The Timing of Termination of Parental Rights: a Balancing Act for Children’s Best Interests

OVERVIEW One of the central purposes of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) is to facilitate timely adoptions for children in foster care who cannot be reunited with their birth parents by shortening the timeframe for terminating birth parents’ rights to their children. This process is formally known as termination of parental rights or TPR. However, in recent years, concerns have been raised by judicial and child welfare professionals that the accelerated timelines towards achieving permanency, or securing a permanent home for a foster child, may have an unintended consequence for some children. Specifically, concerns have focused on the risks of terminating parents’ rights prior to an adoptive family being identified and whether this practice increases the likelihood that a child will remain in foster care until adulthood rather than be adopted. When children are not adopted after their parents’ rights are terminated, they become, effectively, legal orphans. Legal orphans refer to children who no longer have legal ties to their birth family, yet have no adoptive family either.