OKLAHOMA DHS AND ADOPTION IN THE NEWS

This article is more geared at protecting adoptive parents from being ripped off. However, there are other serious implications of this article. There are prospective adoptive parents who are very willing to pay these kinds of "fees." There are also adoption agencies that are willing to bypass a natural parents' right to raise their own child. Oklahoma DHS already has a lawsuit against them. Oklahoma DHS has employees like Antiffany McDaniel Fears who are hell bent on taking children from their families. Catholic Charities are probably in cahoots with them on that particular case. Why? They get money for every child placed from foster care. Our congressional leaders just extended and doubled those very lucrative funds. Those funds are in the millions and millions of dollars. They still do not place children that have been in the system for ages. They will place those precious babes quickly though. There is too much room for corruption in adoption and foster care. We owe it to our children to do right by them. We need to promote family preservation first before we tear apart families unnecessarily. If the situation warrants this separation, then we need to do it quickly and with the best interest of the child. We need to hold the courts and the employees of DHS accountable for their failures in these situations when they result badly.

Here is the link and the story.

Three state Supreme Court justices want clearer guidelines on adoptions after a public defender warned there is a potential for adoptions to become a contest with "babies going to the highest bidder.”

At issue is how much judges should allow adopting parents to pay attorneys. Three justices want the state lawyers association to study the issue. Their request is not binding.

"This problem is not unique to Oklahoma,” the three justices wrote Tuesday.

In 2006, a state grand jury reported Oklahoma County adoption judges were so indifferent or grossly incompetent in overseeing expenses that birth mothers basically were allowed to sell children for cars, televisions and vacations.

The grand jury criticism led to stricter rules on adoption expenses in Oklahoma County. Also, Public Defender Bob Ravitz was ordered to keep an eye on expenses.

The Supreme Court got involved after Ravitz asked it to review costs and expenses in four cases. Justices ruled he didn’t have legal standing to make that request.