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2019 SESSION

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HB 1728 Post-adoption contact & communication agreements; authority to enter into agreements.

Introduced by: David A. Reid | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles | history

SUMMARY AS PASSED HOUSE:

Post-adoption contact and communication agreements. Provides that a local board of social services or child welfare agency required to file a petition for a permanency planning hearing may inform the birth parents and shall inform the adoptive parents that they may enter into enter into a post-adoption contact and communication agreement. The bill further provides that such local board of social services or child welfare agency shall inform the child if he is 14 years of age or older that he may consent to such an agreement. This bill is identical to SB 1139.

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Post-adoption contact and communication agreements. Requires the court to consider the appropriateness of a written post-adoption contact and communication agreement entered into in any case in which a child has been placed in foster care as a result of court commitment, an entrustment agreement or other voluntary relinquishment by the parent or parents, or in cases in which there is voluntary consent to the adoption of the child at a permanency planning hearing. Under current law, such consideration is discretionary. The bill further requires, for agency adoptions, the agency authorized to place the child for adoption to inform the birth and adoptive parents of a child that they may enter into a written post-adoption contract and communication agreement. The bill further requires a circuit court to approve a post-adoption contact and communication agreement authorized or entered into unless certain determinations are made or certain factors are present. Currently, such approval is discretionary and requires both that certain factors be present and for certain determinations to be made by the court in order for such agreement to be approved.