At Issue
Wisconsin Legislature advances needed adoption reforms
By David Ward
Adoption has long been a viable solution for birth parents who are
unable to care for their children, for their children who deserve
permanent loving homes and for adoptive parents who are unable to
conceive their own children. Unfortunately, some of the regulations we
have created to establish these unions also have been a detriment to
their fruition.The number of adoptions completed in Wisconsin has been
on a steady decline each year. The cause ranges from bureaucratic red
tape to social trends that have made it more acceptable for teens to
keep their babies.
With adoption rates on the decline every year, the state Legislature
is revamping the current system to help bring children and adoptive
parents together.
The Legislature began to confront this issue by appointing a
Legislative Council Special Committee on Adoption Laws. Made up of both
state legislators and public members, the committee's primary directive
was to promote the placement of children needing adoption with parents
who want to open their hearts and their homes. (Note: Please
see a related article elsewhere in this
issue.)
The committee advanced three separate proposals that clarify and
streamline our current laws and create new incentives for adoption.
AB 600 - Changes to general adoption laws
The first proposal, Assembly Bill 600, contains the committee's
recommendations for changes to Wisconsin's general adoption laws.
Highlights of the bill include:
- Provides needed clarification regarding which expenses of the birth
parents and child can be paid by the adoptive parents;
- Prohibits advertising by adoption agencies not licensed in
Wisconsin;
- Clarifies who may be adopted in situations involving a child whose
parents are deceased, stepparent adoption, and readoption of a child who
was adopted in another state or nation;
- Reduces the time to petition for a rehearing on a contested
involuntary termination of parental rights (based on new evidence) to 30
days after the order is entered or until the adoption is final,
whichever is later;
- Promotes the option of adoption by requiring school-age parent
programs to provide instruction on adoption and adoption services.
AB 601 - Adoption assistance
Assembly Bill 601 contains changes to the adoption assistance
statutes that the committee believes are vital in providing meaningful
incentives to adopt children with special needs or who are at high risk
of developing special needs. Highlights of the bill include:
- Provides for a deferred adoption assistance agreement for a child
who is at high risk of developing moderate or intensive
difficulty-of-care problems after adoption. This improves current law by
acknowledging that at-high-risk children often are special needs
children and eligible for adoption assistance benefits;
- Allows for an increase in monthly maintenance payment amounts if an
adopted child's problems become worse. This proposed change should help
eliminate the tendency to initially set payments at a higher level than
is needed, in anticipation that the child may develop greater problems
in the future.
AB 602 - Long-term kinship care
Finally, the committee recommended creating a long-term kinship care
program to address the needs of children who are placed with relatives
for extended periods of time. Assembly Bill 602:
- Provides that only a relative who has been appointed as a child's
guardian (under 48.977 (2) of the Wisconsin Statutes) may receive
long-term kinship care payments;
- Requires an investigation of the home of the relative who will
provide long-term kinship care;
- Requires a criminal background check. However, an individualized
consideration of the long-term kinship care relative's conviction
record, and the conviction record of an adult resident of the home also
is required;
- Requires an annual review of a case under the long-term kinship care
program;
- Allows a person to petition for a Department of Health & Family
Services (DHFS) administrative review and fair hearing under certain
circumstances where long-term kinship care payments are discontinued or
denied.
Rep. David Ward, Fort Atkinson, chaired the
Special Committee on Adoption Laws.
I am very proud of the work that the Special Committee on Adoption
Laws accomplished. It is our hope that this work will result in bringing
more Wisconsin children needing loving stable homes together with
parents who are waiting to bring them into their families. The more
efficiently we can do this the better off these children and, in the
long run, our society will be.
For more information, please contact Rep. David Ward at (608)
266-3790 or obtain a copy of Joint Legislative Council Report No. 4
to the 1997 Legislature by calling the Legislative Council at (608)
266-1304. N
Wisconsin
Lawyer