Can people give up disabled children?

You "can" give up any child so long as you take them to the proper authorities.

If they're newborns, there are "Baby Moses" laws that say you can drop the infant anonymously at an ER or fire station (maybe police station or church, but I'm not sure about those two).

If they're older, you can call child services and relinquish your parental rights.

You can give up rights temporarily (for someone with no family going into rehab or something) or permanently.

Most kids would go into foster care, and there are some families who specifically take the kids no one else "wants" - meaning the sick or disabled.

One of the radio DJ's around here adopted a boy about four or five years ago in a situation like this. His parents couldn't afford his medical care, so she and her husband took him.

Have you tried calling social services in your area? Tell them why you want the information, and that you're not looking for identifiable specifics on any particular person, then ask them what the procedure would be if a child was born with [name of horrible disorder] and the birth parents/mother couldn't afford the medical care, so had to give him/her up.

Besides the exception for newborns, the state would take the child but then I believe the parent could possibly get criminal charges for child abandonment.

They try to place children with a relative first. If no suitable one is available, next choice is a family foster home.

For care level beyond basic, the foster parent has to have additional training and certification (and gets additional pay). Often, especially if older and/or moderately to severely disabled, there will be no private foster home available.

Next choice is a group home. The ones I know of have been private group homes but contracted with by the state. I am not sure if there are purely state run ones any more.

Once the parent's rights are legally terminated I believe almost every child is put up for adoption, regardless of the level of disability and regardless of the child's current placement. Of course that does not mean a suitable adoptive home will be found. Often for older, disabled or minority children, an adoptive home is not found. Hope this helps.

Yep, there are safe surrender laws in the US. You can literally slip a baby through a designated slot in a wall and leave it there. Unpleasant, but a far greater alternative to abandoning a newborn in a trashcan.

For kids with disabilities, there are state facilities for foster youth, or a sicker kid would live in a hospital, and there are a lot of families who foster, foster-adopt, or adopt children with disabilities from mild to severe. There are also group homes, run by individuals, which are the better alternative to institutionalization (but not all group homes are good). In the recent past there has been a big move away from institutionalization and towards community inclusion, but some people still live in big government-run facilities. They are generally bad places to live.

The state wouldn't forbid a family to give up a child, the point of social services is that they have to help everyone. I know many families who have adopted special needs kids, it usually requires special training to foster or adopt them. In many states, an adoptive family will receive money for much of the special care such a child requires, until the child turns 18 (and then they are eligible for other benefits).

You can also put a child up for adoption and care for them until an adoptive family comes along. I know there are many cases where black families in the states can't afford another child so they end up being adopted by Canadian couples because black families in the states only adopt rarely and other races do not want black children in general. There are at least three families like that at my son's school.

The Black community here has a long tradition of informal adoption, however. Much is done outside the involvement of social services.

I doubt that a married couple with assets and the capacity to care from a child would be allowed to just desert it without repercussions. People would notice and authorities become involved.

defyalllogic said:

(I'm thinking of in the US but if another country has laws that suit my story better I'll set it there...)

So if a couple has a baby and he/she has disabilities and they can afford to take care of him/her but they don't want to, can they just give the child up because they don't want him/her?

Are there homes like there are for the elderly or does the child have to qualify in some way?

Would social service take any other children if they only wanted to keep the healthy ones or can they just give up one?

Would it be difficult to "abandon" a child to the state or to a long term facility?

Would the child go up for adoption or to a facility?

Is there a range where they're too much work (that sounds awful) for the state to agree to let you do it?

I know in the past they use to have a lot of homes for the mentally ill and handicapped, do those still exist but in a different style? Would there be both state an private facilities?

Thanks for your time and insight!

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If parents can't or won't take care of their children, they can give sign away their parental rights and the children would become wards of the state.
With disabled kids, sometimes they are easy to care for when the parents are young and the kids don't weigh much, but as the children get older and heavier, having them stay in the home isn't alway doable or practical. If you've got a family who lives in a 5th floor walk up in NYC and a kid in a wheelchair with the mind of an infant- there aren't tons of options.

Many disabled and drug addicted infants are abandoned at birth (relinquished to the state) and in the foster system. There are foster/adoptive parents who specifically want medically fragile/disabled kids. What happens to a child relinquished at an older age depends on the kid's medical issues and IQ potential (meaning will the person ever walk, talk-- not if the kid will be learning disabled).

Parents can give up one or more of their children--they will have to go to family court and face a judge. I've heard of situations where parents relinquished a disabled child because that child took all the emotional resources and there wasn't enough left for the healthy children--kids who could benefit in a meaningful way from parental interaction.

How profound are the disabilities of your character? I'm envisioning children with IQs too low to measure, who can't walk/talk/communicate.

If the family has means, they can put the child in a private institution (basically a warehouse), pay the bills and never visit. If they wanted to terminate parental rights they might be asked to pay their support if the child is in state care. Most families aren't rich enough.

I think you can make most situations work for your character, with a little tweaking.

This is in the UK, but here's a severely disabled child given up for adoption by a wealthy successful married couple. They have since had other, healthy children. The child is being raised by a single foster/adoptive mom. The foster mom was able to deal with the child's needs, the wealthy married birth parents were not. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/3353733/I-gave-up-my-child-to-save-my-family.html Birth mom wrote a book about her decision: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/julia+hollander/when+the+bough+breaks/6539412/

In the US, we were told - as part and parcel of all the legal stuff they think you need to know - that parents can bring back their child to the hospital where they are born and give them up at any time without reprecussions. I think there was a time frame but I really don't remember it/

You know kitty, I think sometimes relinquishing a child is the most loving thing a parent can do. Thanks for the link.

johnnysannie said:

In the US, we were told - as part and parcel of all the legal stuff they think you need to know - that parents can bring back their child to the hospital where they are born and give them up at any time without reprecussions. I think there was a time frame but I really don't remember it/

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They are called Safe Haven laws and they vary by state- between a few days until a month usually-- but those laws are for people who just want to leave the kid no questions asked. Usually hospitals, fire departments and police stations are designated safe haven places.

PinkAmy said:

They are called Safe Haven laws and they vary by state- between a few days until a month usually-- but those laws are for people who just want to leave the kid no questions asked. Usually hospitals, fire departments and police stations are designated safe haven places.

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Yes, that's it. I couldn't recall the name of the program.

At the time, I was both glad that parents had an option rather than just tossing a baby into a dumpster (which sadly still happens) and sadness that some parents need such an option.

defyalllogic said:

So in this story, the family would notice the child was "different" and give her up after she was at least a few months (maybe even a year or two) old. They're giving her up just because they don't want to deal with the difficulty of caring for her.

If she was given to the state, they wouldn't be subjected to having their other kids taken or monitored or having to pay for care for the child they gave up?

She might go to a facility but she would be available for adoption once the parental rights were severed. She would more likely be in foster care until she was adopted or turned 18.

There are private facilities they could put her in and kind of just write a check and pretend she doesn't exist.

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As to the family being monitored or possibly losing their other children, I believe it would depend on the social workers' reports to the court and ultimately the judge's decision. If the child had just minor disabilities and the family just didn't feel like messing with it, well I would think that's a family who needs some close scrutiny about their fitness to parent any children. I would think the social workers would want to check that out, but no I don't think they'd automatically be taken away. So again, it depends.

Also, within the laws, each particular case would still be individual so not really possible to say exactly how it would all pan out. Which is good for you, I guess, because it gives you some leeway on what's believable.

Another option is that the parents could seek an adoptive parent for the child themselves and arrange a private adoption if they could find someone, in which case the state would not be involved. Sorry, I'm not sure all these "it depends" answers are what you're looking for, lol.

Yes anyone can give up a child if they insist, but if they have a resources to care for the child it is legally desertion and/or abandonment. So there would need to be a reason why they were not charged with that. You can't just have and give away children until you have the type that your want.

veinglory said:

Yes anyone can give up a child if they insist, but if they have a resources to care for the child it is legally desertion and/or abandonment. So there would need to be a reason why they were not charged with that. You can't just have and give away children until you have the type that your want.

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+1

I doubt emotional ability would be accepted as a defense unless they both had a diagnosed mental illness or they abused/severely neglected the child as a result of their failure to cope. I, unfortunately, know one person who wanted to abandon a severely behaviorally disordered infant. The universal response was, tough. It's your kid.

Yeah, the woman from the article I linked to had the money and stability and intelligence enough to care for her child, but her and her husband were literally being driven to mental illness and/or serious danger because they couldn't handle the stress of the child's health problems and constant crying. Now, judge them or not, but though they loved the child, they weren't capable of caring for her. I would argue that's not a case of "giving away children til you have the one you want".

But that family in the link was in the UK? It might be vastly different there, or maybe it was a private adoption, in which case the state would not be involved at all. Or maybe that particular judge on that particular case just said yes. (Sorry I didn't read it)

I think what we could safely say is that it would be "iffy," in the case of state involvement.

1) Maybe the judge would weigh everything and say okay, in which case, mission accomplished.

2) Maybe he would say, okay, but then social services would monitor or remove the other children. There's another fork. Social services tends to be way understaffed and if after a time it looked like everyone had adjusted to the disabled child being gone and the other children were fine, they would probably close the case (assuming the judge had okayed the removal of the disabled child). Alternately, maybe they would decide the parents were nuts, after other things happened, and take them away. Then they'd go through their reunification plans to try to get those children back.

3) Maybe the judge would say no. There's another fork. If the parents insisted, say they left the kid at the doctor's office and refused to come get him/her, the state would pick up the child. But then it's possible the parents would get civil penalties (other children removed too, made to pay child support) and/or criminal penalties (probation, prison). Or, it's possible that the state would work with them towards reunification with the disabled child (almost always the case at first even if not likely) and decide to terminate rights when no progress was being made. When a child is taken out of the home, a plan is decided on of specific things the parents must do within a specified time frame (I believe 6 months or a year) in order to get them back. If they don't do it, rights are terminated (by the judge). If that happened, the state might not bother having the parents prosecuted but would just let it go.

So they might be able to pull it off, but they might at least be sweating bullets for awhile first.

A person of my acquaintance is actually going through this right now.

Brief backstory: She has adopted four boys, from difficult foster backgrounds. Their ages now run between 11 and 6. One of the boys has amazingly severe RAD (reactive attachment disorder) and actually became a danger to himself and his brothers. (one expert that reviewed his file said he's never seen a child so bad, and doesn't expect him to ever be able to function normally)

She's tried to get him into treatment programs, mental health places, all kinds of therapists, etc. Unfortunately, she lost her job, and is only getting by now by substitute teaching when she can get gigs.

Everyone who has looked at this boy has agreed that he needs long-term, live-in help. However, places like that are expensive, and Medicaid won't pay for him to be in a long-term treatment facility. So, this woman is now trying to relinquish custody over to the state, because if he's a ward of the state, then Medicaid WILL pay for his treatment.

She's jumped through all kinds of hoops, gone round and round with social services in two different counties, been to court eleventy-billion times. They keep trying to force her to come get him, at the same time telling her "if you bring him home, we're taking your other kids because he's dangerous". They've tried to say that SHE'S the crazy one, and that she has Munchausen's by Proxy, and all kind of other horrific accusations, all because she's trying to do the right thing for this kid that NO one ever wanted before.

My heart hurts for her, and I hope they get it resolved at some point.

Scroll down this page to the Voluntary Placement info: http://www.dshs.wa.gov/ddd/services.shtml

That gives you some of the laws, rules and resources available in WA state, at least. I'm sure they vary from state to state.

ETA: I was in social services here for 20 years and never heard of parents being legally in trouble for wanting to find a better place for their child.

johnnysannie said:

Yes, that's it. I couldn't recall the name of the program.

At the time, I was both glad that parents had an option rather than just tossing a baby into a dumpster (which sadly still happens) and sadness that some parents need such an option.

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That's why they started the programs. In a few months 6 or 7 teenage girls were arrested for throwing their kids in the trash and they needed an option.

Tasmin21 said:

A person of my acquaintance is actually going through this right now.

Brief backstory: She has adopted four boys, from difficult foster backgrounds. Their ages now run between 11 and 6. One of the boys has amazingly severe RAD (reactive attachment disorder) and actually became a danger to himself and his brothers. (one expert that reviewed his file said he's never seen a child so bad, and doesn't expect him to ever be able to function normally)

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RAD is the saddest condition. If he has RAD he'll probably never function normally. If he could be an only child in a home with no pets with parents who were willing to spend 24/7 with him, he could possible improve a lot, but he'll likely always have problems. Sadly, if he doesn't get help now, he'll end up in prison.
I can see why your friend would have to relinquish the boy to save her family--unfortunately this is going to make the boy worse, but it can't be helped. There is nothing sadder than a little kid who started off "normal" and through no fault of his own, developed this condition because no one gave him a stable home when he was an infant.
I feel so bad for your friend and her family. My heart goes out to them.