Step Parent Adoptions

Caring for your child and becoming a legal family unit. The most common form of adoption is adoption of children by stepparents whereby the adopting stepparent is willing to assume financial and the legal responsibility for his/her spouse’s child or children to release their non-custodial parent of parental responsibilities, including child support. When you are ready for this next step, then contact my office, our office specializes in stepparent adoptions, independent adoption and name change document preparation. Each form is prepared for you with you direct supervision in a professional manner at affordable rates.

The stepparent and custodial parent will fill out court forms. There will be a hearing in Court. The child to be adopted, the natural parent who the child will live with, and the adopting stepparent must go to the hearing, but before the hearing the filed adoption petition is forwarded to the county agency or independent social worker responsible for investigating stepparent adoptions in the county in which the couple resides. The social worker completes an investigation, usually consisting of a meeting with both parents, completion of a questionnaire, receipt of several positive references from friends of the couple, and a medical and background check on the adopting parent. The investigation generally takes from 3-6 months. The social worker also obtains the formal consent of the legal parent, and of any parent giving up parental rights to allow the adoption to be completed. (If there is a second legal parent who won’t consent to the adoption, it may still be possible to get that parent’s rights terminated by the court for abandonment or by some other means.) The social worker writes a report, which s/he forwards to the court. The couple then goes to court for a brief hearing, at which the adoption is granted. Following the granting of the adoption, a new birth certificate is issued by Sacramento (assuming the child was born in California), listing the legal parent and the adopting parent as the child’s parents