Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Question

My current situation is my parents are divorced I live with my mom full time, I'm 13, and I don't have any contact with my father by my choice. Both of my parents are abusive and I'm extremely unhappy living with my mother to the point where she makes me depressed. I was wondering how I could get myself out of this home and not be put into my fathers but instead adopted. Also I was wondering if there was a person I knew that was interested in adopting me what requirements there are for them to adopt me and what is the basic legal process.

Answer 1

What abour your grandparents? You can go to child services about your parents. Don't even think about adoption at 13 as most people want babies so you will be a foster child going from home to home.

Answer 2

How about your grand parents are they in the picture? Any aunts or uncles who could help you?  

Answer 3

1-800-4-A-CHILD

call and ask a professional. if you cant use a hose phone, use a friends home phone, school phone or public phone.  

Answer 4

Hm.  I am sorry for your situation.  

Here are the facts.

You are 13 and if you go into the foster care system, you most likely WILL NOT be adopted.   You are old and most people want to adopt young children.

Instead you will stay in the system until you age-out at 18 or 21.

It could suck because you might move around from foster home to foster home.  

You say you know someone who is willing to adopt you?

Talk with that person.  They will need to get Legal Guardianship of you.  If your mother agrees, it is not that difficult.  The person will have to get a lawyer and paperwork will be done.  I don't know the exact process (because I have never been through it), but someone here might.

  My other suggestion is to call CPS or the police.  They will investigate and start a case plan.  It might FORCE your mother to have to have therapy and parenting classes.   They might not remove you from your mother or put you into foster care, but a social worker will start working with your family.

ETA

ok, here is how it work in general.  Someone calls Child Protective Services (CPS) claiming a child has been abused.  It goes to a hotline.  The hotline takes the call and triages by importance.  So for example, if the call says that the child is hurt and barely moving and bleeding, that is an emergency.  CPS workers and police will almost immediately respond.  Otherwise, all other calls are ranked according to priority.  CPS workers then take the cases and investigate when they "have time."  

Most situations are not "immediate" or "urgent" or "emergency" so an investigation can take months.  The workers unless they see evidence of abuse or neglect will not remove the child immediately.  

The idea because CPS is to keep the family intact.  So for example, if CPS goes to a house and sees that a family has no food and the children are hungry.  The CPS workers will work with the parents to learn how to get food stamps, get a job, etc.  They won't just take the kids.

Unless there is clear evidence of abuse or dangerous neglect.  If this is the situation, the cops come with the CPS worker, and take the children.  In cases like this, the children go into emergency foster homes, which are people who take the children for a short time period.  During this time, if the parents are not arrested, the family court gets involved to do all the paperwork necessary to legally put the child into the custody of the state.  This is when the process of foster care begins.

See?   Even under extreme cases, the court still gives the parents time to "get better" so that the children can be returned.  Parents must start working their case-plan that is agreed upon by the Judges, Workers and Parents and if they do not do anything within 15 months, their rights will be terminated in a TPR (Termination of Parental Rights) hearing.

So, what you need to understand is that no matter what, the court and CPS tries to keep the family together.  

Parents have to REALLY s***w up to lose their rights.  It is not easy, because the courts and the workers do everything possible to re-unify the family.

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I suggest you call CPS if you are really miserable.  They will come out and investigate and maybe it will force your mother into therapy etc.

Answer 5

You can contact family services in your area, but they will do reviews and probably only put you into foster care.  

Answer 6

Unless your parents give up their rights to you, you cannot be adopted.  If they are abusive, tell an adult that you trust, and then the authorities that investigate the incidents will be able to help you.