuse and neglect in America – and if you’re counting, that almost 5 children per day.
Our research led us to conclude that one of the biggest areas for improvement in Alabama was the time that it takes for a judge to make a decision on a petition to terminate the parental rights of biological parents that have been found to be unfit.
The culmination of this collaborative effort is a House Bill 115 / SB 307 known as “Best Interest of the Child” Act. In summary, the “Best Interest of the Child” Act would:
1. Require DHR to file a petition to terminate parental rights of a parent(s) of a child who has been in foster care for 12 of the last 22 months instead of the current 15 out of 22 months in statute.
2. Give judges a maximum of 90 days to hear TPR cases once service of process has been perfected and 30 days after to issue the court’s order. Alabama is one of only 17 states that do not currently have time guidelines in statute that judges must abide by to hear and issue orders in TPR cases. Currently, it takes an average of almost three years to move a child placed into foster care into a permanent adoptive home. Alabama is in the bottom ten states in this statistic.
We believe this legislation will have two main positive impacts: 1) move children out of foster care or other temporary homes sooner, and 2) move children into permanent adoptive homes sooner, thus increasing the adoption rate.
So, Alabamians … an immediate way to have an impact on foster care and adoption in Alabama is to get the word out about this excellent legislation. This is exactly the kind of laws that we want our elected officials to fight for. Let’s thank our legislatures for making Alabama a safer place for its children.
How will this affect the number of times that they biological parent can delay the action? How many times can the biological parent appeal? How long will that process take?
These are the delays that I see in the TPR process, not necessarily when the judge hears the case.
Wonderful new for our kids! Will this law take effect immediately?
I am wondering the above as well. How many times can a parent petition to get their child back? When exactly will the new law go into effect?
How about including FP’s having rights to be a party to the case after a certain amount of time in order to ensure the best interest of the child is truly being heard in court. This makes the most since being they are the only party that has spent “real” time with the child and has seen all of the players in action daily. That being said…any improvement for our children is great, we need to push forward quicker and harder for these kids in this broken system. Thank you for your hard work…please keep moving forward.
A huge help for kids in care. Kudo’s to the Govenor and the Speaker on a job well done. Now we must take a close look at foster parents standing after six months. Kids are being sentenced to poor outcomes due to foster parents being kept out of court. Dependent children need thier parents (foster and birth) in court to represent them. Doen’t make sense to only let the abusive parents in along with a GAL and SW who know little about the child while holding the family who have been caring for the child for six months to many years outside.
Don’t worry if the foster parent does not have the childs best interest at heart, they will not show anyway.. but what about the ones that do???