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Video Transcribed: What is a deprived child case in Oklahoma? Hi, I’m Oklahoma Grandparents Rights Attorney, Justin Mosteller, and I’m going to take a few minutes today to describe this process to you. Now, a deprived child case from a 30,000-foot view is when the state takes custody of a child away from the parents because of some safety concern that they have.
And to describe the process a little bit, when DHS initially determines that there’s a safety issue, they do their investigation, and then they make a report to the state’s attorney to recommend whether or not the child needs to be removed from the home. If they recommend the child needs to be removed from the home, then the ADA that’s handy deprived cases will file a motion for emergency pickup.
That will get reviewed by a court ex parte, meaning the court will just review it without the benefit of the parents being able to object or provide their own evidence, and an emergency pickup order will issue from there if the court feels that the state’s met their burden.
Once the emergency pickup has happened, you will typically be set for a show cause hearing on the pickup very quickly thereafter. Most of the time in Tulsa, it’s the very next day. At that hearing, if possible, you should have an attorney present. For the actual parents, if they’re unable to afford an attorney, an attorney will be provided for them at state expense. But at that hearing, you really get your first shot at preventing the rest of the process, which is really ugly for the parents.
The vast majority of the time, the court will find that the state had met its burden in issuing and recommending an emergency pickup, and at that point, the case will move forward when the state files. And sometimes they don’t, the state can choose to file the petition or not at that point, but let’s assume that they do so that we can see this process through to the end.
The state can then file a deprived petition, which is what it’s called. That deprived petition really sets the long-term heartache that is a deprived case into motion. The first phase following that petition is what’s called adjudication. In adjudication, the States must show that the child is deprived. Deprived means that the child is in some way not receiving the proper care that they should be receiving.
That can come most commonly from drug use on the part of the parents, drug use that goes without any effort by the parent to correct it, or a violation of a voluntary safety plan, exposure to domestic violence, abuse, and neglect of the children, obviously. And I should mention that there is a separate process that if the abuse and neglect are what’s called shockingly heinous, then the state can move immediately to the termination phase, which we’ll talk a little bit about more later.
But at the adjudication, the options for the parents are either to contest the adjudication, in which case it gets set for a trial, or they can stipulate to the adjudication, and at that point, move the case forward to what’s called a disposition. At disposition, the DHS will prepare an individual service plan for each of the parents saying that these are the situations that need to be corrected, and here are the steps that need to be taken to correct them.
Now, I always tell my clients that I represent in deprive cases that the best way to proceed, the quickest way to proceed, is generally stipulating to the adjudication and then working hard on that individual service plan so that you can correct all these conditions. I find that clients that are aggressive and consistent about completing those service requirements typically will get their children back pretty quickly.
Now, DHS and the state will determine what the long-term care plan is, and that can either be reunification with the parents or termination. Generally, you start with reunification. The parents are given a lot of chances, but you’ve got to be diligent about doing those services that DHS has recommended. I cannot overstate that enough. If the parent fails to correct the conditions, or, as we talked about earlier, the abuse or neglect was shockingly heinous, then at that point, you will get a trial on terminating parental rights.
The state then has the burden to show that the parents have failed to correct these conditions and that the conditions are such that the parental rights of the parent need to be terminated. Now, for Native American citizens, you have an additional layer of some additional protection that’s called ICWA. And ICWA is the Indian Child Welfare Act, I’ll talk more about that in a different video.
But essentially, for today’s purposes, it provides a higher burden of proof that the state has to meet in order to terminate rights or even remove, and it requires that the state provide expert testimony from the tribe itself about the cultural practices of that tribe and whether or not those cultural practices are the reason that the family is in the situation they’re in. And if it is, the state cannot proceed. Also, the tribe and ICWA cases will be involved from the very beginning at every point along the way.
The larger tribes in Oklahoma, the Muskogee Cree Nation, the Cherokee Nation, will often send actual attorneys to represent the tribe’s position in all of this, and the tribe is really going to make for sure that the parents get every chance that they can possibly get to rehabilitate and reunify with the kids.
Hopefully, that’s answered some of the basic questions you might have about a deprived process. If you have any more questions, feel free to seek counsel from our office to speak with a Grandparents Rights Attorney in Tulsa, we’d be happy to help. We do a lot of deprived work, we know how traumatic and scary it can be, and we have walked many, many clients through the process and gotten them reunified with their children. Thanks.