Jo Jo’s permanency goal was changed to adoption today (from re-unification with bio parents). She has been in care for only 8 months, but bio mom has made it clear that she is not interested in parenting, so it wasn’t a very hard decision for the judge. All biological family members have stated that as long as she’s thriving where she is, they wish her to remain with me. The case will now proceed to a termination trial.
I honestly was very optimistic about today, but in foster care you just never know. Our caseworker pointed me out to the judge, and like last time she smiled at me and seemed very pleased to see me there. I walked out of the court room with tears in my eyes, because I am one big step closer to making legal what is already true: I’m her mommy and she’s my daughter.
This time court was not running behind and the room was not packed. Much different than the three-ring circus the court room was last time! I had to sit through two cases prior to Jo Jo’s. A GAL was reamed for not visiting one of the kids on his caseload, a caseworker (for a different agency) was reamed for being inconsistent, DHS was reamed for switching a child’s caseworker three times in three months. “Judge Judy” (not her name but she reminds me of her!) is always no-nonsense and tell-it-like-it-is, but today it wasn’t the bio parents getting chewed out, it was everyone else. Oh, except us. My agency and caseworker were great!
There is a review hearing in two weeks, and then onward. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to adopt by this summer???
Mother of All Things 
This is WONDERFUL news!!! Summer can’t get here fast enough.
Wonderful News! I’m so happy for you both!
Happy news! It’s so nice to see some progress isn’t it?
Wonderful!!
Wonderful! So excited for you!
Wow! Good news!
Wonderful, hoping all continues to go well on that front. 🙂
Such a big step forward. Yay!
Excuse me for being ignorant when it comes to fostering but what does this all mean? How many more steps until you are her mom ‘on paper?’ Oh this is so exciting, this brought tears to my eyes!!!
Don’t worry, no one other than my blogging foster friends has a clue what all this means! Changing the goal to adoption is a big deal (especially this early in a case) because it means, at least in our case, that they will no longer be working a plan towards reunification, parenting rights are suspended (again, in our case), and we have the go ahead to proceed with the termination trial. When termination of parental rights is ordered by the judge, I will be able to petition to adopt.
After reading Andrew’s heartbreaking post on Fosterwee yesterday, this is super refreshing, good news! It gives me hope!
I know! So far I’ve been lucky to have two clear-cut cases. One where re-unification was successful, safe, and right in a short period of time, and one where adoption being the best option was pretty immediately evident to everyone.
Wonderful news!
Yay! So excited for you both!