Can Foster Parents Get Copies of Their Child’s Medical History, Counseling Notes, or Psychological Report?

//  by 

Can Foster Parents Get Copies of Their Child’s Medical History, Counseling Notes, or Psychological Report?

This is an important question. Let’s say a three year old child is placed in your home. According to the Foster Parent Bill of Rights, the Department should be putting you on notice of all relevant social and medical information of the child. Sometimes the Department doesn’t have much information to share. Sometimes the Department doesn’t share the information they do have.

As your foster child’s primary caregiver for every waking moment of the child’s life, it’s just a little bit important that you have the whole picture for the child’s well being. Perhaps the child has a history of seizures, sexual abuse, or speech impediment. To truly help the child progress and thrive, you need to have access to every medical record, counseling note, and psychological report. Sometimes, the Department will have the common sense to share those reports with foster parents, but that’s probably the exception.

As the foster parent, you can also appeal to common sense to each of your foster child’s providers. You can ask the pediatrician for a copy of the child’s records so that you can properly advocate for your foster child. The same thing goes for the counselor, psychologist, and every other provider. Sometimes that will work and sometimes it won’t.

Your next resort will be to make an appeal to the judicial branch of government – to file a motion to intervene – to become a party to case. If you become a party to the case, you can use the use the subpoena powers of the court to compel these entities to provide you with copies of the requested documents. In many instances, these entities want to give you the documents and will be happy that you subpoenaed them so that they can bypass their perceived liability.

In summary, a foster parent seeking important health documents for their child can 1) ask pretty-please from the Department, 2) ask pretty-please from the provider, or 3) intervene into the judicial case as a party, and use the subpoena powers of the court.

For more information on foster parent intervention, give us a call today.