Child of record adopted to non-member family

[bamamoser]

We have a child of record of a person who is in and out of prison and lives under a tree when out. The person has lost all parental rights and the child is in foster care and is soon to be adopted to a non-member family. They child's name may be changed at that time. The child will be outside the ward boundaries. What should be done with this record.

[russellhltn]

I think Handbook 1: 13.6.23 "Special Situations" covers this.

Handbook 1: 13.6.12 covers adoptions, but in the wrong direction. But I think the message there is wait until it's final and you have as much information as you can get.

I see two possible outcomes if the adoption agency won't provide information about the new home, the child might be moved to "Address Unknown" with a notation of what's happened, or the record will be canceled - possibly sometime after they child turns 18 and hasn't been found.

If you can get information about the adoptive family, then the record can be moved into that ward. And I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the new parents will ask for the child's name to be removed from the records. Handbook 1: 6.14 outlines how that works.

[eblood66]

We have a child of record of a person who is in and out of prison and lives under a tree when out. The person has lost all parental rights and the child is in foster care and is soon to be adopted to a non-member family. They child's name may be changed at that time. The child will be outside the ward boundaries. What should be done with this record.

I would contact Local Unit Support for advice. If the adoptive family does not give permission to have the child's name on church records it's likely that the record needs to be cancelled. I expect that any permission given previously by the biological parents would no longer be in effect. I don't think that there are any published policies that could answer this question definitively.