Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, September 22, 1997, BACK TO THE BOOKS SPECIAL EDITION, Page 19C, Image 62

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    New law aims to protect children from unhealthy home life
I lie nooUCIdlcU rfeSS
PORTLAND — Treva Adamson
didn't want to sign the piece of pa
per that would take away her right
to be a mother.
She loved her 9-year-old daugh
ter, she told the court, and her
days of using methamphetamine,
stealing, living out of cars and get
ting arrested for prostitution were
over.
But it was too late, the child’s at
torney said. Authorities knew
Adamson had used her daughter
as a lookout for drug deals, and
that the girl often got high with the
woman’s eldest daughter.
Two hours into her trial in Mult
nomah County juvenile court, the
42-year-old woman signed an
agreement giving up her parental
rights and allowing her only an oc
casional visit.
In the past, a parent with a seri
ous drug problem and a criminal
history might have won back a
child. But a new law passed by the
state Legislature this past session is
designed to give children some sta
bility instead of shuttling them re
peatedly from foster homes to their
parents.
The “Best Interest of the Child”
bill was made for parents such as
Adamson, says Timothy Travis, a
lawyer for the Juvenile Rights Pro
ject who cross-examined Adam
son.
It’s sad to witness the breakup of
a family, he said. “There’s nobody
I sympathize with more than these
parents, except their kids.”
The new law, designed to slash
the state’s caseload of 5,500 foster
children while getting more chil
dren into stable homes within a
year of the day they go into enter
state custody, reflects a fundamen
tal change in thinking about foster
children, Travis said.
From phones
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Open 7 AM to 11PM daily.
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