When is termination of parental rights (TPR) appropriate?
There is no simple calculus, but examples help. A stark one is torture. When parents have deliberately burned their children or beaten them viciously and repeatedly, it s extremely unlikely that they will ever be fit parents however many parenting skills courses they take. We should not be holding children in foster care while such parents are given endless chances to get “rehabilitated.” We should move the kids immediately into pre-adoptive homes, and take prompt action to terminate parental rights. How do you propose handling substance abuse cases? These represent a huge piece of the problem: 70 to 80 percent of maltreating parents abuse illicit drugs and/or alcohol in ways that destroy parenting capacity. Our system s reluctance to remove kids and terminate parental rights in these cases risks sacrificing the next generation. Children denied a nurturing environment go on to lives characterized by homelessness, unemployment, substance abuse, and maltreatment of their own children. We
