Department Employees as Foster/Pre-adoptive Parents

(1) Encouraging individuals to become foster or pre-adoptive families is a critical Department priority. The Department shall therefore support its own employees who wish to become foster or pre-adoptive parents by providing opportunities for them to do so. 7.106B: continued (2) Upon written request to and written approval by the Deputy Commissioner for Field Operations, a Department employee may be referred to a private agency for foster/pre-adoptive parent purposes through an existing Department contract, to obtain a foster/pre-adoptive parent home study and/or monitor the home if approved. The Deputy Commissioner may also choose to refer the Department employee to a Department area office or regional office where the employee does not currently work, nor has previously worked, to obtain a foster/pre-adoptive parent home study and/or to monitor the home if approved. (3) Prior to the placement of a child in Department care or custody in a Department employee's home, including a Department special state employee, the Department employee must file with the State Ethics Commission a disclosure of financial interest on a form prescribed by the Ethics Commission. (4) Prior to the initiation of contact for the purposes of placement, or prior to the placement of a child in the care or custody of the Department with a Department employee, or a Department special state employee, a committee consisting of the Deputy Commissioner for Field Operations, the General Counsel and the Assistant Commissioner for Foster Care, Adoption and Adolescent Services, must grant written approval of the placement. (5) (a) A child in the care or custody of the Department and whose case is managed by the Department may be placed in a Department employee's home (approved and supervised by a private agency or by a Department area office or regional office where the employee does not currently work, nor has previously worked) unless the child is from the employee's own area if the employee works in an area office or the employee's region if the employee works in a regional office. For the purpose of this regulation, Department legal staff is deemed regional employees. For employees in the Department's Central Office, placements will be limited based on the employee's area of responsibility and oversight. (b) The Department may permit a placement that would not be permitted under 110 CMR 7.106B(5)(a) under the following circumstances: 1. A voluntary or involuntary termination of parental rights has issued, there are no available kin willing and able to care for the child and it is in the child's best interest to be placed with the Department employee; 2. The Department employee is a kin of the child to be placed and it is in the child's best interest to be placed with the Department employee; 3. The child's parent or the child has identified the Department employee as a potential placement, the child's parents do not object to the placement, and it is in the child's best interest to be placed with the Department employee. (c) In any case in which an exception is granted under 110 CMR 7.106B(5)(b), the parent's and child's Department clinical and adoption case will be transferred to another Department area office or to a contracted agency. Commentary: If a department employee is a kin of the child, a placement may occur on an emergency basis in accordance with 110 CMR 7.108(1) as long as 110 CMR 7.106B(3) and (4) are complied with prior to placement. (6) Any Department employee wishing to be approved as a pre-adoptive parent for a child not in the Department’s care or custody may make application to any private, licensed placement agency, regardless of whether that agencyhas a contract with the Department, in accordance with the procedures and fee schedule of that agency.