SB 141 Summary

• Modernizes Delaware's termination of parental rights (TPR) statute through comprehensive technical and substantive revisions developed over 6 years of collaboration among the Family Court, Department of Justice, DSCYF, and other stakeholders.

• Modifies grounds for TPR by eliminating mental incompetence as a ground, adding murder or manslaughter of the other parent as grounds, and creating a new ground for parents in private proceedings who fail to remedy dependency or neglect after notice and opportunity to address issues.

• Reclassifies abandonment under the Safe Arms program from involuntary TPR to voluntary consent and increases the standard for terminating one parent's rights from "harmful to the child" to "serious physical or emotional harm to the child."

• Updates petition and reporting requirements by clarifying social report content, extending timelines for DSCYF to file reports in non-custody cases, and relocating the notice requirement regarding access to identifying information from the petition to the social report.

• Implements numerous technical corrections to conform the statute to current drafting standards, including eliminating gender identifiers where possible and clarifying court discretion regarding consent acceptance and DSCYF's planning obligations.