Archives for November 2019

4 Reasons an Adoption Can Fail

Most Common Reasons Adoptions Fail

There are many reasons why adoptions fail, and when it does happen, it can be heartbreaking for all parties involved. While many adoptions are completely successful, a 2010 study found about 6 to 11% of all adoptions are disrupted before they can be finalized. When an adoption fails, it’s always worth consulting your NJ adoption lawyer so you can be sure that you know what options you have to help deal with the situation going forward.

A Failed Match

Perhaps the most common reason for why adoptions fail in New Jersey is when a failed match occurs. A failed match is when the expectant parent decides that they want to be the one to raise the child after all, after already having chosen an adoptive family. This will usually happen either just before or just after the child has been born. What many often don’t realize, even if the birth parent and the adoptive parent have already finalized the adoption by this point, if the birth parent changes their mind about the adoption, then by law, the adoptive parents no longer have any legal claim over the child.

A Disrupted Adoption

Disrupted adoptions tend to occur most commonly with older children who have been adopted from foster care. Adoptive parents can discover that they are not yet properly prepared or adequately trained to take care of children with challenging mental, physical or emotional issues. As a result of this, prospective adoptive parents may decide that they no longer wish to continue with the adoption process.

An adoption can be disrupted after a child has been placed and living in a home, but before the adoption has been finalized in the eyes of the law. When adoption fails, the child will be placed either with new parents or placed back into foster care.

Dissolved Adoptions

In the case of a dissolved adoption, the adoption will have already been legally finalized before it breaks down. Dissolved adoptions are very rare, and will, for the most part, only ever occur in an extreme case where the child’s special needs are unable to be fully taken care of by the adoptive parents. This could be due to many reasons, such as a lack of resources, a lack of information, or an inability to meet the high costs that the special needs of the child require.

Once the process of a dissolved adoption begins, the child and the adoptive parents’ relationship will be severed, and the child will either be placed back into foster care or new adoptive parents will be found.

A NJ adoption lawyer can help you withdraw from an adoption if you meet the child and they have a condition or problems that weren’t disclosed or you do not feel you can handle.

Contested Adoption

A contested adoption can be one of the more challenging reasons why adoptions fall apart. This will occur when one of the child’s biological parents decides they wish to place the child up for adoption, but the other biological parent is against it. In many cases, the father of the child may be completely unaware of the fact that the mother is pregnant, or in other cases, perhaps the person who believes himself to be the father discovers that he is not actually the father. In other situations, the father may feel that he was pressured into placing the child up for adoption or has since simply changed his mind.

In the case that the biological father refuses to rescind his parental rights and wishes to parent the child himself, then all parties involved must go to court. The case will then be put before a judge who will decide based on the law and the father’s situation what’s best for the child and whether or not to stop the adoption. In this instance, a NJ adoption attorney can help provide any required information and assist with any necessary paperwork that will be instrumental during the court hearings.

To confer with a NJ adoption lawyer, contact Cofsky & Zeidman LLC at (856) 429-5005 to schedule a consultation in Haddonfield. We can help you learn more about your options if you are facing challenges with an adoption.

Different Types of Adoptions You Should Understand

Types of Adoption in New Jersey

Many people are unaware of just how many types of adoption there are to consider from private and agency adoptions to open and closed adoptions. About 59% of non-stepparent adoptions involve children from the foster system, but the remainder comes in many other forms. Ahead, we’ll go through many of the different adoption types that are available to you in New Jersey.

Private Adoptions

Private adoptions are one of the most common forms of adoption, especially for parents adopting infants. When undertaking a private adoption, the birth parents place their child up for adoption and interview prospective families until they find someone they like. The birth parents can either search for families through word-of-mouth, search through profiles, or seek assistance from an adoption agency.

As stated at the outset, private adoptions are the most common of all adoptions for those looking to adopt an infant. It can often be difficult to place infants with a new family when it comes to public adoptions or adoptions from foster care, and while these absolutely can happen from time to time, they are much rarer than adopting privately.

Agency Adoptions

There are essentially two main forms of agency adoptions:

Public agencies: Public agencies exist with the purpose of finding new homes for children in the custody of the state. Children could be in the custody of the state due to neglect or misconduct from their birth family or due to abandonment. In some cases, parents will voluntarily relinquish their parental rights to a state agency.

Many children in the care of public agencies spend a fair amount of time there before being legally free to be adopted as many of the children will have emotional or medical issues due to their troubling backgrounds.

Domestic agencies: With domestic agency adoption, the parental rights of the mother are relinquished or transferred over to the agency after the child is born. After a deep and comprehensive home study process, the adoption agency then places the child with their new adoptive family.

The screening of the family, the counseling of the birth parents, and the facilitation and acceptance of the relinquishment of the child are all the responsibility of the agency, along with supervising the placement of the child until finalization and providing the birth mother with permissible financial assistance. If you need help adopting a child, reach out to our NJ adoption attorney.

Relative Adoptions

Relative adoptions are always going to be the most preferred kind of adoption by the legal system. By adopting a relative, family members can ensure that the child or children will be staying within their biological family. This helps the children better know not just where they come from but also their medical history and their family’s morals, values, and traditions.

Open vs. Closed Adoptions

Prospective adoptive parents will have to consider beforehand whether they’ll want an open or a closed adoption.

Open adoptions: Open adoptions occur when the adoptive parents and the original birth parents keep in regular contact with one another. When the birth mother and the adoptive family have matched, they can exchange information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, photos, and anything else they need to keep in touch.

Before the baby has been born, the adoptive parents and the birth mother may have some correspondence via email or over the phone, and the adoptive family will most likely visit the birth mother in person. Through communication, the adoptive family and the birth mother can discuss and come to an agreement over what shape the relationship between the baby and the birth mother will take and how much communication there will be between them.

Closed adoptions: Closed adoptions are essentially the complete opposite of open adoptions. There will be little to no exchange of any information, and the protection of privacy and medical information will be kept in confidence by the adoption agency. Once the child has been born, there will be no communication, visits, or even exchanges of letters or pictures.

If you are considering adopting a child, our NJ adoption attorney can help you understand your options, guide you through the legal process and home study, and help the adoption go as smoothly as possible. Contact Cofsky & Zeidman in Haddonfield at (856) 429-5005 or in Woodbury at (856) 845-2555 to learn more about your adoption options.

Contact Us

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Offices