holland cable t v and i say that with great pride because the holland cable t v if i may promote a second is now on new legs it's going well is exciting and we're here today to  show you a very very special program and i'm saying that for the sake of the public this is a wonderful opportunity and we've got a wonderful program to talk to you about today which benefits everyone and particularly children but today's topic deals with the probate court and with us today is judge mark fine and he's a judge in the probate court he's a proba court judge i should say and he deals with the cases with adoption and foster homes and we could talk for two hours just to define all those process the public we want you to be involved in watching this and there's a special event coming up that we really want to share about and get the public you were home involved in what's happening at this court so judge fun while come to well good to see you again frank thank you and we'll get into talking about some of the details but we're here for the special day coming up yes november twenty which is the tuesday prior to thanksgiving and that is the day that we use every year is michigan adoption day and so we're going to have some special things going on at the court during the morning on that day and  i think you use the term michigan adoption celebration day yes and why the word celebration in there well it's a day in which we're going to try to  bring public awareness of adoption as a process and something that is you know can be very meaningful to your family and also to make the public aware of the fact that we have many children in michigan and also in ottawa county  who are in the foster care system and are looking for an adoptive home and very much need one and there may be people out there that would be great adoptive parents and we want them to know about that home so you've got a couple points  one is your court you handle most of the adoption cases in or all of them and i don't know i don't have a lot of them can't judge angle can't angle is also a circuit court judge and he and i handle this case load together yes but when children are adopted in ottawa county it comes through this court room that's correct and one of the two of you oversees that and part of the intent of the celebration day and the date again is november twenty two's day november twenty two didn't limit what it is for the public and we hear about adoption we all have friends or relatives who well how did this process get here they're welcome to come to the courthouse this day and observe and learn about adoption yes adoption is both simple and complex it's simple in that it's just basically a young child who needs a home and a family who's willing to provide that home what could be simpler yes but it's complex in that there are many different procedural aspects to this people adopt children who are from foreign countries and each of those foreign countries has different laws and different rules pertaining to adoption and which rules you have to follow depends on which country is the home country of the child people adopt children who are in the foster care system as i mentioned and that has its own set of rules and parameters and then again people adopt children who are domestic adoptions where you might have so young mother who has a child that she doesn't believe that she can care for and so it shall becomes available for adoption so there's all kinds of different ways and people adopt within families to grandparents sometimes adopt their own grandchildren when the parents of those children can't care for them so and everything all of those cases even with a foreign adoption they still come through this court yes for even parents and i say that with great pride for grandparents to adopt a child to do it officially this is the court that handles that yes and may i make another statement i was sent these pages and i probably have eight pages here of definitions and details about adoption and foster care in michigan and break that down a bit and after reading this i thought that's a lot of information the other side of the coin is i celebrate when i think how well organized and how carefully this is done well it's actually a national event and each state can decide whether they want to be a part of it or not and under the lea our supreme court michigan has decided that it will be a part of it and then there are eighty three counties in the state of michigan so then each county within michigan usually gets a little nudge from the supreme court but they can decide each county can individually decide whether they want to be a part of it he has been participating in this for sure how long but more than ten years this is what every year just adoption day celebration yes and for anyone who highlight to the availability of children who need adoptive homes and to give information to people who might be interested in pursuing it it's not a sign of that outline kind of commitment in fact if you are interested in adoption you really shouldn't call the cour and talk to me or talk to one of our staff here it begins with talking to either a license adoption agency or the department human services and if you're going to pursue adoption you would work through one of those agencies and they can give you  information about the process but then you can start examining ok exactly what kinds of children are out there what kind of child would meet our needs and even more importantly who who's needs can we meet if we are thinking for the child well this is just a part of the way in which we as a community take care of our own you know we need to take care of our elderly folks we need to take care of those folks that are out of a job we need to take care of folks who are poor we need to take care of our own children and that means children you know in all different areas and all with all different levels of a bit of ability excuse me yes and all different backgrounds yes and i believe i read that on that day you're also going to have going to have and if you share go to one of the agencies but you're going to have some agencies here yes for five agencies there are four for all licensed agencies and the department human services that participates in this event and they are bethany christian services which i think it was in may perhaps still is the largest adoption agency in the country yes they have their national headquarters in grand rapids but they have a local office here in james st and then you have pathways there also an agency that has several offices around west michigan but they have an ottawa county on century lane there right off the sixteenth yes and you've got catholic charities west michigan and they also have an out of county office which they just moved to holland as a matter of fact and then adoption associates is the fourth private adoption agency and they're located in house and so all of those agencies will have representatives here along with the department human services to talk about adoption and give information to people but that is a great purpose for coming to this day an question i presume they would someone be able to talk to a person from those agencies and you could talk to all four of them be it that four or five of them and share some thoughts people have questions about cost and those are legitimate questions because it can be expensive if you adopt children out of the foster care system the state usually pays most of those costs which is a nice thing to know there are there is the possibility of receiving and what's called an adoption subsidy and there's support subsidy medical subsidy so you may be considering adopting a child that may have some special medical needs but you're worried about that in the future and what if five years from now the needs of surgery are how do we deal with that so there is medical subsidy that can help with that and there's support subsidy of if you as an adoptive parent or an adoptive family are on the lower end of the income scale shall we say and you may need some additional financial help if you're going to adopt a child so all those sorts of things are out there to provide help to families that are interested in this and there's information about that and if you ask me you know my income is x yes you know what kind of an adoption support so that it can i get i have no idea that's why you need to come and talk to those agencies but those kinds of think i'm the reason this is so great to share with the public i didn't know all of those possibilities were there to get assistance in this all to help the child whether it's a physical assistance for health existence or even some assistance to take care of the child especially special needs there are some people have a burden for adopting children from a foreign country yes and that's a great thing too that those tend to get quite expensive and there is no public financial support for that so if you want to go to bolivia or somewhere in africa or eastern europe or wherever else you know that can be done but it's quite often more expensive because you're dealing with an agency in that country you're dealing with the courts of that you might need to hire an attorney in that country and then you know you need that you need agency here to do a home study of your home hose costs associated with that and all these costs add up in time and it's important to count the cost before you before you jump in oh that is such good effects but you've got me going about three directions which i like now the difference adoption i think we understand but a foster home that's also  foster care system is basically what replaced orphanages in this country or watch an old movie yes you know some poor bedraggled child goes off to the orphanage right yes they don't have those anymore yes they have foster homes and a foster home i just any home like yours or mine that's interested in providing care for another child who isn't theirs yes and so you go through a training process and you become licensed as a foster home and then if children do have to be removed from their parents they would then be placed in a foster home so you are eligible to take children who get involved in the child welfare system if you're a foster parent and that's handled through this court also well we handle the cases so when protective services investigates a situation if they feel there is some abuse or neglect going on there what they will attempt to do is just work with the family and keep it out of call yes yes and provide counseling or drug treatment or you know help for whatever the issue or problem is and keep that case out of court and keep the children with their parents but if for whatever reason that can't be done and then they file a petition with this court requesting that the court take jurisdiction of the child and they don't always but usually request that the child be removed from parents and then that shall be placed in a foster home and on that day the member twenty foster home would be something they would learn about is that someone has an interest  absolutely this is the this celebration is really that is the correct word isn't i mean yes it's an educational opportunity even if you have a dream or a phone this is the day to come well you may be a person who has sort of a burden for children in your heart and you may you know have known another family for haps who had a foster child in their home or who adopted a child and you may be thinking you know what you know we don't we don't have a big boat or a big house or ask a lot of money but you know we have a heart for kids and we can do some good in this area so you can just come and get answers about that and there are people that have fostered for twenty years and have never adopted a child because they've you you know their their mission their role as providing foster care which is temporary care until the children are safe to go back with their parents or if they can't go back with their parents they then make me move on to another family to be adopted but they you know view their role in that as just being a temporary care for the child or then there are some foster parents that decide to become foster parent with and now they've had a child for a year and as happens you get attached well yes and so them their plans might change that child would necessarily become available for adoption but if that child did become available for adoption than now that foster family would like to adopt and so they proceed in that direction adopt the child that they've been fostering this this just continues to sign some like a win win situation for the child and the emphasis is and that's and as you mentioned people i have friends and i'm seeing more people than maybe they have two children of her own of their own and then they adopt a child and somehow that just feels so good to be when that's done and you know anyone in that even thought area november twenty  be so now there are some people that are childless and he has decided that they would like to either foster or adopt and there are other people that already have a family sometimes a large family yes and they decide that they would like to foster or adopt and it's usually a very good thing for a child who gets removed from their parents to go into a situation where there are other kids yes that usually works well there are some kids who have you know some issues and problems and it might be better if there are no are no other children in the whole tree of a few of those also true but yeah it's there's there's no there's no standard description of what a foster home or an adoptive home looks like yes there are single parents who act like foster parents or you know you may want you may have say a teenage girl who's been sexually abused by somebody else and it may be a very good thing for her for instance to be in a foster home with a single woman rather than having a man around the house yes who she may not feel comfortable with yes there are lots of permutations and combinations and combinations of homes also i mean we're going in the area were same sex couples i think i been adopting a child together yes and there are some states that permit that in their other states that do not in michigan is one that does not so if there is a gay couple yes one of them may adopt ok but they may up together so you can't have those two deaths to gether or two mothers ok and that sometimes happens you have a gay couple who are who become a foster home they get on licensed as that and then the child enters their care and they want to adopt but it's going to have to be one or the other some people think it should stay that way other people think it ought to be changed it's not my job to decide that the legislature gets to decide that so i just follow all the whatever the whatever it is exactly well and i only open up because i think it's talk about audible county or the state of michigan how many children are there who may be need to be would mean options to adopt well the information you're packet there was that  of those will go home two thousand nine hundred of that fourteen thousand their parents parental rights have been terminated and they're looking for an adoptive home of that two thousand nine hundred number at least half maybe half  or more of those the path to adoption will not be difficult you know there are maybe a relative who's interested adoption grant is gramma's aunts and uncles or there may be a foster home their own foster home that is interested in the option you know healthy infants that come into the foster care system are highly adoptable if they don't and they don't stay long ok wonderful but then there's a there's a certain percentage of that twenty nine hundred that are going to be more difficult they might have some physical or mental handicaps or challenges if they're older and i'm saying you know even older than eight or ten yes that's going to there's a lot of people who don't want to adopt a teenager yes and so that's going to present you know some challenges or you could be part of a sibling group of four or five and they all want to go together oh that's another matter and there's not a lot of families that are going to be ready to take on that kind of a challenge so finding a home that can take all four is going to be a tougher task and then sometimes we actually do have to split up kids if we can find two families that know each other or live close together and that kind of thing or maybe go to the same church have some kind of  association then you know you take two and you take two and the four will still get to see each other on a regular basis so it's very much a process of individually matching children and families in a situation that works best for them know i'm sitting here and i'm all the way you seem to have thought through all of these situations i mean take i run into them all right if everyone is probably more besides well it makes me enormously proud that one of the judges think the way you do have i mean you wouldn't be here if you weren't a very sharp person but as i learned more and more about this i'm just i was so please for the sake of the children and it's done to that extent so i'm very proud of you and i'm going to sneak a story in here i talked to a lady last night and she was in your court three or four years ago and her daughter adopted a two year old little boy  and she shared with me the adoption what took place in this court and judge find that was a rim banksias and i mean it's their turn to two year old and you took that little child up on your stand in the court room i believe you took this little guy up on your lap is that correct probably is what happened that's what usually happens and then you permitted this boy this little guy to take your gavel and hit the block and say court is open whatever  this grandmother was emotional tell me about what you permitted that child to do and the pride of that little child to start off with his new parents s called an adoption confirmation basically that's the day in which we signed the final order of adoption and now it's official yes and so you don't have to have an adoption adoption confirmation hearing if you don't want one some people prefer you know once all the paperwork is submitted in the necessary time it's passed by and everything looks good the agency notifies me that i just signed an order here in my office and he has done but a lot of people want to come in make a bit of an occasion out of it and that's a good thing so we have these adoption confirmation hearings and that's what we're going to be doing out of amber twenty by the way we're going to have eight or ten of these adoption confirmation hearings and that's the main thing that's going on that day is having adoption confirmations and so you know the children will be there and  get a chance to talk to them and their families and i say if they're young enough to sit on my lap that's usually what happens but the public attending this which i've been kind of emphasized we'll get to see an actual adoption adoption wrap up in the court yes i mean if i may come to this ok yes this is so exciting and i can't see enough quality things for wonderful children and i can't be positive enough and judge fine unless i'm missing something i really appreciate this opportunity and we're here to share this story in your story with the public but want to reemphasize before we close that this takes place november twenty twenty that's a tuesday i believe this from now until here if you've never been to this courthouse and you live in you are not of a comedy and this will be broadcast in the hall and area come out here to see the building it's ours it's our tax money  we pay judge fine i'm glad but they would be able to come in literally come as observers but they get to experience everything we're talking about yeah yeah and i would encourage people to do that and if you can't make it then call one of those adoption agencies that i mentioned bethany christian services catholic charities which michigan pathways a doctor associates or department human services and doctors all just as i said has an of all of the rest of them have how in the area offices so you don't have to go far if you want to stop in and if you brochures and speak to someone or you could come here to west olive on nov twenty and get that same information but if you have art for children and  think that your home might be might have something to give then check it out it's wonderful just fine thank you i know we've talked before but wow this is utterly a thrill to meet people who make a difference in the west mission and in the out of the county community especially thank you frank i appreciate it very much and to the public that's what holland cable t v about this is a great example so valuable so important to all of us and i want to request that if you have an idea what would you like holland cable t v to do something similar to this vein or something very creative and different call column cable t v offices at the city hall and let them know make a comment on this show or come up with an idea and say could we do a show on this this is how this station is going operate and today is an example of having a marvelous guest at a marvelous location and learning this tremendous information for the good of everyone so with that thank you for turning in and goodbye for now