New Jersey § 3b:12a-1

§ 3b:12a-1.

The Legislature finds and declares that: a. There is an increase in the number of children who cannot reside with their parents

due to the parents' incapacity or inability to perform the regular and expected functions

of care and support of the child; b. An increasing number of relatives, including grandparents, find themselves providing

care on a long-term basis to these children without court approved legal guardianship

status because the caregivers either are unable or unwilling to seek termination of

the legal relationships between the birth parent and the child, particularly when

it is the caregiver's own child or sibling who is the parent. In these cases, adoption of the child is neither feasible nor likely, and it is

imperative that the State create an alternative, permanent legal arrangement for children

and their caregivers. One such alternative arrangement, which does not require the termination of parental

rights, is a court awarded kinship legal guardianship that is intended to be permanent

and self-sustaining, as evidenced by the transfer to the caregiver of certain parental

rights, but retains the birth parents' rights to consent to adoption, the obligation

to pay child support, and the parents' right to have some ongoing contact with the

child; c. In considering kinship legal guardianship, the State is seeking to add another

alternative, permanent placement option, beyond custody, without rising to the level

of termination of parental rights, for caregivers in relationships where adoption

is neither feasible nor likely; and d. Therefore, it is in the public interest to create a new type of legal guardianship

that addresses the needs of children and caregivers in long-term kinship relationships.