Rights 

What are the rights of birth or legal parents? Unless modified by a court order, birth parents retain many rights following the removal of their child(ren) from their home. Birth parents retain the right to: 

• Βe included in plans for the child’s placement. 

• Ηave their child placed in an environment that is consistent with the child’s needs, within reason. 

• Ηave their child placed in an environment that is sensitive to the child’s religious, cultural, and social background. 

• Visit their child. The right to embrace and enjoy their child is not canceled unless it is determined not to be in the best interest of the child; to nurture a relationship that may have been faulty at one time is a right of the birth parent. 

• Learn through past mistakes, to make appropriate changes in their behavior, and work to improve their relationship with the child. 

• Legal representation in all matters affecting the health and welfare of their child. While the agency has the legal right to give consent for the routine medical care of the child in foster care, the birth parent has the right to appeal decisions of the agency or the court, and has the right to grant permission for major nonemergency surgery prior to the termination of their rights. 

• Review legally permitted portions of the case record pertaining to them and their child(ren). 

• Request a court hearing when in disagreement with the case plan. 

• Ιnformation on how to obtain confidential information about the child not available from DFCS. 

• Petition the court at any time for the return of custody prior to termination of parental rights.

Responsibilities 

While the court may have suspended some of the rights of the birth parents, they retain certain distinct responsibilities. The birth parents are obligated to: 

• Recognize that there are specific reasons why the court removed the child from their care. They must understand the reasons and what they must do to change the current situation to allow the child to be returned to their care. 

• Cooperate with the Case Plan and work toward solutions to the existing problems. The parents are obligated to seek remedies and assistance to deal with the factors which caused the child’s removal. This responsibility includes cooperation in all phases of the recommended foster care plan. 

• Assume financial responsibility for the care and treatment of the child by reasonable and conscientious reimbursement for expenditures. The parent must realize that their legal responsibility for support of the child remains unless all parental rights are terminated. Their lack of ability or willingness to treat the child’s problems does not automatically transfer the cost of treatment to the county or the state. The birth parents’ own personal funds or medical insurance, if any, should be utilized. 

• Understand that foster parents are a very important part of the care and/or treatment program. The birth parent must recognize that foster parents are not purposely alienating or keeping the child from them, but are giving freely of themselves in an attempt to fill a gap in the child’s life. Some of the specific areas in which birth parents should be involved, when possible, are: baptism or confirmation; marriage plans; burial plans, if needed; elective surgery; major alterations in the child’s appearance, including body piercing, etc.; enlistment in the Armed Services.

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