How a legal risk adoption can complete your family if all goes according to your plan and the plan of your state agency.
A legal risk adoption, or a legal risk placement, is one where a prospective adoptive child is placed in your home although the child is not yet legally free to be adopted. This means that the parental rights of said child have yet to be terminated, although that is the plan for that child. Many state agencies begin a family’s case with reunification as a goal for the biological parents. As time goes on, if the parents are not making the necessary progress, a concurrent plan for termination of parental rights (TPR) may be made.
It can be a great risk to put a child who is a legal risk in your home, but the benefits can far out weigh any negatives for the most part. Many families do not want to put themselves in that position for the fear of losing the child. If you don’t make the decision to pursue the legal risk adoption, then the loss may in fact be your own. You will lose the time that you could be spending with a child who needs the comfort of a loving parent, forever or for now. The heartbreak of losing a pre-adoptive placement is like none other, but one that you must be willing to accept to help these special children who want nothing more from life than to have a family who will love them forever.
Not all foster placements will be pre-adoptive placements. If you are going through your state’s licensing be aware that being a foster parent is not a guarantee of becoming a forever parent to your foster child. Not all children in foster care will fall into the “legal risk” category - the goal for many is reunification. Your state agency and the officer of the court will determine if reunification efforts should continue, or if the case should in fact move towards TPR.
All that being said, legal risk adoption is a resource for the children. It gives them a safe and loving home that should become permanent pending the decision of the court. This gives the child time to begin to integrate into his new “forever” family before the TPR nefore a formal adoptiont akes place.
