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Voluntary versus Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights

There is an interesting post at Elusive Justice about a practice by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services involving parents who think they are voluntarily terminating their parental rights, but then have an involuntary termination entered against them. This may seem like an immaterial difference, but E.J. walks us through a hypothetical that shows the important ramifications of the practice.

May 15, 2008 - Posted by G A Napier | Civil Procedure, Family Law, Parenting | , , , , , | 13 Comments

13 Comments »

  1. I am looking to terminate my parental I do not rights, But I do not know where to get the paper work. Please help with any advice.

    Comment by daniel naderson | July 20, 2008 | Reply

  2. Is there a way that I can get forms from the state of washington to voluntary terminate my parental rights, If you can locate them through the the supreme court of washington that would be help full

    Comment by daniel | July 25, 2008 | Reply

  3. I would like to know please, what is the difference in voluntary to involuntary TPR of the parental rights
    I am trying to find out for my daughter. She has 4 little boys and was with the wrong man for two years she finally left him. But now they are telling her she has to give up her rights, and it would be better if she was not TPR and voluntary gave up. She would still be able to be in the little boys life.

    Comment by lillian | August 24, 2008 | Reply

  4. I am curious as to how I go about terminating my parental rights to my 2 year old daughter; not that this is what I want to do. But the mother refuses to let me see my daughter, in 2 years I have been able to see her maybe 3 times. I have taken her to court for visitations and when she refuses to abide by the court order I am told that I can not press charges or anything, the only thing I can do is hire a lawyer and take her back to court. I have spent more money than I have on a lawyer over this issue. She asked me if I would sign over all rights and I said yes. I am tired of fighting with her because it is costing me a ton of money just to end up right back where I started. I no longer have the money to afford a lawyer to do the paper work or point me in the right direction. So any advise on this issue would be very helpful! I’m in Lexington, KY; I’m not sure if the laws are different from state to state. Thanks in advance!

    Comment by EDB | August 28, 2008 | Reply

  5. i live in georgia, and i wanted to know if i could go to the public library, and get the forms to sign my rights away to my children? i’m unable to work and pay child support, and the state is about to take me to jail, so this is my only option, i guess? will i still have to pay child support if i sign my rights away? please help

    Comment by richard palmer | September 8, 2008 | Reply

  6. I was wondering if anyone knows why my husband still has to pay child support even though he voluntarily terminated his parental rights to a child in North Carolina.

    Comment by Carol | October 18, 2008 | Reply

  7. Hello. I am engaged to a wonderful man who is very responsible and very well respected. He has long served our great country and still does. He is also a state trooper. He was involved with a woman who he did not know as well as he believed he did. Out of respect for him, myself and his other co-workers and friends kept her past problems from him. While this is not the right thing for a friend to do, we did not feel it was our responsibility. This woman already has a child by a man who she was not married to and who was a police officer. Everyone who knows the situation believes she played on the emotions of my now fiance. They split in late spring and about a month later she informed him she was expecting and the child was his. Being the trusting man he is, he did not question the paternity. However this woman has caused so many other men so much grief, we are concerned for our future, his job, and the child. This is not a girl who will make life peaceful. She without a doubt will go on with her old habits that she has carried on with so many others such as accusing him of awful things. She has bragged that she did this to trap him, she told him it was intentional. He and I both fear this will only make life for this child terrible to see mom and dad always fighting. I have spoken to him about this and he is very distraught. He believes there is no way he will ever feel any love for this child. It hurts him. He says how she was conceived was in dishonesty and he cannot seem to forgive her. Therefore, he doesn’t believe he can be a decent father at all. He keeps saying he wants nothing to do with the mother or the child. He was worried only of what others might think of his morality. Volutarily terminating his rights was brought up in a discussion we recently had. He is from Tennessee so he wasn’t familiar. We want more information if you can give any. We do not know where to start. I need to tell you, I have no preference. I want this child to have a peaceful life and seeing what kind of woman she is, she will not allow that to happen. She is already using the child as a bargaining chip. He feels betrayed and I believe it will be very harmful to everyone involved if he cannot terminate his rights. This has been a very terrible 8 months for him. Please help us. Thank you.

    Comment by JESSICA BAILEY | December 6, 2008 | Reply

    • You can contact me directly by calling 859-253-0991.

      Comment by elusivejustice | January 17, 2009 | Reply

  8. Am at wits end over this situation… adopted a child from Russia, was 10 months old, now 11 years. Now divorced from husband at time, child diagnosed with PDD, adhs, psycotic tendencies etc.. and had progressively goten more and more violent and threatening, ecalted to threatening to slit my throat this past week. Father of child claims to have no problems with child at his house. I am remarried, my biological daughter lives with us, as well as two younger stepsons. We are EXTREMELY worried for all our safety. I have, (and not with out remorse) decided that is is unsafe for my son to be in our homw. We all have locks on our bedroom doors, and have videoed his threats . He is completely defiant. I wam considering investigating terminating my parental rights, giving sole custody to his father. Our daughter (exs and mine ) lives full time with us, and we are financially supporting her without his help. I have shared custody with ex on both kids, as he does not have full time employment and did not want to pay child support. What are my options? I know this seems cold and heartless…but I am terrified of my son. He shows no remorse or concern for any of his actions, I am scared he will hurt one of our other children. Thank you.

    Comment by sharron | January 25, 2009 | Reply

  9. my husband is supposed to pay $400 a month childsupport to a child in kentucky. yet he is not able to see her. we cannot afford the childsupport so we have sent the most we can each week, which usually amounts to about fifty dollars week, but lately we cant afford it at all. in the last year we have been homeless three times, we have a 2 year old and an 11 year old and the 11 year old had to move in with his mother because we cant take care of her financially. my 2 year old has had to go wthout diapers before so that we could send what we could come up with to kentucky.but it’s not good enough! childsupport recovery is about to revoke his probation(which is due to nonpayment of childsupport) and they say he will go to jail for three years, the remainder of his probation! my husband wishes to terminate his rights so that he can stay at home with his pregnant wife, and baby instead of going to jail. but the mother of the child would never let him do that. does he need her permission to terminate his rights?

    Comment by miranda | June 10, 2009 | Reply

  10. My son’s father has not seen him since he was born and seems to take no interest in him at all. He pays no child support and the Child Support Office supposedly cannot find him. Right now I am seriously considering to terminate his parental rights. He lives out of state….How do I go about doing this??

    Comment by Amy | August 19, 2009 | Reply

  11. My husband’s ex-girlfriend receives almost $20,000 a year tax-free in support of their 6 yr old daughter, yet the mother has been arrested numerous times for violent assaults; has failed her drug tests; has been committed 6 times for psychiatric reasons; and has had another child (2) removed permanently for neglect. My husband and I are frustrated because we started full custody proceedings (after the mother consistently failed to show for visitation) and we repeatedly told social services that the mother was cohabiting with a recently-released-from-prison drug dealer,and that my stepdaughter was not attending school. (She misses approximately 60% of her days by her mother hopping from one location to another – 3 schools in one month, recently).

    Social services keeps telling us that they are keeping an eye on her while our custody proceedings drag on (mother has not attended 2 court dates since May, 2009, with no bench warrants issued) and they eventually lost my step-daughter. She hasn’t been seen alive by ANYONE since October 14 and so we finally complained to the state commissioner’s officer for social services; the next day we were assigned a court date (Nov. 17), but now social services says that since they can’t locate the mother, the state may opt to just terminate the case since they think the mother took my husband’s little girl out of state.

    What I want to know is:
    a) Since the mother has been, and still is, recieving $1500 a month in support administered through the state child support and also through my husband’s disability (he is a 100% combat-disabled US Marine), aren’t they responsible for helping us to find this little girl?
    b) Isn’t somebody responsible for the fact that no one has taken the mother before a judge for the child missing so much school? We have complained numerous times, by phone, in person, and in writing, about her missing so much school. KY law says that after 3 days a worker is supposed to contact the mother and after 6 days, court action may be taken.

    The mother gets all of her money electronically and then debits it from various locations, so we have asked that they require her to produce our step-daughter in person to make sure she is okay, but they have not done so. My husband and I are career professionals, own a nice clean home, have no drug/arrest issues, etc. and we can’t understand why the KY Cabinet is not taking more action to help our step-daughter when we are doing everything we can. The mother showed no apparent effort to get off of drugs after her 2 yr old (by another man) was removed, and our step-daughter moves every few months, plus does not keep the child in school, so we feel that the mother’s parental rights should be terminated under KY law.

    Can anybody out there offer suggestions? We have hired 2 lawyers and so far we haven’t gotten our court date because of the mother constantly being on the run. She was served properly last May, so we feel it is HER fault she misses court dates, and that this child should not suffer because the mother refuses to cooperate.

    Thank you.

    Comment by Patti | November 12, 2009 | Reply

  12. my husband was married and had a baby in that marriage. The wife cheated and they divorced.After a year or so his rights were terminated and he didn’t see the child nor pay support for the child in 5 years, then 3years ago the mother of the child went on welfare and his rights were reinstated and he was to start paying child support. we’ve been paying for the 3yrs now and have rarely gotten to see the child. its been 9mths since we last seen her, and she infact doesn’t want to see us. She has sent us text messages and such telling us how much she hates us and doesn’t want him to be a part of her life. is there anyway we can terminate his rights so we dont have to continue to pay support on a child who doesn’t want us tobe a part of her life?

    Comment by Jamie | December 17, 2009 | Reply


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