Virginia Adoption Law: Hot Topics and Basics

A refundable adoption tax credit in 2025, Virginia legislative changes, foster care regulatory changes, the SIJS backlog, and end to deferred action and work permits for SIJS approved children-all have changed the strategies and procedures for handling an adoption in Virginia. In this program, Karen Stoutamyer Law, an attorney who limits her practice to adoption and immigration-related issues for children, will assist you in updating your adoption pleadings. Even if you usually only handle stepparent adoptions, you will learn to issue-spot and obtain tools to refine your adoption cases. You will also learn when to call in an immigration expert to partner with you in your domestic adoption case.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review trends and changes
2. Identify different types of adoption and review updated code sections
3. Explain stepparent adoption strategies: non-consenting biological parent, new unmarried partner pathway, birth father registry
4. Analyze procedures for close relative adoptions
5. Discuss tips for contested adoptions
6. Apply step-by-step instructions to finalize a private agency, foster care, or foreign adoption
7. Recognize when to call in an immigration expert for the adoption of a foreign-born child in your domestic adoption