Part 1 – Heaven Comes to Town
Heaven was born 10 weeks premature at Jackson Hospital. She tested positive for cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine. She spent the next two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, all alone, but for the compassionate nurses who kept her alive.
Heaven’s mother obtained no prenatal care. In fact, she wasn’t even sure she was pregnant until she went into labor. After delivery, hospital staff collected Heaven’s urine for a drug screen. Like her daughter, she too tested positive for cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine.
Within 24 hours of delivery, Heaven’s mother secreted away, abandoning her child at the hospital – to suffer alone through the tremors of drug withdrawal. Before absconding, hospital staff interviewed Heaven’s mother to inquire as much as possible into her living situation, whether she was married, and whether there was a father willing to sign an affidavit of paternity.
Heaven’s mother was not married, she named no such father, nor was any such father present.
Heaven had no father to provide for her. Heaven had no mother to nurture her. Heaven had no family to protect her. Heaven was an orphan.
Part 2 – Heaven is an Orphan
An orphan is a child left by their rightful caregivers, without the security of their care, love, and protection. Since the dawn of time, the family has been the government instituted by God, and reflected in nature, to provide the care, love, and protection a child needs to thrive.
How long will it take Heaven to starve to death without the care of her mother and father? Three days? Maybe seven days? Not much longer than that.
If Heaven is going to survive, someone who is not Heaven’s biological family will have to step up and provide food, clothing, care, and nurture.
Part 3 – Lawyers Keep an Orphan Alive
As soon as Heaven tested positive for methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana, the hospital staff knew what to do, because they’ve been trained by administrative lawyers that they are mandatory reporters. The nurses called the Department of Human Resources (Department) as the first responder to find a foster home for Heaven.
A case worker arrived at Jackson Hospital to gather what information they could about Heaven’s mother, father, and Heaven’s health. Under the direction of Department lawyers, a case worker filed a petition with the Juvenile Court to give the Department temporary custody of Heaven. Department lawyers argued this petition to the juvenile court, resulting in the Department being vested with the responsibility of finding a fitting foster home for Heaven.
The nurses also call law enforcement, because forcing one’s child to ingest methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana in-utero is a felony. A prosecuting lawyer, believing in the deterrent power of just laws enforced equitably, zealously prosecuted the State’s case against Heaven’s mother. Heaven’s mother was found guilty of chemical endangerment and spent 18 months at Tutwiler.
For the first time in her life, through the programs offered to her during and after Tutwiler, Heaven’s mother began to get the help she needs to overcome a lifetime of addiction. Heaven’s mother received counseling to be at peace with her own past trauma and abandonment from her own parents. Like her daughter, Heaven’s mother was a functional orphan. Heaven’s mother realized that if she hadn’t been incarcerated to get the help she needed, she would likely be dead in the streets.
Lawyers kept an orphan alive.
Part 4 – Lawyers Find Heaven a Family
After Heaven had been with her foster home for nine months, there was still no sign of her mother or father stepping forward to assume responsibility for her. The Department’s lawyer had worked with the caseworkers to develop goals, deadlines, and action steps for the parents. The father was still nowhere to be seen. The Department lawyer advised the Department case worker that, if the mother did not show interest in parenting by the time Heaven’s twelve-months-in-care rolled around, the Department was required by law and policy to file for termination of parental rights (TPR).
Although the mother was showing progress while incarcerated, she was not expressing interest in parenting. The mother’s lawyer visited her in Tutwiler to discuss her daughter. Heaven’s mother made the bravest decision of her life, unequivocally telling her lawyer that she wanted Heaven to be adopted by her foster family. Heaven’s mother did the most motherly thing she ever did for her daughter – she set her free to no longer be an orphan.
The juvenile court also appointed a lawyer to advocate for Heaven’s best interested – a Guardian ad litem (GAL). The GAL lawyer advocated to the juvenile court and to the Department that Heaven receive special therapies to offset her numerous development delays. The GAL lawyer visited Heaven in her foster home at least once per month. By the time the mother’s lawyer was receiving her client’s consent to TPR and adoption, the GAL lawyer had also become convinced that Heaven needed to be adopted by her foster family – the only family she had ever known.
Heaven’s foster family also recruited the help of a lawyer to come alongside the GAL lawyer and the Department lawyer for Heaven to find permanency through adoption. The foster family’s lawyer helped them intervene as a party into the Department’s TPR petition. The foster family’s lawyer relied on cases such as F.W. v. T.M., 140 So. 3d 950, 958 (Ala. Civ. App. 2013) for the proposition that “foster parents may seek and be granted intervention in a dependency action.”
Part 5 – Objections to a Family for Heaven
After one year with the foster family, Heaven’s father had still not stepped forward to claim any responsibility for her. The foster family’s lawyer made the argument that the presumptively reasonable time for a child to remain in foster care is 12 months. The Appellate Court has consistently held:
“a parent’s good-faith efforts to change his. . .circumstances must come to fruition in a timely manner or a child’s need for permanency will outweigh those efforts.”
“children should not have to spend further time in an uncertain home situation based on the mere hope that the mother may someday overcome her psychological inability to properly parent them.”
“[a]t some point, … the child’s need for permanency and stability must overcome the parent’s good-faith but unsuccessful attempts to become a suitable parent.”
The resounding answer to the question of how long children should remain in foster care while waiting for their parents to rehabilitate is, at the very latest, twelve months. If parents have not rehabilitated within twelve months, then we must all set our gaze upon the mercy to the child of TPR.
Part 6 – A New Name for Heaven
The court room was filled to capacity with happy faces – something that lawyers rarely, if ever, see. Heaven was two-years on the day of her adoption finalization. Even though the mother consented to the TPR, a legal father was found and adjudicated at the last minute. Even thought he had never laid eyes on Heaven, this gave him the positive right to contest and appeal the juvenile court’s order terminating his parental rights.
The appellate process took 11-months to resolve. Through the meticulous efforts of appellate lawyers from the Department, and appellate lawyers from the foster family, the Appeals Court affirmed the juvenile court’s TPR order.
When the dust settled, the foster family’s lawyer advocated that Heaven qualify for and receive the adoption subsidy, almost $500 per month throughout her minority, to help offset Heaven’s special needs expenses.
The foster family’s adoption lawyer drafted and compiled their adoption petition to the probate court. Two months later, the foster family found themselves in a packed court room with balloons and a photographer – surrounded by family and friends ready to vouch for them and their love of Heaven… and Heaven’s love for them.
The adoption lawyer guided both the foster mother and the foster father through testimony, under-oath, to convey to the probate court that Heaven’s adoption into their family was – beyond a shadow of a doubt – in her best interest. Then with a bang of the gavel, it was over. They would no longer be called Heaven’s foster parents, but simply her parents.
At her birth, Heaven’s name was a pitiful irony, almost a mockery of her reality. Her parents renamed her Joy… and this time Joy’s name mercifully reflected her place in the world.
*In order to protect the privacy of the foster families and children that we represent, this article is not based on one individual, but rather on a multitude of cases we have been involved in. Names and details have been altered to maintain confidentiality. *