Legal

• Welcome to the KARE Family Center
• Legal Information and Support for Relatives Raising Children for Pre-Adoptive Families
• Frequently Asked Questions About:
  • Title XIV - Guardianship
  • Dependency Proceedings
  • Termination of Parental Rights
  • Adoption
  • Custody
  • Grandparents Rights
  • Power of Attorney

TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS

What is the meaning of severance?
Severance or termination of parental rights is the legal ending of the parent-child relationship. Once accomplished, a child is free to be adopted by a relative or non-relative. This can occur by filing a petition with the juvenile court privately or after a child has been in CPS legal custody under certain conditions.

How does this affect the child?
The child, once free for adoption, can be adopted by a relative or non-relative. Foster parents may adopt, a child may be placed by an adoptive matching/placing agency, step-parents may adopt. The parent no longer has a right to plan for the child or have contact with the child. Until an adoption is final, however, a child may inherit from the parent or the parent from the child. Also, until an adoption is final, a biological parent may continue to have an obligation to pay child support.

If a child is with a relative, the relative may allow contact between the biological parent and child. But the relative has the rights to end that contact if they decide that it not in the child's best interest. If the child has been a dependent child in the care of CPS, adoption subsidies may be available to assist with special needs of any child being adopted. Adoption subsidies are also available when a sibling group is being adopted. More specific information is available through the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

How are parents' rights severed/terminated in Arizona?
A legal pleading is filed with the juvenile court in Pima County asking the court to sever or terminate parental rights. In addition, a social study must be prepared and filed with the court telling about the reasons for the request that a parent's rights be ended.

The court must be able to find by clear and convincing evidence that one of several grounds exist in order for the court to order that the parent's rights be ended. The law in Arizona says that possible grounds to end a parent's rights include abandonment, abuse, neglect, mental illness, chronic drug abuse, or incarceration. Each of these grounds requires Specific types of information be provided to the court in order to be successful in requesting that parental rights be severed or ended.

Another ground for ending parental rights is when the parent consents to have those rights ended. This should be in writing. That consent must also include the parent's statement regarding whether they give permission for the child to obtain Identifying information about that parent when the child reaches age 21 and whether they give permission to be notified of the adopted child's death, date and cause of death.

In addition to finding at least one ground for terminating parental rights to a child, the court must be able to find that severing or ending parental rights is in the best Interest of the child.

Notice of any attempt to sever or end parental rights must be given to the parent and they must be given an opportunity to appear before the court to object. If the person asking for severance does not know where a parent is or how to find them, notice is made by publication in a newspaper where the petition to terminate parental rights has been filed.

What if the child is a Native American child?
Since 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act has provided special protections to Indian children and the Indian tribes of the children. When a state agency, such as C.P.S., removes an Indian child from a parent, the child's tribe and the Indian parents must receive special notice of the proceedings and their rights connected with those proceedings. Severance or termination of parental rights can take place in these cases through the state court; however, the procedures must include all the protections given to the child's tribe and the Indian parents. The parent(s) and the tribe have a right under the Act to ask that any child removed by a state agency have the case transferred to a tribal court.

Adoption following termination of parental rights can be processed in these cases either through the state court or tribal court. Adoption subsidy is available when the adoption is finalized in tribal court provided all the criteria have been met, as in any other cases.