Parents’ Rights and Responsibilities During Kinship/Foster Care
Kinship and foster care are designed as temporary, safe, out-of-home placements for children, while their parents work to fix the issues that endangered the children inside the home.
Even if the state temporarily removes your children for their safety, you still have parental rights and responsibilities for your children.
During the kinship/foster care process, you have the right to:
- Consult with an attorney
- Participate in the case permanency planning
- Attend all court proceedings
- Appeal removal, Child in Need of Assistance (CINA), child abuse, and termination of parental rights determinations
- Request aid and services to help meet the court’s conditions for reunification
- Consent to your children’s major medical treatments and major life choices
- Be consulted about:
- living arrangements, including identifying relatives with whom the children could live temporarily
- religious preferences and education
- haircuts, body piercings and tattoos
- any situation requiring a parent or guardian’s signature
You also have responsibilities to:
- Stay in contact and meet with your social worker, as well as work together to develop a family interaction plan
- Stay in contact and meet with your attorney, as well as ask for financial aid if you can’t afford an attorney
- Supply the names of relatives who could care for your children
- Communicate and visit with your child regularly
- Keep track of and attend your children’s doctor and parent-teacher appointments
- Support your child financially, as the court orders
The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a quick guide for families involved with HHS. HHS also has more information on parents’ rights and responsibilities while their children are in kinship or foster care available in English and in Spanish.
The American Bar Association also has a guide for parents in Iowa who have had their children removed.