Eight children in Metro Detroit have new, permanent families as of Friday, after a batch of adoptions were finalized at the Third Circuit Court in Detroit in honor of Michigan Adoption Day. The cases ranged from infant adoptions to a stepparent adoption and a guardianship adoption, each one capping off a different family’s long road through the courts.
Among those families was Loretta Duncan-Brantley, who finalized the adoption of her son Silas, according to CBS News. Duncan-Brantley had served as Silas’s guardian before formally adopting him, and she said she had been in the adoption process for well over a year before Friday’s finalization.
Judge Karen Braxton, who serves on the Third Circuit Court, said every adoption case moves at its own pace, but the process typically takes about two years from start to finish. She also noted that her juvenile division handles a wide range of work beyond adoption finalizations, including termination of parental rights cases and matters involving children getting in trouble with the law.
What Counts as an Adoption in Michigan
The adoptions finalized Friday fell into a few different categories recognized under Michigan law. The Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange describes state and court ward adoptions as those involving children in foster care who have been legally freed for adoption, while direct placement adoptions are ones in which birth parents themselves select the adoptive family, per the organization’s own guidance…