“Ohio is building that better system,” Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said while visiting Haines Children’s Center this week. “We want to make it easy for parents to begin to support children. Whether that’s a foster parent or adoptive parent.”
The bill would notably expedite the adoption process by requiring courts to apply time spent in the home towards the current six-month waiting period for kinship caregivers.
House Bill 5 would also expand instances when consent for adoption is not required. This includes when a parent has failed to provide “meaningful and regular” maintenance and support of a child for one year before the adoption is filed. This bill also specifies that consent from the father is not necessary if he has “failed without justifiable cause” to maintain contact with and support the child.
If signed into law, the bill would also change rules surrounding adult adoptions, allowing an adult with a developmental disability, rather than solely an intellectual disability, to be adopted.
House Bill 5 also includes a provision that allows courts to reconsider adoption decrees for a child if there is “clear and convincing” evidence that the child is a victim of trafficking.
Nearly 700 children are in Montgomery County custody as of this week. At any given time, roughly 100 children are available for adoption.
Husted talked to local parents on Thursday about their adoption journeys in recognition of National Adoption Month. Husted himself was adopted by his parents, Jim and Judy Husted.
When asked about House Bill 5, Husted said he supports measures that streamline the adoption process and give support to hopeful parents.
“We as a state have tried to do more where we help provide more support for parents to adopt,” Husted said. “You don’t want children bouncing around from foster home to foster home. You want them to find a forever home. And that’s what we’re trying to do with streamlining the adoption process.”
Carla Dameron adopted three siblings earlier this month, and adoption was a process that took lots of time and paperwork. But welcoming Ryan, Ruth and Ava into her home gave her a new sense of purpose.
“My sibling group that I adopted had already been in a couple of foster homes,” Dameron said. “That’s when I said, ‘Your trauma stops here. This is home forever. Now let’s focus on what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, and I’ll help you get there.’”
Other rules for adoption would remain the same if H.B. 5 becomes law: adoptive parents must be 18 or older, have sufficient financial resources to support a child and provide housing. This also applies to foster parents.
Montgomery County Children Services provides the 24 hours of required pre-service training at no cost and facilitates the required home study. The county also hosts informational meetings for foster parenting and adoption every month, with the next one scheduled for Dec. 2 at the Haines Children’s Center.
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