Glossary of Terms

A term used to describe the ending of a pending adoption that is not yet legally finalized.

A term used to describe an adoption that ends after it is legally finalized. The dissolution results in the child returning to foster care or another placement with new adoptive parents.

The last legal steps in the adoption process; only after finalization does the adoptive parent have legal rights and responsibilities for a child. Supportive services, reports and home visits and work with attorneys and courts, are included in the SWAN finalization unit.

Adoption Legal Services Project (ALSP) was founded in 1996 by then Allegheny County Family Court Administrative Judge Max Baer (now state Supreme Court Justice Baer) and works in Allegheny County Orphans’ Court.  ALSP represents Allegheny County OCYF in all aspects of termination of parental rights hearings.  ALSP works with the adoptive families and the waiting children to prepare and file all of the necessary paperwork with the Orphans’ Court and appears on behalf of the families at the adoption hearings.  ALSP works with adoptive and birth families to draft and prepare any Post Adoption Contact Agreements that are worked out through ALSP’s Act 101 Mediation program.  Finally, ALSP works with the lawyers at the international law firm of Reed Smith as part of the firm’s Pro Bono Initiative at the Pittsburgh office and has done so since its inception in 1996.

A non-identifying database of personal and familial medical information voluntarily submitted by birth parents and that is shared with adoptees upon request. No new information is added to this database, which was supplanted by the Pennsylvania Adoption Information Registry.

Adoption Legal Services Project (ALSP) was founded in 1996 by then Allegheny County Family Court Administrative Judge Max Baer (now state Supreme Court Justice Baer) and works in Allegheny County Orphans’ Court.  ALSP represents Allegheny County OCYF in all aspects of termination of parental rights hearings.  ALSP works with the adoptive families and the waiting children to prepare and file all of the necessary paperwork with the Orphans’ Court and appears on behalf of the families at the adoption hearings.  ALSP works with adoptive and birth families to draft and prepare any Post Adoption Contact Agreements that are worked out through ALSP’s Act 101 Mediation program.  Finally, ALSP works with the lawyers at the international law firm of Reed Smith as part of the firm’s Pro Bono Initiative at the Pittsburgh office and has done so since its inception in 1996.

A non-identifying database of personal and familial medical information voluntarily submitted by birth parents and that is shared with adoptees upon request. No new information is added to this database, which was supplanted by the Pennsylvania Adoption Information Registry.