NO PRESUMPTION THAT A FAMILY MEMBER IS BETTER
After the grandmother’s petition to adopt the child was denied by the Rockland County Family Court, and the youngster was placed in the care and custody of Rockland County's Commissioner of Social Services, both the grandmother and the father appealed.
On its review, the Appellate Division, Second Department, noted that there is no presumption that a child’s best interests would be served by awarding custody to a family member. Rather, the law provides a preference to the foster parent who has cared for the youngster for at least a year (or more).
When the grandmother filed her request, the child had been living in a foster home for the first 22 months of her life – and was “thriving” in her foster parents’ care. The youngster also reportedly “strongly and lovingly bonded with the foster parents and the other children in the home.”
Given that it wasn’t in the child’s best interests to remove herfrom the only home she had even known, the AD2 left the underlying outcome undisturbed. It noted that the grandmother not only needed to show that she was a “suitable adoptive parent,” but that she would “provide a better adoptive home than that planned by the agency.” And that standard was not met here.
That probably didn’t foster any good will, at all ….
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DECISION