HCS SB 674 -- ADOPTION

This bill contains numerous provisions concerning adoption. In its main provisions, the bill:

(1) Allows foster parents or legal custodians of a child who are not seeking to adopt the child to testify at all hearings regarding the child; and requires a court to give the foster parents or legal custodians notice of any petition filed concerning the child and any hearings thereon;

(2) Requires insurers and similar entities to offer coverage for the insured's adopted child;

(3) Allows courts to permit grandparent visitation when the grandchild is adopted by a stepparent, another grandparent, or other blood relative;

(4) Prohibits any attorney representing a party to an adoption proceeding from being a witness to the consent of the termination of parental rights or adoption;

(5) Requires a court to review and approve the consents to an adoption within 3 business days of presentation or schedule an evidentiary hearing thereon, and allows a party to seek a writ of mandamus from the appropriate court if a court neither approves the consents nor schedules the hearing;

(6) Adds to the list of persons from whom consent to the adoption of a child is not required, a parent whose rights to a child may be or have been terminated by law;

(7) Adds to the list of expenses of which an adoptive parent must make an accounting, payments for the reasonable living expenses of the birth mother;

(8) Limits revocation for fraud or duress of any consent required for an adoption to within one year of the date of such consent; and

(9) Makes clean-up changes to current adoption law, clarifies the content of existing language, and deletes repetitive language.

(10) Gives the division discretion as to whether reasonable efforts need to be made toward reunifying a child with his or her family when a court has determined that:

(a) the parent has severely abused the child;

(b) the parent has committed or conspired to commit certain crimes against another child of the parent; or

(c) the parent's parental rights to a sibling have been involuntarily terminated;

(11) Requires that a permanency hearing be held within 30 days of a court's determination that reasonable efforts need no longer be made toward reunifying a child with his or her family;

(12) Requires the Division of Family Services to file or join in a petition to terminate parental rights when:

(a) a child has been in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months;

(b) a court determines that a child is an abandoned infant; or

(c) a court determines that the parent has committed or conspired to commit certain crimes against another child of the parent;

(13) Gives the division discretion whether or not to file a parental rights termination petition when grounds for termination exist but:

(a) the child is living with a relative;

(b) it would not be in the child's best interest; or

(c) the child's family has not been provided statutory services;

(14) Allows a court to terminate parental rights upon a petition filed by the division or adoptive parents when termination is in the best interest of the child and grounds exist for such termination;

(15) Requires that foster and preadoptive parents and relatives providing care to a child be given notice of and an opportunity to be heard in any hearing held with respect to the child;

(16) Requires that an adoption petition not be dismissed or denied on the basis of the petitioner's residence or domicile; and

(17) Prohibits the denial or delay of an adoption by a court or child placement agency when an approved family is available, regardless of the approved family's residence or domicile.

Missouri House of Representatives