Yesterday Baby Bug's father had a settlement hearing. Early in the settlement, he agreed to the same case plan that Baby Bug's mother has. The judge emphasized that he has up to 12 months to be working this case plan required for reunification. If he fails to work the case plan during htat 12 months, his parental rights will be terminated. The judge also emphasized that his parental rights can be terminated sooner than 12 months if deemed necessary.

The lawyer for Baby Bug requested that CPS has discretion to modify visition without a court order. The lawyer also asked that CPS be given the discretion to return Baby Bug home.

Baby Bug's lawyer spoke out and said she'd agree to allow CPS to have discretion with visitation (as long as she was given at least 5 days advanced notice before a change was to be made so she would have time to file an objection if necessary) but she did not agree to allowing CPS to have discretion to return Baby Bug home. The judge agree with Baby Bug's lawyer.

So, as things stand right now, Baby Bug is to remain with us through at least the end of March, when her parents have a Dependency Review hearing (this happens every 90 days until she's returned home).

During the next two months, it's the intention of CPS to gradually change the nature of Baby Bug's visits with her parents (as long as Baby Bug's lawyer doesn't disagree). Starting in February, if all goes well, the visits will be supervised out of the parent's apartment, rather than out of the CPS office. The visits will still be twice a week for 2 hours and then Baby Bug will be returned to our home. If that goes well, the parents will start getting short unsupervised visits and then overnight stays.

By end of March, CPS hopes to have the parents to the point where they are managing unsupervised overnight visits. Then they will recommend to the court that Baby Bug be returned home and that services continue in-home.

For the past 6 weeks, Baby Bug's parents have been in 100% compliance with case plan requirements. I sat in on a Family and Child Team meeting (CTF) and listened as various state and agency employees applauded the parents for their efforts, stating they've never seen parents comply 100% straight out of the gate, and encouraged them to keep it up.

During that meeting, I also got to watch the parents interacting with Baby Bug (she was there too). They were quite loving with her but I had to hold my tongue a couple of times as she was fussing. For example I wanted to tell them, "She likes to be held out, not close to you, so that she can see what's going on," but I didn't want to undermine their efforts with my advice, so I said nothing (hard to believe she's been living longer with us now than with her parents).

So, overall, I'm happy with the results of the hearing. CPS has decided to gradually work into in-home services, rather than just returning Baby Bug this week, as we were initially lead to believe. I believe our CPS worker is fairly new because she mentioned that after a conversation with her supervisor they decided to take it slow with the in-home services goal. Good idea!

I think it's great that the parents are 100% in compliance and seem highly motivated to get their baby back. I just thought that 6 weeks was too soon to tell if they were going to stay on the straight and narrow. I'll be more comfortable with Baby Bug returning home if they can keep up the good work for another two months.

I sure will miss this Baby Bug if/when she returns home. She's such a sweet and happy baby!

Labels: adoption #2, Baby Bug, foster children, fostering