Can Department Of Human Services Adopt Out My Grandson

What is the name of your state? Arkansas.

My grandson was taken away from my daughter almost a year ago because my daughter failed to pass a urine test for Pot. I can't spell the big word.

She has done everything that the DHS has asked her to do in compliance to get her child back. She has suffered greatly, & has been more than cooperative with DHS. They still have not, & continue to refuse to give him back & in fact are threatening to adopt him out to another family. Can they legally do this?

Is there any high official in the state I can contact to help me with this.

Deloris Ann

Having dealt with DHS for quite a bit of time, I really think you're leaving out a huge chunk of this story. I can figure, DHS didn't just walk up to your daughter, ask her to blindly take a drug test, then took the child away. There's more than you're telling.

For instance, what caused your daughter to have to submit to a drug test? Why was DHS involved in the first place? How long had DHS been involved with the case before she failed this last drug test?

Without the whole truth, it'll be very difficult for any of the knowledgable people on this board to actually help you.

Mom2J

Yes. Under federal law if the child is in *non-relative* foster care for 15 out of 22 months then they can (& probably will) adopt the child out. Since it’s been a year already action needs to be taken immediately or her parental rights WILL BE terminated.
Where is the father?
KAT

Arkansas.

The father has never been in the youngest child's life. He threw her out when she became pregnant, and has never tried to see his son.

To begin with,the children were taken from her illegally from the baby sitters house while my daughter was at work, by someone the children knew & trusted, & then she turned them over to the DHS. This person claimed to the sitter that she had permission from the DHS to take the children when she did not. What was the sitter to do, especially since the children knew & trusted this woman, & did not know what was actually happening?

When my daughter tried to get her children back from the woman who took them, there was an altercation, & my daughter was arrested, thus the urine test, & a few hours in jail. The DHS & judge admitted that the children had not been legally removed from the sitters house, but by then of course, the urine test had been done giving the DHS reason to say they had the right to keep them. The oldest boy was given to his Father in Texas by the court & then of course the younger remained in the custody of the DHS by court order.

What I can't understand is why they continue to refuse to give her son back to her, & do this to her & the child, when she has tried very hard to comply with all of their demands & as far as I know has lived up to what they have asked her to do.

She has not failed to be with her son on every occasion that they would permit her to be either. Has done everything she can to comply, and still they are treating her so unfairly. My Grandson has, of course, made it clear he wants to be with his mother. He is seven years old. The DHS has had him in an institution for the mentally disturbed for several months now, because he refuses to accept this separation from his Mother. They claim that he is mentally disturbed because he is unable to deal with this separation from a Mother that he had never in his life been separated from for more than a night or two at my house, or his aunts house, in all of his life. They have put him on 4 or 5 kinds of medications, & he basically is a walking Zombie now. Their treatment of him has been, in my opinion, much more cruel than his Mother ever might have thought of being.

There was never any physical abuse of the child, & there was always a caregiver for when she was at work, & etc. Me being one of them. They have given children back to parents who have done so much worse than she ever did, but for some reason they are refusing to give her any credit for all the things she has done to comply with their demands.

She did miss one court hearing in December, because she had the flu real bad, but her lawyer said that would not be a problem That she would handle things.

My daughter has no money, & we have very little, and the pro bono lawyer she has doesn't seem to be doing much to help her. In my opinion the lawyer does not seem to be trying to help her.

Is there any recourse we can take to try to prevent this adoption from happening. I love my grandson & do not wish to be separated from him permanently. My daughter is not perfect, but she's not a bad person. She just made some mistakes & who hasn't? Who in this world is perfect anyway? She's been a single mother trying to raise two sons on her own for many years, & doing the best she could. She loves her kids very much. She's been a much better mother than many that I've seen who got their kids back within 3 or 4 months, even after they had abused them terribly, or allowed them to be abused. I am at a loss as to what to do.

I have many questions as to why this ever happened in the first place. It all seemed rather pre-planned on the part of the woman who basically abducted the children, and nothing was ever done to her for taking them illegally. Why?

Please help me. Give me something to work with, please.

Deloris Ann.

Arkansas.

I forgot to mention that the woman who basically abducted the children was a Councelor whom my daughter had sought out to help her with some behavorial problems she was having with the younger son in school. This woman was not a DHS officer either. Look what my daughter got for asking for help!

Remember this woman did not have permission to take the children. No one's permission. Not the DHS or the Judge's. I was present in court when the DHS & the Judge both admitted that the removal of the children from the baby sitter's home was indeed not by either of them's permission, & also illegal, but which of course seemed to be something they all chose to overlook, since the Judge decided to place the boys in Foster care anyway, because of the altercation my daughter had with that woman, which the woman was not harmed, & it would seem to me that my daughter had every right to go get her children from a woman who had abducted them without her or anyone else's permission, and my daughter should not have been arrested for trying to get them from the woman, but the woman lied to the police just as she lied to the baby sitter. Since she was a Councelor, the police took her word for it without checking it out with the DHS, & arrested my daughter for assualt, when all she had done was push the woman aside to try to go in to retrieve her illegally abducted children. She did not hit, or hurt the woman. Any one of us would have done the same thing under the circumstances. Everything went downhill after that.

Yes, there was a witness for my daughter to this so-called assult, but his testimony was never allowed in court. I was not allowed to say anything in court as to how the children had been at my house spending the night the night before all this happened, and how I had taken them to school the next day.

This is basically how things went down. Illegal abduction, so-called assault, arrest, urine test, court admissions to the illegal taking of the children, but then put in foster care anyway. And for a year now, refusal to return the younger son, no matter how much she has complied. They have freely given her in the last few months, unsupervised visits, & even unsupervised overnight & week-end visits in her home with her son, so what is the problem, & why are they threatening to adopt him out all of a sudden. It would seem that if they were afraid for the childs safety, they would not have allowed numerous unsupervised visits, even week-end ones.

Deloris Ann

I am really sorry for your situation and I also don't understand why the children weren't place with you rather than in foster care. That is far more normal. Did you fight for kinship placement?

Your daughter should have called the police rather than going after her children on her own...much of this could have been avoided if she had...but that's hindsight.

If there is honestly nothing more to the story, and honestly nothing that would have led a counselor to believe that your grandchildren were in imminent danger...therefore taking the illegal action, then you might want to consider getting the media involved.

Its possible that the agency is coming down harder on your daughter because they have to justify the fact that they participated in an illegal action....in other words making her look far worse in order to justify their actions. They aren't immune from covering their own butts. Getting the media involved may be a way to expose everything.

However...before you do anything I would strongly recommend getting a consult with a high profile attorney. You may not be able to afford the attorney, but you may gain some valuable insight into what you can do. Particularly if you don't leave out anything when you talk to the attorney.
If the attorney has any kind of political asperations then he/she might even take your daughter's case.

Arkansas

I am honestly not physically able to be a full time caretaker for even one child. I have been having serious health problems for years. I did not know I could fight for the right to have them placed with me, and even though I am not able, I would have if I had known.

The DHS never even once considered placing them in my home. That was never brought up. However my older Grandson's father offered to take both boys until this could be settled. The DHS fought that big time, & the court refused to allow the younger one to go live with his half brother in the care of the older one's father. The older one's father appeared in court stating that he was willing to take both boys. He was refused on the younger boy, even though my daughter, when asked by the judge, agreed in court to let him take both boys temporarily, if the DHS wasn't going to give them back to her, but of course he was granted temp of his own son only. The DHS wasn't going to allow that at all.

The older one's father had been in contact with the younger one all these years too, as well as his own son & even had plans to bring the younger one to Texas to visit when the older one was scheduled to come for his normal summer visit this past year. The younger one was really looking forward to that visit to Texas along with his brother to visit his brother's dad. None of that materialized of course once this woman abducted them & turned them over to DHS. The older one got to go live with his father, but the younger one was wrenched completely away from all of his family.

When my daughter went to try to retrieve her kids from that woman, the Police were already there. The Councelor herself had called them, & had them already there. I guess she figured my daughter would come after them.

As far as I know there was never any reason why the Councelor would have believed the children were in any kind of iminent danger. There was never anything brought up in court as to her beliefs. She never got on the stand, so therefore her reasons for doing what she did were never actaully revealed.

I feel like this woman should have been prosecuted for taking my Grandchildren the way she did, but nothing was ever done. It was quietly covered over. No charges were ever even brought against her.

I will talk to my daughter & take into consideration what you have said about the media & lawyer. I have no idea how we can financially fight this.

I agree that the DHS is coming down on her harder than normal because of their own participation in an illegal activity, but that is not the least bit right or fair, and we all know they never admit to any wrong doing, ever.

Thank you all for your input. I hope I can figure out something to do.

Deloris Ann.