What Types of Adoptions Are There In Texas?

There are three main categories of adoption in Texas – CPS adoptions, matched adoptions, and private child placement agency adoptions. CPS adoptions are growing in our State and we always need more families willing to adopt children from foster care. When children are placed into foster care by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and family reunification cannot be achieved, the next most common action for the Department is to place the children for adoption. Primarily, the Department tries to stay consistent with Texas law by finding fictive kin or relative kinship who are willing to adopt the children if they are not able to be returned to their biological parents. That is known as Child Protective Services (CPS) adoption since the managing conservator of the children at the time that the adoption is consummated is the Department. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, CPS, and the Department is all kind of one and the same. When they bring children into foster care who need to be adopted, that’s what is commonly referred to as CPS adoption. The same applies to foster parents.

If children are placed with foster parents and family reunification cannot be achieved with the biological parents, a fictive kinship home, or a relative placement, the Department considers the foster parents as possible adoptive parents for the children. One benefit of a CPS adoption is that if the biological parents’ rights have been successfully terminated by the Department through a CPS litigation case, the children are essentially legally free and ready for adoption. The other benefit in a CPS adoption is that many children may qualify for an adoption subsidy. The costs of the adoption, legal fees, and filing fees are paid for through a program by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Attorneys are contracted with CPS to do these adoptions. Since I am one of the attorneys who are contracted with the Department, the subsidy adoptions are done at no cost to the adoptive parents.

Additional Information on Adoptions in Texas

In addition to the CPS adoptions, there are two other kinds of adoptions in Texas. One is called a match adoption. A matched adoption occurs when a prospective adoptive family has somehow matched with a prospective birth family on their own. It could be someone that the family knows from church, a friend, or co-worker’s daughter. Currently, through social media, there are a lot of prospective adoptive parents putting their information out there, almost like an advertisement. They are letting people know that they are interested in adoption, and that approach has worked many times.

A young mother could be matched with a prospective adoptive family on her own by stating that she has a baby she intends to place for adoption. As a result, those two parties matched themselves. When this kind of match takes place, you want to immediately contact an attorney like myself. As an adoption attorney, I can walk you through the entire process. I would help with setting up the home study, the background checks, the legal requirements, and finalizing everything in the court. All of that is done without the cost or involvement of a private child placement agency, often saving the adoptive family thousands of dollars.

The second type of adoption is a private child placement adoption. In Texas, there are many private agencies that specialize in the recruitment of and assistance for biological mothers with children they intend to place for adoption.

These agencies routinely keep applications of prospective adoptive parents who have gone through a lot of the background process already. They are deemed appropriate for adoption and are waiting for a biological family to consider them to be a great match for their child. This adoptive process involves the child placement agency, which is normally named as the managing conservator. The child is then adopted from the child placement agency shortly after birth. Certainly, the benefit of these agencies is that they walk the adoptive parents through a lot of the process. Of course, this benefit comes with a significant increase in cost. The cost typically ranges from $12,000 to upwards of $60,000, depending on the level of involvement by the agency and the specific agency the adoptive family chooses.

Like the other adoption options, you can hire an attorney to finalize the legal aspect. My firm is happy to work with private agencies to get an adoption finalized.

For more information on Private, Matched, And CPS Adoptions In Texas, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (903) 964-1122 today.