§ 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.

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 that 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.