A sharp increase in the number of case filings involving children in need of services comes as the number of juvenile delinquencies across Indiana is decreasing, which Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush attributes to the state court system’s focus on increasing resources to juvenile courts and assigning appropriate punishments to juvenile offenders.
A southern Indiana church van driver who suspected children to be in need of services due to dangerous living conditions in his small community followed the law requiring him to report his suspicions. He didn’t want to provide his name, but he did so after a Department of Child Services hotline worker assured him his identity would remain confidential, as the law also requires.
A set of foster parents do not have the right to adopt two children without their father’s consent despite the fact that the father does not have visitation with the children, the Indiana Court of Appeals found Friday.
The Department of Child Services lost on rehearing its argument that a custody modification ordered in a child in need of services case survives the CHINS proceeding.
The Indiana Court of Appeals in a child in need of services case questioned why the Department of Child Services was able to not comply with multiple court orders and face no consequences from the juvenile court.
A trial court’s findings do not “clearly and convincingly support” its decision to terminate a father’s parental rights to his son based on it being in the best interests of the boy. In fact, the findings show that the father and son have a bond and often spend time together, the Indiana Supreme Court found Tuesday.
The Indiana Court of Appeals Thursday reversed the findings that four sisters are children in need of services, noting none of their parents’ actions or inactions endangered the children.
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled a juvenile court does not have jurisdiction to modify a paternity court’s custody order and sent the case back to the lower court.
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision the Indiana Department of Child Services had a duty to protect a man’s identity after he called the DCS hotline and reported his neighbors’ children as children in need of services.
Indiana courts announced that parties may now file electronically in confidential case types including adoption, child in need of services, termination of parental rights, and juvenile cases. The change took effect Monday.
The Indiana Supreme Court reversed a trial court, ruling an aunt and uncle could bring a custody action despite a child in need of services case that was pending for the child in Posey Circuit Court.
A mother’s appeal of a trial court’s order terminating her visitation with her child and denying her motion to modify the permanency plan in a CHINS case was dismissed by the Indiana Court of Appeals for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Finding the evidence to be “wholly lacking,” the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a CHINS adjudication and admonished the juvenile court and the Indiana Department of Child Services to refocus their efforts on families truly in need.
A split Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a Child in Need of Services adjudication, ruling the child’s absent, out-of-state father should be presumed to be a fit and capable parent unless the state proves otherwise.
Hundreds of Indiana court-appointed special advocates will gather Monday for CASA Day at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. The event will be at noon in the north atrium.
The court record is replete with evidence supporting a juvenile court’s decision that a teenage girl would be better off if communication and visits with her mother were terminated, the Indiana Court of Appeals held Wednesday. The girl, in foster care, often had detrimental visits with her mother.
The Indiana Court of Appeals granted the Department of Child Services’ request for rehearing of an August 2014 decision in which the court reversed a child in need of services finding for a child whose father was in the Navy for the first few years of the child’s life. The judges clarified their reasoning but affirmed their decision in all respects.
Two children were properly adjudicated in need of services, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded in affirming a trial court.
A father who claimed his due process rights were violated when his daughter was adjudicated as a child in need of services before the conclusion of a fact-finding hearing won his appeal before the Court of Appeals Wednesday. But one judge believed that the trial court correctly found the girl to be a CHINS.
More than 25,000 Marion County youths have been referred to juvenile court this year for adjudication as children in need of services, an increase of more than 35 percent compared to last year.