Permanency Hearings
For Foster Children
Presented by Margaret Burt
NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
13th Annual Statewide Adoption Training Conference
Adoption 2002: Linking Promises to Possibilities
May 10, 2002 • Albany New York

 

THE RIGHTS OF FOSTER PARENTS

Please Note: There have been several changes in NYS permanency statutes since 2002.
See LINK Family Legal Framework Resources for a list of articles by Atty. Burt reflecting current law and regulation and
the NYS OCFS website for information on recent permanency legislation.

• Foster parents have a right to a written 10-day notice, an internal formal conference, a fair hearing, and ultimately even a court proceeding to contest an agency decision to remove a child from their home regardless of how long the child has been in the home.
  
  
• Foster parents have a right to be formally noticed and appear and offer information at all permanency hearings regardless of how long the child has been in the home.
  
  
• Foster parents have a right to initiate a permanency hearing on a voluntarily placed child.
  
  
• Foster parents can bring on a TPR matter if the court orders the agency to do so and the agency does not or if the child has been in care 19 months and the agency has not brought a TPR.
  
  
• Foster parents who have had a child in their home for more than 12 months have a right to notice and to be heard in the dispositional aspects of TPRs, freed child reviews or any hearing that affects custody of the child.
  
  
• Foster parents have a preference under law to be considered first as adoptive parents for any child who has been in their care for over 12 months when the child is freed.
  
  
• So far the courts have said that foster parents do not have rights to seek visitation or custody orders of former foster children but foster parents have continued to challenge this. 
  
  

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