Your adoption journey will produce a lot of paperwork, and you may not be sure what you need to keep and what you can let go of once the adoption is final. After all, adoption makes the adoptive parents the legal parents of the adopted child, just as if the child were a biological offspring. No one should question the adoption in the future, so it may not seem important to keep the papers. You might want to keep your home study documents for a few years, because you won’t have to repeat the home study if you decide to adopt another child in the next five years. But what about the other papers? What should you do with your adoption decree, for example?
Adoption makes a difference
An adopted child will have a new birth certificate, a new Social Security card, and possibly a new name. The old records will be sealed under Arkansas law. In the case of the home study, the original report will be removed from the sealed records and copied if needed, but otherwise it can be hard to get hold of any other documents once the adoption is official. The point of adoptions is that they are final, and the information about the child’s birth family may be private.
For this reason, you can’t assume that it will be easy to get another copy of the adoption decree if you need it.
Will you need your adoption decree?
You probably won’t need the adoption decree, but your child might. An adoption decree is accepted as proof of citizenship under the new SAVE Act, which will require proof of citizenship when people register to vote. It can also serve as an identity document for a passport application. There may be more situations in the future in which a document of this kind can be required, even though it hasn’t been customary in the United States in the past.
The original adoption decree may be very useful in your child’s future.
How to store the adoption decree
For these reasons, it makes sense to save the document securely. Here are some options:
- A safe deposit box in a bank. This is a very safe and secure way to store documents. If you already have one, go ahead and add your adoption decree to the items you treasure there. The only drawback would be that it can be hard to access a safe deposit box outside of banking hours, even in cases of emergency.
- A secure home safe. Make sure your safe or storage box has UL-rated fire protection (at least 1 hour at 1700°F) and a waterproof seal. The drawback here is that — unless it is a truly secure safe, bolted down or encased in a wall, it is easy for a burglar to grab it. It can also be destroyed or lost in a disaster. Fire and water protection help with that, but a tornado could just remove it.
- Order certified copies. Sometimes certified copies will not be accepted, but for most purposes they will work just fine. You should be able to get these before the papers are sealed.
- Make digital copies. While these are often not accepted, they can be a backup in less serious situations. Keep them in encrypted cloud storage, not just saved as a JPG on your computer desktop. and do not rely on them entirely. They will be an easy way to share the document in low-risk situations but probably would not be accepted in a situation requiring legal proof of citizenship.
A little forethought can save a lot of trouble in the future.
Any other concerns about your adoption journey? Heimer Law can help.
Inquiry Form