Conditional Surrenders
Presented by Margaret Burt

NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
17th Annual Statewide Adoption Training Conference
Adoption 2006: There's No Place like Home
May 12-13, 2006 • Albany New York

CONDITIONAL SURRENDERS   -   ISSUES TO CONSIDER
By Margaret A. Burt, Esq.

Agency should have a written pre-defined policy regarding what kinds of cases and in what ways surrenders with conditions would be accepted

Who should be included in the discussion and sign the agreement?

• Foster parents/adoptive parents and their counsel (must sign if designated)
• Law Guardian (must sign)
• Child at a particular age (must sign if over 14 and sib visits)
• DSS on-going worker, adoption worker, DSS counsel (someone from DSS must sign)
• Child’s therapist/counselor
• Parent’s therapist/ counselor
• birth parents and their counsel(must sign)

When should the process take place and how? - Should the agency still accept conditional surrenders after a certain point in a TPR?

What kinds of terms are to be considered in what situations?

• clarifying that the adoption will take time
• specifying the adoptive parent or clarifying that there is no adoptive parent yet identified
• specifying procedure if the identified adoptive parent can not adopt
• exchanging ongoing information about the child - school, photos, reports
• exchanging ongoing health information - one way or both ways
• visitation - frequency, structure, supervision, changes, failure to exercise
• name changes
• supportive statements
• phone calls, letters, gifts
• sibling information or contact
• grandparent contact

Policy and procedure if there are disagreements - what should agency role be, if any?

• Does everyone understand legal requirements if failure of terms before the adoption?
• Should there be a “dead man’s clause” for failure of birth parent to appear for visits?

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NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
410 East Upland Road • Ithaca, NY 14850
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office@nysccc.org
06/21/06