La. Admin. Code tit. 67 § V-4501

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 9, September 20, 2024

Section V-4501 - Louisiana Adoption Resource Exchange (LARE)

A. Within 90 days after termination of all parental rights or abandonment, or voluntary surrender to a child-caring agency, any child whose parents' rights have been so terminated and who has not been placed either in a private family home for the specific purpose of effecting an adoption or with a relative who expresses an intent to care for the child until majority, shall be registered with the Louisiana Adoption Resource Exchange (LARE). Upon request, the Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Human Development, shall provide the forms necessary to effect said registration to all private child-caring agencies. Private child-caring agencies will be requested to include a recent 3" x 5" black and white photograph of each child registered.

B. The Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Human Development, will maintain a list of the children registered with the Louisiana Adoption Resource Exchange. The listing will be updated no less often than quarterly and will be made available to all licensed child placement agencies in Louisiana. The listing will include a photograph of each child, but will not include the surname of the child or otherwise reveal the identities of the blood parents of the child.

C. As an effort to effect permanent placements by matching potential adoptive parents with available children, the Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Human Development, may, under established guidelines, utilize media presentations for those children determined to be difficult to place. Subject to confidentiality requirements and the guidelines listed below, such presentations may include newspaper, radio, and television features depicting particular children, describing the adoption process, and explaining how persons interested in adoption may obtain information.

D. Guidelines for Media Recruitment

1. The Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Human Development, may utilize media presentations involving children who are available for adoption to recruit homes for specific children and to recruit homes for general categories of children who are difficult to place. The children involved are those whose parents are dead, who were abandoned by their parents or in cases where parental rights have been terminated according to state laws. All children will be available for adoption or for a subsidized adoption program. The types of children considered by the agency as "hard to place" in adoptive homes include:

a. sibling groups;

b. black males (not infants);

c. adolescents (over age 10) of any race or sex;

d. children with handicapping (mental or physical) conditions. Most of these children have unique situations or have other extraordinary circumstances which led to their placement in this category.

2. Media recruitment can be used only after a child has been registered with the Louisiana Adoption Resource Exchange (LARE) and every possible effort has been made to find a permanent home for him regionally and statewide, through public and private agencies.

3. The child will be helped to understand to the best of his ability that he is available for adoption and that media recruitment may help in finding an adoptive home for him and other children in similar circumstances. No child will be forced to participate in media recruitment.

4. Media recruitment shall be subject to Louisiana Confidentiality Statutes (R.S. 46:65) as interpreted by the Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of General Counsel. No identifying information concerning the child or his biological parents can be revealed. The social circumstances of the child and his birth parents must be considered in determining appropriate media resources for the child. Media recruitment may not be used within a region where a child's background and circumstances are generally known to the public and could result in embarrassment and humiliation to the child or his biological parents.

5. The child shall be videotaped or photographed in comfortable surroundings while engaged in casual conversation and/or an activity which interests him and reflects his usual level of functioning and ability to interact with other people. The accompanying narrative would give descriptive information about the child's hobbies, interests and abilities and his expressed desires for an adoptive home.

6. Regional homefinders and adoption specialists shall be designated to coordinate media recruitment for their region with the consultation of the Office of Human Development State Office and the Department of Health and Human Resources, Public Information Office.

7. Only free media resources will be used for publicizing recruitment efforts, such as public service announcements, special programming and news programs. The production of these presentations will be accomplished either by Department of Health and Human Resources or by the media resource and supervised by Department of Health and Human Resources.

La. Admin. Code tit. 67, § V-4501

Promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Human Development, LR 8:13 (January 1982).

AUTHORITY NOTE: Promulgated in accordance with Act Number 429 of the 1981 Louisiana Legislature.