When must the state move to terminate parental rights for a child in foster care?

What the Law Says

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) sets strict federal timelines for when states must initiate termination of parental rights proceedings for children in foster care.

Under federal law, states receiving Title IV-E foster care funding must include in their state plan a requirement that a petition to terminate parental rights be filed in court no later than 15 months after a child enters foster care — unless an exception applies.

This '15-month rule' is designed to prevent prolonged uncertainty for children and promote timely permanency through adoption or other permanent placements.

The law also requires states to hold a permanency hearing no later than 12 months after the child’s removal from home, and to consider whether reasonable efforts to reunify the family have been made — but those efforts do not delay the 15-month TPR deadline unless one of the statutory exceptions is met.

Statutory Text

file a petition to terminate the parental rights of the child’s parents (or, if the child is an Indian child and the termination of parental rights would result in the placement of the child outside the Indian child’s tribe, a petition to transfer jurisdiction to tribal court) no later than 15 months after the date the child entered foster care

— 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(15) — State plan requirements

Statutory Text

a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months

— 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(15) — State plan requirements

Sources