I live in Oklahoma. My wife and I are the court-appointed legal guardians of my 13 year old niece. She has lived with us for two years, and we have been official guardians since October of 2003, with emergency orders from August 2003 until October 2003.
My question is this: I want to adopt her, however, her mother will not consent, and her father has been unlocatable for years. How can I do this?
Pertinent information follows: Her mother is on husband #5. The husband has been witnessed by my niece and my wife to physically batter her mother. He ran over my mother-in-law with his car, and has been witnessed using cocaine and tried to coerce my other 16-year old niece to sleep with him. They have been in 4 or 5 apartments in the past 6 months. I was a foster parent for her other two children (different father than the 13-year old) for three months, and the only reason the 13-year old is not under DHS supervision is because she was with us. We sucessfully fought off DHS from taking her from us because we proved that she was not part of the situation involving the other two, and because we volunteered for kinship foster care. Also, although I am active duty military, the military will not cover my niece under my medical insurance because she is in my "temporary" custody. The current order is indefinite. She is in DIRE need of braces and needs treatment for scolisis, however, she has no medical insurance unless I can prove to the military that she is in my custody permanently or I adopt her. I am also concerned that if I get stationed overseas that my order will not be sufficient to get her a passport and bring her with us. In addition, if we move to say, Maine, I don't want the mother to be able to force us to travel back to Oklahoma 3-4 times a year for frivolous court times (which are often rescheduled or put in continuance in Oklahoma City courts) for the next 5 years. What options do we have??? Thank you.
nhzero
My question is this: I want to adopt her, however, her mother will not consent, and her father has been unlocatable for years. How can I do this?
Pertinent information follows: Her mother is on husband #5. The husband has been witnessed by my niece and my wife to physically batter her mother. He ran over my mother-in-law with his car, and has been witnessed using cocaine and tried to coerce my other 16-year old niece to sleep with him. They have been in 4 or 5 apartments in the past 6 months. I was a foster parent for her other two children (different father than the 13-year old) for three months, and the only reason the 13-year old is not under DHS supervision is because she was with us. We sucessfully fought off DHS from taking her from us because we proved that she was not part of the situation involving the other two, and because we volunteered for kinship foster care. Also, although I am active duty military, the military will not cover my niece under my medical insurance because she is in my "temporary" custody. The current order is indefinite. She is in DIRE need of braces and needs treatment for scolisis, however, she has no medical insurance unless I can prove to the military that she is in my custody permanently or I adopt her. I am also concerned that if I get stationed overseas that my order will not be sufficient to get her a passport and bring her with us. In addition, if we move to say, Maine, I don't want the mother to be able to force us to travel back to Oklahoma 3-4 times a year for frivolous court times (which are often rescheduled or put in continuance in Oklahoma City courts) for the next 5 years. What options do we have??? Thank you.
nhzero