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State Rep. Louise Williams Bishop D-Philadelphia www.pahouse.com/Bishop

  Bishop introduces adoption bill to better protect children

HARRISBURG, Nov 12 – State Rep. Louise Williams Bishop, D-Phila., has drafted legislation that would provide more protection and permanency for adopted children and ensure more finality in the adoption process in Pennsylvania.

Bishop said her legislation (H.B. 2082) would also establish an adoption registry and formulate specific procedures for releasing identifying and non-identifying information to birth parents, adult siblings and adult adoptees.

"My legislation would establish better guidelines for people who adopt children and for the children who are adopted," Bishop said.

Some key provisions in the bill include:

· Better access to adoption-related counseling for birth parents and use of the existing counseling fund.

· Involuntary termination of parental rights for serious crimes against a child, a child's sibling or another child in the home.

· Expedited proceedings for adoption of an abandoned child.

· Criteria for efforts to notify an alleged father whose whereabouts are unknown.

· Requiring state and federal criminal records clearances and child abuse checks in a family profile (home study).

· Ensuring a family profile includes an interview in the home of the prospective parent(s).

· Requiring three post-placement visits by an adoption agency supervising an adoption.

· Expanding types of expenses that can be reimbursed by an adoptive parent.

· Requiring registration of children with the state adoption registry within 30 days of termination of parental rights if no petition to adopt has been filed.

· Preventing a challenge to an adoption decree if more than 60 days have passed since a decree was issued and limiting when an adoption decree can be vacated.

Bishop is chairwoman of the House Children and Youth Committee.

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