8-531

8-531. Definitions

In this article, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. "Abandonment" means the failure of a parent to provide reasonable support and to
maintain regular contact with the child, including providing normal
supervision. Abandonment includes a judicial finding that a parent has made only minimal
efforts to support and communicate with the child. Failure to maintain a normal parental
relationship with the child without just cause for a period of six months constitutes
prima facie evidence of abandonment.

2. "Agency" means an agency licensed by the division to place children for
adoption.

3. "Child" means a person less than eighteen years of age.

4. "Custodian" means a person, other than a parent or legal guardian, who stands in
loco parentis to the child or a person to whom legal custody of the child has been given
by order of a court of competent jurisdiction.

5. "Custody" or "legal custody" means a status embodying all of the following
rights and responsibilities:

(a) The right to have physical possession of the child.

(b) The right and the duty to protect, train and discipline the child.

(c) The responsibility to provide the child with adequate food, clothing, shelter,
education and medical care, provided that such rights and responsibilities shall be
exercised subject to the powers, rights, duties and responsibilities of the guardian of
the person and subject to the residual parental rights and responsibilities if they have
not been terminated by judicial decree.

6. "Division" means the department of economic security.

7. "Guardian ad litem" means a person appointed by the court to protect the
interest of a minor or an incompetent in a particular case before the court.

8. "Guardianship of the person" with respect to a minor means the duty and
authority to make important decisions in matters affecting the minor including but not
necessarily limited either in number or kind to:

(a) The authority to consent to marriage, to enlistment in the armed forces of the
United States and to major medical, psychiatric and surgical treatment, to represent the
minor in legal actions and to make other decisions concerning the child of substantial
legal significance.

(b) The authority and duty of reasonable visitation, except to the extent that such
right of visitation has been limited by court order.

(c) The rights and responsibilities of legal custody, except where legal custody
has been vested in another individual or in an authorized agency.

(d) When the parent-child relationship has been terminated by judicial decree with
respect to the parents, or only living parent, or when there is no living parent, the
authority to consent to the adoption of the child and to make any other decision
concerning the child which the child's parents could make.

9. "Juvenile court" means the juvenile division of the superior court.

10. "Parent" means the natural or adoptive mother or father of a child.

11. "Parent-child relationship" includes all rights, privileges, duties and
obligations existing between parent and child, including inheritance rights.

12. "Parties" includes the child, the petitioners and any parent of the child
required to consent to the adoption pursuant to section 8-106.