Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee
Guardianship, custody, or adoption?
My husband and I would like to adopt a child that attends our church. She currently lives with her grandma, who is 72. She is not taken care of very well and we would like the opportunity to help her. We are preparing to speak with her grandma about letting us have her. From what I understand, her grandma claims to have full custody. Her father is not in the picture at all, but her mother is still living. She has no contact with the child at all, is a drug user, and has been in and out of prison. We would like to adopt the child, but aren't sure about what we should do. We do not want her mother to be able to take her from us in the future. Is a full adoption our only choice or is guardianship enough? What is the difference? Are there other options?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Guardianship, custody, or adoption?
A guardianship is normally for an adult, not a child.
If you want to adopt this girl, I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but you will probably have to take PATH training classes sponsored by the Tenn. Dept. of Children's Services to become an approved adoptive resource in Tennessee. I found the PATH training classes to be amazingly boring and dumbed down to a level suitable for people with no college education.
If you try to adopt a child privately with benefit of a Tennessee judge's order granting you custody, then the judge will most likely want to know if you completed the PATH training or not. That is one reason why people adopt from abroad so they can circumvent the whole DCS process and get an adoption order from a foreign judge.
Michael A. S. Guth
http://riskmgmt.biz
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
