Heard it through the grapevine about this adoption rule change….

According to the JJ Act, once the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) declares the child free for adoption, agency can place the child in pre-adoption foster care and then initiates the adoption legalization process in the court. I heard from a source recently that this rule has been changed.

Pre-Adoption foster care refers to placing a child in the home of a prospective adoptive parents home while the finalization process is underway. This is done in the best interest of the child to reduce the stay of the child in the adoption agency as the finalization of adoption in the court could take several months. But unfortunately there are some agencies delaying the filing of papers and putting the child’s adoption status in limbo.

As per my understanding, changed rule says that the agency can only place a child in pre-adoption foster care after the papers are filed (not finalized) for legalization in the court.

Like any rule, I have no doubt in my mind that this is only been done in the best interest of the child but it does seem to have one downside and that is lengthening of stay of the child in the adoption agency. This also places higher burden on the agencies to do everything correctly by the book before they file papers in the court because failing to do so can only increase their costs by keeping the child for longer duration of time. This rule change applies to the state of Tamilnadu only.