What's the Difference between Adoption and Permanent Guardianship?

Juvenile courts sometimes place neglected children in a permanent guardianship--perhaps with grandparents or another relative. What's the difference between adoption and permanent guardianship?

With adoption, the parent's parental rights are completely terminated and the adopting parents obtain parental rights. But Utah Code 80-1-102(70)(1)(a) provides another important part of the answer. With permanent guardianship, the birth parents retain some residual parental rights, including:

1. the responsibility to support the child.

2. the right to consent or not consent to adoption.

3. the right to determine the child's religious affiliation.

4. the right to reasonable parent time unless restricted by the court.

With adoption and termination of parental rights, the birth parents cannot request parent time unless it is with the consent of the adoptive parents. If parent time or litigation about parent time would be harmful or traumatic to a child, then there's a good argument that adoption should be considered. This was an issue in the Utah Supreme Court's decision, In re A.H., 2024 UT 26. In this case, two very young children were placed with foster parents. During litigation, the two children bonded with the foster parents. The juvenile court, after receiving evidence, felt that it was in the best interest of these children to remain with and be adopted by the foster parents. The court noted that the children had a heightened need for a consistent caregiver relationship and allowing the birth parents (who had neglected the children) to attempt to regain custody would be harmful to the children. "Permanently severing the legal relationship between the biological parents and [the children] would prevent the possibility of a chaotic reentry" of the birth parents into the lives of the children. In deciding whether to pursue guardianship versus adoption, it is sometimes very helpful to have the written report of a child psychologist or psychiatrist who can explain whether or how the birth parents somehow trigger trauma in the child.

At Utah Adoption Law Center, we love helping people with their adoption questions. We have a Youtube channel and invited you to view our video about Termination of Parental Rights.