Enhanced adoption assistance is available to an adoptive
or prospective adoptive parent who enters into an initial adoption assistance
agreement on or after January 1, 2009, for a child with special needs as
described in §
700.804 of this title (relating to
Who is a child with special needs?), who is in an approved adoptive placement,
provided the child also meets each of the following criteria immediately prior
to the signing of the adoptive placement agreement:
(1) The child is in the managing
conservatorship of DFPS and all parental rights to the child have been
terminated for at least 24 months;
(2) The child has an authorized service level
of "specialized" or "intense" as defined in Subchapter W of this chapter
(relating to Level-of-Care Service System), or, the child had such an
authorized service level immediately prior to being placed in a facility or
home operated or regulated by another state agency, such as an intermediate
care facility for persons with mental retardation and/or related conditions
(ICF/MR); a nursing facility, or a community-based waiver services (HCS)
residential program;
(3) The child
is living in:
(A) a foster care home or other
residential child-care operation that is regulated by the DFPS Child Care
Licensing Division and is approved under Licensing minimum standards to provide
treatment services as defined in §749.61 of this title (relating to What
types of services does Licensing regulate?); or
(B) a facility or home operated or regulated
by another state agency in this state or in another state that provides
comparable treatment services; and
(4) The child has not been adopted despite
our having made extensive and ongoing local and national adoption recruitment
efforts. These efforts must include considering and following-up with families
who initially appear able to meet the child's needs and express an interest in
adopting the child, and either pursuing or ruling out adoption by these
families; and
(5) The selected
prospective adoptive parent is only willing to adopt the child if enhanced
adoption assistance is available.
Notes
40
Tex. Admin. Code §
700.807
The provisions of
this §700.807 adopted to be effective January 1, 2009, 33 TexReg 9270;
amended to be effective March 1, 2010, 35 TexReg 875; amended to be effective
March 1, 2011, 36 TexReg 589
