Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / December 2006

CALIFORNIA

http://www.fresnobee.com/270/story/19616.html

Tulare Co. considers adding 17 drop-off sites for infants
Fire stations would be safe, legal places to accept unwanted babies.

By Tim Bragg / The Fresno Bee
12/19/06

VISALIA - Tulare County supervisors will consider a plan today to
raise the number of places where people can safely surrender unwanted
newborns from three to 20 by designating county fire stations as safe
surrender sites.
The designation comes on the heels of the discovery in Orosi of a dead
baby outside a home, the third child abandonment in that particular
neighborhood in the past three years.

The Board of Supervisors will review the plan from the Fire Department
to make 17 of its stations - in Kingsburg, Cutler, Goshen, Ivanhoe,
Three Rivers, Lindsay, Strathmore, Porterville, Doyle Colony, Terra
Bella, Springville, Tulare, Tipton, Pixley, Earlimart, Alpaugh and
Richgrove - official Safe Baby Surrender Sites.

Currently, only three locations in Tulare County, the hospitals in
Porterville, Tulare and Visalia, are designated sites.

Such sites, allowed under state law, will accept newborns up to 72
hours after birth. The parent or person having custody of the newborn
is immune from prosecution for child abandonment as long as the baby is
delivered safely to an employee on duty at the site.

"The idea is to save lives," Tulare County Fire Chief Ed Wristen said.

The chief acknowledged that having more sites may not have necessarily
saved the life of a baby girl who was left in front of a home near
Sequoia Avenue and Road 124 in Orosi.

The baby was found Dec. 3, but officials said she could have been left
in the bed of a pickup at the home a day or so earlier. The person who
left the child didn't tell people in the house the baby was there.

Officials are not sure whether the baby was stillborn or whether she
died from exposure to the elements.

The baby was the third left in the neighborhood in the past three
years. However, the previous two children were found alive.

Tulare County sheriff's officials hope DNA testing will show whether
the three children are related. No arrests have been made in any of the
cases.

Sheriff's officials announced a $500 reward Friday for any information
on the mother of the dead baby.

If supervisors approve the plan, the fire station in Cutler - which
serves the nearby Orosi area - would become a site.

"All we can do is put the ability to drop off the children out there,"
Wristen said. "There's no guarantee that it would have helped [the
Orosi baby]."

The plan to make fire stations safe surrender sites was put in motion
before the latest baby was discovered, Wristen said. But the baby's
discovery put plans on the front burner.

If the board signs off on the plan, the fire stations could be given
the information packets and signs for the safe surrender program in 15
to 30 days, Wristen said.

Under state law, people can drop off children younger than 3 days old
to employees at surrender sites.

The employee fills out paperwork and gives the person dropping off the
child a receipt, Wristen said.

A parent can reclaim the child within 14 days of surrendering it. After
14 days, county officials will file paperwork with the courts to
terminate parental rights and put the child into the adoption system,
said Nancy Loliva at the Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency.