Through the Eyes of the Child Initiative

Filed on September 21, 2010
Not designated for permanent publication, A-10-117
SUMMARY: Evidence establishing the mother’s repeated substance use, subsequent drug treatment programs and ongoing failure to provide stability for the children showed that termination was in the children’s best interests regardless of the loving relationship she had with them. The judge’s statements at the disposition [...]

Filed on May 12, 2009
767 N.W.2d 127, 17 Neb. App. 595
SUMMARY: An order determining a change in the permanency plan to adoption but keeping the same rehabilitation plan for the mother is not a final order.  
Christina R. is the mother of Lea D. (DOB 10/94), Charlie D. (DOB 1/97), Sierra R. (DOB 11/00), and [...]

Filed on November 4, 2008
Not designated for permanent publication
A-08-210
SUMMARY: The finding of abandonment, and the resulting consent to adoption, was improper because the petitioners did not provide clear and convincing evidence to establish the father’s intent to rid himself of parenting obligations in the 6-month period prior to filing the petition.  
Rylee R., DOB 3/29/01, [...]

Published Tuesday May 27, 2008
BY ERIN GRACE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
“Colorblind” federal adoption legislation passed more than a decade ago was supposed to reduce the number of black children in foster care and smooth the path to their adoption.
That hasn’t happened, an adoption advocacy group contends.
In a report released today, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute said [...]

BY ERIN GRACE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Sunday May 18, 2008
The TV set flashed a picture of a baby boy who needed a home. The childless couple, filled with longing, jumped.
They would take him! Right now!
But one of the first lessons Annette and Chad Needham learned in their seven-year journey through foster care and adoption is: Parenthood [...]

BY ERIN GRACE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Sunday May 18, 2008
Adoptive parents go to great lengths to bring a child home.
Some hire attorneys and some travel to the other side of the world. Nearly all endure probing background checks, the worry that things will fall through and, hardest of all, the wait, which can take years. Yet [...]

Filed April 17, 2007
Nebraska Court of Appeals
SUMMARY: Termination of an incarcerated parent’s rights was in the best interests of the children because the incarceration prevented the parent from providing a “nurturing and structured environment,” and the parent’s continual perpetuation of crimes cast doubt on his ability to make the permanent changes required for adequate parenting.
Two [...]

Filed Jan 5 2007
Nebraska Supreme Court
272 Neb. 846; 725 N.W.2d 548
SUMMARY: “An adoption cannot be vacated under NICWA where the tribe’s entry into the proceedings is untimely.”
 
The biological mother of Kenten H, relinquished her parental rights to Kenten H to the Department of Health and Human Services. She later petitioned the county court to vacate [...]

Filed on August 29, 2006
Not designated for permanent publication
Nebraska Court of Appeals, A-06-194
SUMMARY: Even though the mother was “not at fault for her present situation and that she very much desire[d] [her daughter’s] return” the court recognized that “when a parent is unable or unwilling to rehabilitate himself or herself within a reasonable time, the [...]

Filed on July 3, 2006
14 Neb. App. 867
SUMMARY: The sole testimony of two caseworkers with limited firsthand knowledge of the mother’s progress did not sufficiently establish that termination was in the children’s best interests, such as evidence that adoption was a possibility or of the needs or interests of the children. 
On April 22, 2004, a [...]