This guest post is from Regent Law 2L Jessica Sherwood, current Family Law
student who plans to practice law in Florida upon her graduation:
Six years ago, a policy shift in Florida family reunification
laws began to make way for new legislation. Audra Burch and Carol Miller wrote in a 2014 Miami Herald article, “Over the past five years,
more than two dozen children have died after either they or an older sibling
were reunited with volatile, lawless or drug-using parents. The parents were
shown mercy. The children weren’t.”
Within the realm of family law, there is a
fundamental understanding that the government does not have a place to intrude
on private family life. Great deference is given to the natural parents, the
biological mother and father, in order to maintain the original family unit.
Although maintaining the traditional family unit is legally significant, and
parents have constitutionally protected fundamental rights, when a child is in
state custody those concerns must be weighed against another equally weighty
rule of law that asks the question - what is in the best interest of the child?
Due to the support for reunification over
adoption and the constitutional protections afforded parents, courts will often
work with the biological parents over the span of several months in order to
eventually place the child back in his or her original home. The children
may be removed to foster homes from abusive family situations only temporarily
to then be placed permanently again in a highly volatile and unsafe environment
back with their possibly unfit biological parents. The interim process often is
incredibly lengthy and creates a sense of upheaval and disorder for the
child.
DCF Interim Secretary Mike Carroll said in the Miami Herald, “The decision to reunify is
similar to the decision to remove; it’s the most important decision we make in
the life of a case.”
In order for a child to be adopted rather than
reunified, two crucial steps must take place. First, the biological parental
rights must be terminated. And secondly, there must be judicial approval of the
adoptive parents. Sounds easy enough, right? Sadly, this process is far from
easy and often results in lengthy delays with the child exposed to a system of
a tug-of-war between his or her de facto parents and biological parents.
This process of back and forth can take years. According to the
Department of Children and Families, only 40% of dependent children in Florida
reach their permanency goal within 1 year.
Because of this reality, the Children, Families,
and Elder Affairs Committee proposed a change to the current Florida
Child Welfare statute in the summer of 2019. The bill sought to revise
the length of the dependency process for abused children removed from their
home. Rather than an undetermined time frame, the bill advocated to facilitate
permanency within 1 year. Permanency for a dependent child can be reunification
with parents, placement with a permanent guardian, such as a relative, or
adoption. The law was successfully approved and made effective in October of
2019. Today, state law sets 1 year as a goal to achieve permanency. To shorten
the time children spend in dependency, the bill:
·
Requires
the court to name the Guardian ad Litem in the record;
·
Directs
caseworkers to provide updated contact information to parents;
·
Limits
court continuances to less than 60 days each year;
·
Requires
parents to give updated contact information to the caseworker and the court;
·
Makes
parents notify the court of any barriers to completing their case plan;
·
Obligates
case managers to make referrals to needed services for parents within 7 days
after the case plan is approved;
·
Requires
the case plan to include strategies to overcome any barriers that would prevent
the parents from completing tasks;
·
Orders
the court to clearly inform parents that if they do not complete their case
plan within 1 year, the court may terminate their parental rights; and
·
Requires
the court to provide a written order following a termination of parental rights
within 30 days.
The repercussions of this bill are incredibly
significant. Rather than be subjected to an indeterminate time frame of
constant upheaval, the court has chosen to take into consideration the best interest of the child by providing a 1 year timeline. Now, natural
biological parents have a duty to actively demonstrate to the court their
ability to be fit parents within the limitations of 1 year. If a parent is not
able to create a safe environment for his or her child, the de facto
parents – those caring for and seeking to adopt the child - can move forward in
the adoption process without delay.
Change is often slow. The legal decision to move
toward permanency within a year began with awareness and advocacy about the
faults in the current system. It then moved to advocates and policy makers to
propose new legislation. After the legislation was proposed, the Florida Judiciary
Committee and senators had to approve the bill. And now today even as a current
law, the court system, attorneys, judges, and social workers have to work hard
together to see the law implemented and enforced.
This new law can be important to restoring a good
family to a child in Florida who needs one. Long lasting legal change takes a
tribe of people working together in different spheres to promote justice and
the well-being of every child.
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