If you will be seeking formal adoption of your grandchild for any reason, it is important to speak with an experienced West Virginia Adoption Attorney as soon as possible.
I want to help ensure that my clients are as well-prepared for all of the legal aspects of the adoption process as they can be.
If you have been raising a grandchild since birth, caring for the child over extended periods of parental absence, have already been granted custody or guardianship (or it is likely that you will be taking on this role) it is wise to consider adoption. When the parents are unwilling or unable to make legal decisions and provide for the necessary care of the child, someone must step up to handle these vital responsibilities. Unlike the limitations of custody and guardianship, adoption makes everything from registering your grandchild for school to helping them apply for financial aid at college far easier.
Under normal circumstances, grandparents do not have custody rights to their grandchildren, but may petition for visitation rights. However after considering both parents and finding them continuously unable, unwilling, or unfit to handle their parental duties, you are likely to be the first family member authorities contact if both parents can no longer perform the basic responsibilities of care. This may include certain cases when a parent is catastrophically injured and incapacitated with little hope of recovery, arrested, incarcerated, addicted, or found to have committed child abuse or neglect by West Virginia Child Protective Services (CPS). You may also become eligible to seek adoption of your grandchild when a condition such as severe, chronic domestic violence that endangers life exists, if the parents have abandoned the child, or suffered loss of life.
In virtually all cases where neither parent can properly care for the needs of their child, the grandparent will be offered the first opportunity to seek adoption of the child. As the grandparent, you likely share a special bond with your grandchild. You probably maintain connections with other close family members and have your grandchild’s best interests in mind – and that alone may make your West Virginia home the best option to provide your grandchild the permanency they deserve.
