Skip to main content
Watson Legal Services

ADOPTION: KINSHIP
When you've raised a child who needed you

Maybe it started as a temporary arrangement, a few weeks while things got sorted out. Maybe it has been years now. Somewhere along the way, this child became yours in every way except the legal one, and you are wondering how to make it permanent and secure.
​
You stepped up when a child needed someone. What you are considering now is giving that child something they may not have had in a long time, certainty about where they belong. 
Schedule Your Consult Today

The hardest part of the decision

Adoption is the most permanent option. It makes you the child's legal parent, fully and for good. Getting there means the birth parents' rights must end first, by their consent or through the court. When one of those parents is someone, you love, your own child or a sibling, that can carry real grief, and it deserves to be handled with care rather than rushed. 


Adoption is a significant step, and it is not always the only option or the right one for every family at this moment. Part of what we work out together is whether this is the right time for permanence, or whether something should come first. I will tell you honestly what I think fits your family, even if that answer is not yet. 

What families are often surprised to learn

  • That the informal arrangement you have now, even one that has worked for years, may not give you the legal security you would want if it were ever challenged. 
  • That both birth parents' rights usually must end before you can adopt, even a parent who has never been involved.
  • That once it is done, it is permanent and complete, inheritance, name, legal parentage, all of it.
  • That making it permanent is often as much for the child's sense of safety as for the paperwork.

None of this is common knowledge, and there is no reason you would have know it going in. 

Most attorneys reach this work through law firms. I reached it through a career spent advocating for children and families inside the systems that serve them, which is part of why this matters to me. When you are ready, we can talk about what it would take to make it permanent. 

What the process actually looks like

Here is the path, so you know what to expect. Because adoption makes you the child's legal parent, the birth parents' rights have to end first and that is usually the most involved part of a kinship adoption. Sometimes one parent will consent while the other's rights must be involuntarily terminated through the court. Sometimes neither consents, and both parents' rights have to be involuntarily terminated. Each termination carries its own notice requirements, though the hearings are generally held at the same time. This is where experience matters the most. 
​
​Once a parent's rights are terminated, the adoption cannot be heard for at least 30 days, the window in which that termination can be appealed. When more than one termination is involved, planning around those hearings and the time between them is a real part of doing this well. If the child is 12 or older, they will also need to consent to the adoption. Along with the background and child abuse clearances Pennsylvania requires of an adopting parent, a kinship adoption includes a home study, where a caseworker visits your home and meets your family. It is less intimidating than it sounds, and I prepare you for every part of it. 
​
​Then comes the adoption hearing, a real proceeding even though it is usually short and, like most of these, a happy one. As your attorney, I present the petition and question the parties on the record, and the judge generally renders a decision the same day. The adoption is completed. A new birth certificate follows, naming you as the child's legal parent, permanent and complete. 
​
​I handle the filings, the notice, the hearings, and the deadlines in between. Your part is to continue being the family you've always been.